So I'm uploading these out of order to make sure the best drawings are seen first...

By this point I was trying to figure out the personalities of Jack and Ellie. I figure they're both excitable and impulsive, but Ellie is the slightly more cynical and sensible of the two.

I was making stuff up to see what sticks as well. So I won't actually be having The Lady of the Lake- that's King Arthur's territory (although I will be adapting some King Arthur stories).

I won't be having mucky swamp monsters either, but it did give me an opportunity to reference the Muppet version of "The Musicians of Bremen".

The main thing I sought out to do is define what trolls and ogres are like. They're among the most loosely described mythical creatures in the world, and often have a lot of things in common. I decided I ought to have three kinds of trolls: the kind that makes you answer riddles, the kind that lives under bridges (à la "Billy Goats Gruff"), and the kind that carries a club and turns into stone in the sunlight. My main inspiration is the works of Brian Froud and John Bauer.

As for ogres, who seem to exist almost entirely in the fairy tales of Charles Perrault, I definitely couldn't do anything like Shrek. Their only consistent attributes seem to a fearsome appearance and an appetite for humans. I was actually inspired by the ogres in the movie Ella Enchanted (anybody remember that one?).