Page 24 and 25 and probably the hardest for me, because I really held out hope that I would change my mind on the outcome. On the other hand, I already wrote the ending of the story back in November of 2015, and the outcome of these two pages are crucial to the story’s resolution.
Several different drafts of the page breakdown have come and gone, with the conclusion that the long-form, single panel page works best for this part of the story. Here is the script for page 24:
PAGE 24
Full page panel: A waterfall takes up most of the page, with little Ophie perched in her tree on the left. Foam and spray from the river below take up the bottom of the page. Text takes up the middle portion of the page.
The Rake slowly, reverently unwrapped the package, he took extra care not to spill the small cakes and pastry (he had an infamous sweet-tooth, and cavities to match) that had been wrapped up within. He licked his lips, gathered his sling, and began to fling the sugary treats at the poor girl in the tree. Being as he was an excellent shot, the branches surrounding our poor, doomed child were quite liberally spattered with sweets.
The Rake opened his pack and prodded the excitable badgers within to action. The poor little creatures had been left in an intentional state of constant hunger, and smelling sweets nearby, the badgers furiously scrambled up into the tree, climbing in a most chaotic fashion towards the increasingly panicked girl above.
Ophie lost her nerves, and began to shuffle slowly away from the safety of her perch. She lost her footing on a patch of sugar-coated bark, and tumbled out of the tree.
He really is a despicable character; I have omitted several pages of his backstory just because he is so rotten… but I might bring them back in, those pages would be a lot of fun to draw!
Here is the original concept art for the Rake, from late 2015:
Grimmleigh's Lab 