M is for Marsh #atoz2025 #booksky

It’s the halfway point of this year’s A to Z Challenge and I’ve reached the place it all began, Castle Marsh. I’m continuing the illustration theme, with a set of internal and external views of Marsh. After all, it features in all but two of the books.

My ten Princelings books and the two for younger readers, Messenger Misadventures and Cavies of Flexford Common all have illustrations. Most are chapter headings. Cavies is designed for younger readers (c 7 yrs old, Key Stage 1 in UK educational parlance). That has illustrations throughout.

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The A to Z is a blog hop, so do go to other people who are doing it. You can find the links here.

The Castle in the Marsh

Originally Fred would correct people with ‘Castle in the Marsh’ if they said he came from Castle Marsh. Eventually he realised he just had to accept everyone else’s terminology!

And originally, my illustration of it was pretty awful! The second version is fine, and may be my favourite. Most of the later variations started from this much better base, as I learnt to print off the previous one, and add things to it, like more dwellings, then scan in the new version.

After versions with more dwellings, a flying boat mooring in the foreground with a shelter, more fields in the background, then a smart boardwalk for the mooring, and more dwellings in the background, I had to wreck it! By this time I was working on the iPad. It was so easy to erase things, crack walls, draw in broken towers, wreck the dwellings, and so on. When we get to the letter V, I’ll show you two where I just copied a before and after drawing, working on both in pencil at once.

The left hand version is dated 2017 (in the Realms), so it would be well into Fred’s reign as king, when the small castle was getting busy. Two years later (centre) it’s overcrowded, which was the situation by the end of Chronicles of Marsh. And the right hand one shows the damage done in Princelings Revolution. You should be able to enlarge them if you click on them.

There are not as many interior images of Castle Marsh as I thought. But leaving aside the views from windows which show the changing terrain (I think I might do Windows for W), there are halls, rooms, courtyards and other parts of the castle. Most are from the last two books, but there are visits to Marsh in all the books save Traveler and Talent Seekers. and then there are views of the marsh and areas around it, too! I’ll try to skip ones you’ve already seen for other letters.

The Interior and more

The top left is Yuletide at the castle, from Chronicles. It would be relatively early in Fred’s reign, maybe c 2015. Top centre is the scene from Bravo Victor (2016) for breakfast at the cafe/bar run by Tiffany. Yes, breakfast at Tiffany’s. Top right, also from Chronicles, shows a lot of aircraft, both land and sea-based, in the moorings below the castle

Bottom left shows part of the top level and a corner turret, I think the eastern one. Centre is better seen larger; the courtyard is now crowded, and the banners and slogans are part of the Revolution. And Fred spends some time in the dungeon. They were used for storing vegetables before…

I start by using pencil (Derwent Cassell HB or 2B) on paper. Then I use an inkpen over to create the line drawing (I have a set of three Pilot Drawing pens, nos 01, 03, and 05). After that, I usually erase the pencil. By book 9 I was doing all my illustrations on the iPad, and I could take a JPEG copy of a hand-drawn castle, and amend it, or change it about a bit, rather than start from scratch.

These come from books 1. The Princelings of the East, 6. Bravo Victor, 7. Willoughby the Narrator, 9. Chronicles of Marsh and 10. Princelings Revolution.

I’m Jemima Pett, author, blogger, illustrator and guinea pig wrangler. My interests are in fantasy, environment, science (inc. fiction) and thrillers, to name a few things. This is my nth AtoZ Challenge. Mostly I talk about books. This time I’m talking about something I do without much thinking about… my illustrations.