Right before leaving for China, I received this commission request: two small drawings, on a budget, in the pages of a journal that would serve as part of a marriage proposal to a girl who really loves fairies. I was asked to make it sweet and told it didn’t have to be chaste.

I received the journal the week before my departure, hoping for a few spare moments to work on it from the road, but the leather-bound notebook ended up traveling to Shanghai, Beijing and back – untouched. The Secret Guide shooting schedule was just too intense for me to think about anything else.

I had to get started on this a couple of days after my return to make the deadline. Working with a limited amount of time, limited space, and a client’s limited budget, these slinky little temptresses are what I came up with – one drawing at the beginning of the journal, one at the very end. Though I wish I’d had time to make the drawings more elaborate, I infused the pages with as much sweetness as I could. I’m told she loves them.

Incidentally, these were commissioned by the same client who tasked me with the Death+Delirium hybrid a few years ago. All the above images are clickable – do so to see them bigger.