Right in the Kisser!
Rural Montana
Rural dwellers receive only feint echoes of the Roaring Twenties deafening the urban cities. In a cottage on the outskirts of a small town in Montana, Rose Forrester lives an isolated teenage-hood filled with berries, and devoid of dates (d-d-chhh!). Her three aunts, Flo, Fanny and Mae, run a dress shop on the edge of town.
Rose's aunts seem stuck in their Edwardian ways. They won't let her bob her hair or wear makeup, and keep coming up with excuses for why the family can never travel anywhere interesting. Rose finds it a bit hypocritical that they won't let her enjoy the new decade, since they're obsessively on top of the vastly changing fashion trends of the decade. They're all about that new portable electric sewing machine, which propels their business like magic, and the first to order all of the elegant new fabrics now available. Flo and Mae are warring over dress colors, while Fanny is figuring out that you can't use the portable sewing machine while transporting it.
As her sixteenth birthday draws near, Rose demands some more agency, and some honesty from her aunts, who are clearly hiding something. Her aunts cave, and tell her the truth. She is not really named Rose Forrester, and they are not really her aunts. Her real name is Aurora Hale. Faun, Flo and Mae are F.B.I. agents, assigned to protect Rose from her father's many enemies. Specifically, a female crime boss named Mel Blackhorn. Rose's father, a judge named Stefan Hale, convicted Mel of a number of violent crimes, ranging from murder to public profanity. Unfortunately, he was unable to get all of Mel's criminal connections arrested along with her, which meant that she could possibly make good on her threats to his family. Stefan and his wife Leah arranged for their daughter Aurora to be raised in Witness Protection. Rose is set to be reunited with her parents on her 16th birthhday. Rose then makes her own confession; she's been seeing a boy. Phil Kissenger (just...go with it) is two years older than Rose, and has just begun his freshmen year at the elite collage a few miles away.
Her aunts decide to finally let her "grow up" a bit, and give Phil their blessing to take Rose out on a tame date. They take Rose out to get her hair bobbed, and help her with her make-up. They even use that magical machine to make her a new trendy, but conservative, evening gown. (War still rages between Flo and Mae over pink or blue.) Distraught by his son's choice to date a "rube," Hubert Kissinger drowns his sorrows at a speakeasy called Skumps, with another man who is lamenting that he hasn't seen his daughter in 16 years. While the kids dance and their fathers get skumps, Mel is already plotting their downfall with the corrupt police pigs she's paid off. She has one uniformed swine slip Rose a very sinister "Mickey" while she and Phil are at a nice restaurant. It's a complex chemical composition that will cause a coma, and eventual death, as soon as Rose's blood to make contact with the air. A tiny prick on the finger would do the trick. Rose feels a bit strange by the end of dinner, but chalks it up to the champagne. Phil's already shown her his school's horse ranch, so she figures after dinner, they can swing by her house and she can show him how she helps her aunts with that sewing machine... AN: This was one of the handful I felt I had to re-draw. If you're wondering why, here's the original:
Aurora's gown was mostly inspired by "Downton Abbey." I'm not super familiar with the show, but I believe the one who inspired this the most was the girl played by Lily James--who, interestingly, starred in the 2015 live action remake of Disney's "Cinderella," along with another actress on that show. Anyway, the shoes here were heavily inspired by this incredible artist's Disney princess shoe series:
The background was a NIGHTMARE. "Sleeping Beauty" has such a gorgeous art style, that is very Art Deco (of course, Art Deco borrows heavily from classical styles like the Byzantine one the movie is based on). It felt wrong not to include that in Aurora's background. Screenshots didn't work, and using the official concept artwork (incredible on its own!) felt like stealing. So I tried to mimic the style as best I could.
And now, some interesting news for "Sleeping Beauty" fans. If you're a fan of Disney, and especially this movie, you may have already heard about this cute and impressive marriage proposal. If not, check it out!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1TZWz…
