The End of the Ride

Illustration #4 of 4, for Mom Tri's International Short Fiction Writing Contest (2010). This was incomplete -- just a pen sketch, not a colored piece -- by the submission deadline, so I'm unsure whether it will appear in the piece published in this year's last issue of Phuket Magazine.

Nonetheless, of the four illustrations, this is the one in which I hope I tried and achieved most.

All three stories have a surprise ending, which is the very devil for an illustrator to work with. Ideally, our illustration should also have a hidden surprise: some small detail that, once the reader has finished the story, will reveal itself and the surprise ending.

In this story, for example, the main character is a very careful, responsible motorcycle rider (if there is such a thing). Yet, his bike is sabotaged and a subsequent accident leads to his death on a grassy Thai hillside.

This illustration is intended to give the reader, at casual first glance, the idea that the driver is merely relaxing against a rock. By the story's end, I've hoped that the reader will notice the rip in the jeans, the awkward angle of the tyres, and the blood spatter next to his raised hand.