This is the last illustration I worked on for the unfinished 1998 Christmas story. It is, appropriately enough, also unfinished. I do rather like absurd, neo-renaissance stylings of the characters here. The characters were inspired by a pair of siblings we knew at the time.

Illustration from the unfinished 1998 Christmas story.

Some of the characters in the unfinished 1998 Christmas story were based on friends we’d spent time with that year. Pretty loosely based usually. I’ve forgotten who any of the previous characters might have been based on but these folks were inspired some folks that were part of the Labor of Love Design Studio at the time.

Another illustration from the unfinished 1998 Christmas story.

Another illustration from the unfinished 1998 Christmas story.

Another illustration from our unfinished 1998 Christmas story.

Whenever possible Nizzibet and I try to do something special for friends for Christmas. Often our ambition exceeds our available time. Such was the case in 1998. Nizzibet started writing a Christmas story, I started illustrating it, neither of us finished our half of the task before we acknowledged that we’d never be able to get it out by the holiday. Now, if we were sensible, we’d have just kept going until we were done and then had a Christmas story ready for the next year. Unfortunately we weren’t sensible in 1998.

I don’t know whether Nizz has any version of the story saved. If so, neither of us knows where it might be. As such, I can’t tell you who this character is. I tend to forget characters created by other people. He obviously has money on his mind.