Sketches - Curse of Royalty concepts

Throne worthy? Preliminary idea sketch.

I've been writing and making up stories for almost as long as I can remember. The above sketch is a preliminary idea for the throne or for a seat in the queen's study for a novel called "Curse of Royalty" that I've been working on for a very long time. This story has morphed so many times that I wonder if I'm ever going to get it done. I developed the germ of this particular story when I was 15, and it's been haunting me since then. I really want to "finish" this story and get it in print but there's a lot of work left on this monster project before it would be worthy of the paper it would be printed on.

Anyhoo, this second sketch is of the royal chamber key. The queen keeps this in her pocket or gives it to an attendant during the day. This key could develop a nasty habit of falling out of pockets and thus causing trouble, though there's only one point in the story where this key is a cause of anything mentionable in the story. It's a silly thing, this little key, something not the least significant to the plot or to much of the action (even in that scene), but I wanted to draw it - probably because there's something magical about keys in general. Keys provide entry into special/protected places - its an interesting concept that I enjoy developing, especially in poem form cause it's just replete with meaning and possible interpretations.

And then there are these last two sketches. It's been difficult to nail down exactly what the main characters in the story look like so I'm always looking around for photographs and for people who might inform those character's appearances. These two guys could be attendants (Anthony and/or Ma'Kael) or perhaps one is Commander Gaius? Doesn't really matter cause I enjoyed drawing them even if they didn't turn out quite like I wanted them to.

It's been such a very long time since I sketched enough from observation to sharpen that skill. I really want to start doing that again, but each time I sharpen my pencils I find that I'd rather be crocheting or knitting or doing some kind of needlecraft -or- I find that I'd rather write about the characters than draw them.