Lyra and Iorek

Many years ago I used to work almost exclusively in graphite, then I stopped drawing entirely and haven't worked in it since I rediscovered my love of art. But today I unearthed a box of Derwent pencils and charcoal that I bought a couple of years ago and promptly mislaid - believe me, if you'd seen how untidy my studio is you wouldn't find that at all hard to accept - and decided they would do nicely for this piece I sketched out last night.

With the film version of The Northern Lights out soon I've been thinking about how much I enjoyed the books. Well not the third one so much; I found that a little disappointing, but the first two are excellent and far too sophisticated to be read only by children!

So this is Lyra Belacqua and Iorek Byrnison. Actually I've taken a bit of a liberty with Iorek. He's from the far north so should probably be a polar bear and much bigger, but for the purposes of this drawing he's become darker furred and more Kodiak-like. This is, as you no doubt have guessed, just the work-in-progress. I'll post the finished version when it's, er, finished.