The instruction-book comics for the 2005 Knights Kingdom sets were a lot of fun. With all the kinks worked out of the process from 2004, it was just me and our story manager Resh Somauroo bouncing back and forth trying to figure out how we were going to hit all the big story points with only seven pages per character.

The coloring support team for this project was Eugenia Chen and Jessica Lo.

Sir Rascus's acrobatics got a lot more flashy this year, I might have even had more fun drawing him than I did drawing Lord Vladek.

There's nothing like painting up an epic battle scene. I love the shots where I get to pack in tons of detail at a wide range of visual scales. I also like the way the King's magic just barely protected Jayko's messenger hawk from getting creamed by that incoming boulder. I can't remember now whose idea that was.

Sir Rascus and Sir Santis spent most of 2004 bickering with each other, it's good to see them finally seeing eye to eye in 2005. It looks like getting ready to fight their way through a hall full of Shadow Knights is turning out to be a real bonding experience.

It's always tough to know where to draw the line in terms of violence in these images. The badguys get a little more free rein, but for all their action and dynamic posturing, the heroes can only ever be shown blocking or parrying enemy blows. On this page I remember there was serious debate about the appropriateness of having arrows stuck in Sir Rascus's shield. If I remember right, the two arrows at the most distant edge of his shield were a compromise down from four arrows closer to the center.

Once the power of the Vlad-mask is activated, it shoots out bolts of energy that make Vladek and his Shadow Knights invincible. I'm not sure, then, how Sir Jayko managed to knock over the Shadow Knight on the right. It's possible that the Shadow Knight is leaping out of the way of his buddy's wild but invincible swing.