Ah, poor Thyerri. So few comments. Hope I didn’t scare folks off with that comment about him being my favorite character in the books. That’s totally irrelevant to anyone else’s opinion, and even less relevant to the pros and cons of the image.
Or maybe, it’s just the weekend and you’re all very properly out having a good time. 
A little point of possible interest: Thyerri’s fringe was a particularly fun project, a bit reminiscent of the Kachina’s “feathers.” I did a net-hunt for braid, and came up with a nice colorful one. Then I resized it, making it longer and skinnier, applied the “warp” filter as opposed to the brush or mesh which gave me all these nifty variations.
Then I cut and pasted and rotated and warped them into the braid and fringe on his outfit. Lots more fun than painting each one individually. The top one is the original, the others are variations. I thought I was going to have to look for tassels separately, but one of the variations gave a nice little tasseled end!
Gotta scoot. Monitor puzzle has given me a lot of extra work. Sigh…
Ja ne!
I’ve been enjoying the glimpses that you have shown. As you said – it is the weekend. On the north east coast we had horrid weather yesterday – many ,many inches of rain.
Aren’t I silly? I just worry about the dumbest things! What can a say? I’m a writer. I read deep meaning into every reaction!
Oh, but don’t I know what you mean! Half the time I post a topic I think I’m going to have an anxiety attack over it. And every time I think to myself–idiot! Is this really worth it?
But, the answer is most usually yes. Then I go on to chide myself for needing approval somehow.
Ah well. As if life did not have enough of its own emotional conflicts without adding fictitious ones….
Silly, isn’t it? As LynnA says, we can’t die of embarrassment.
In my case, it’s laziness. I’ve got your blog on RSS feed and I read, swear that I’m going to comment, and then do something else. *Sigh* Blast my memory!
This is looking great, Jane! I’ve been exploring my own artistic talent, and discovered that I don’t have one. Still fun to play with, though.
Keep up the good work!
Playing is Good. I’m thrilled to say I’m actually playing again with art, which is something I seriously got away from when I was working on the graphic. Not that I didn’t love the kids and the basic doing, but working to a schedule and more, wondering what people would think of it really got to be wearing. And then, Donning so screwed up the publishing of them that they never got out there and I never got feedback even when it was published!
It left a pretty bad taste in my mouth and is a big part of the reason I’ve done pretty much nothing with art for almost 20 years now. The ability to get reactions so quickly is really keeping the adrenaline going! I guess that’s one reason I’m kind of groveling for feedback!
It also helps me to put the finished product out with some confidence that it’s not a total disaster!
Not to mention, the more you play, the more likely you are to discover hidden ability.
Yes, it’s the weekend, and I’m lazing about—or rather, working manically on that Louis XIV dress (current news: sleeve/shoulder issues at the moment; I’ve paused to catch up on my blogs and webcomics and shall continue when the Font of all Sewing Wisdom—a.k.a my Mum—returns home). Although I did go on a leisurely kayak ride down our local Willamette yesterday, with my little sis, my dad, and out yorkie (who had lots of fum swimming and then acting very crazy!
Re Thyerri: I particularly love the feathers on his right hand (the one to my left); the gradient went onto it beautifully! :D
gah! typo and missing closing parenthesis! >:( heh
Oooo…when it’s done, do we get pictures? You could post them to your gallery here. (hint hint)
How neat that you and your mum can work together on such things. I made a lot of my own clothes growing up and Mom taught me to tailor and a lot else, including how to tell a weed from a flower!
We had labs growing up and they were fanatic swimmers. Loved taking them to the beach or lakes.
The gradient is something I’m only just learning how to manipulate beyond the basic fill. When you “paint” with it, the effect is pretty serendipitous. It’s as there’s a layer where it’s done a flood fill and you’re scratching the black away on a scratch board.
I have a gallery here?? (o.O)
:D Failing that, I’ll put it up on my site and give you the url :)
Hey, Great Minds, OSG! ;)
Jane, re gradient, you could just put a gradient on a new layer and then rotate the layer to control it (or make a gradient bit enough to rotate around as you please)… might work :)
We can post pics to a gallery here? *looks puzzled* Jane, pls explain.
Emily, we kayaked this weekend also — today, on the Little Spokane. Amazing weather — it was perfect.
Heh heh, I had Ysabel go up to make sure I remembered how it worked for those without admin rights. when you log in, you should come to your dashboard. You can also get there via the There, you’ve got two choices on the sideboard, one of which is gallery. That’s where you uploaded your avatar. You can upload up to ten pix.
MMBerry has several up. You can click on her link in the list to see how they appear. Basically, it puts up thumbnails that are links to the images.
I still haven’t figured how to make the initial avatar image a sane size. I frankly kinda forgot about it.
Tsk, Tsk, Tsk, oh slaves of my fellow felines. You both have avatars, therefore you’ve already loaded one photo. I refer you to the Pub, where all is explained to those who enter.
*scritches Ysabel, just to stay on her good side, all the while keeping a watchful eye on her teeth*
BTW Jane, I never knew Thyerri was your fave character in this series. I had no idea. I would have guessed Nikki.
NIKKI!?! I’m…speechless. Khyel, I could see, or Deymio, but NIKKI!?! Mostly, I just wanna kick his butt. :D Actually, that’s not fair. By the end of the series, I do like him and I really like him in Change (coming soon to an e-book near you!) He’s having to grow up really fast to be a good father of an extremely difficult child.
I love Thyerri. He’s very together, (so to speak) and brings out the best in Khyel. And he’s a DANCER. C’mon! :D
I need to check what photos I’ve got now that you used me as an example.
What I wanted to say is I can just see the Amer. Tribal Bellydancers if they saw the feathers on the wrist. The locals haven’t worn the yarn belts I made recently. I create a simple 2-3″ wide belt and then crochet chains which I fold in half and add like you would a fringe to a scarf or shawl. They have more weight than the average strips of yarn stuff. The effect is closer to what you drew.
(I deleted the photos when I changed PCs at work.)
Heh heh…I wish there was something on the members list to say whether or not someone has put photos up. Maybe I can suggest that to the developer. In the meantime, I think I’m going to put up a special page that is just for people to post a note that they have pics up to share. I think I can make it available only to subscribers….
And MY favorite character is Mikhyel…
Okay…so if I’m honest, it’s a toss up between the two. They are, after all, sort of a set. Bookends? :D
So’s mine, thus far!
Oh…wait’ll you see the Khy for Destiny, right Carolyn? Thyerri’s not the only one with at-ti-tude. :D
It is going to be fun to reread the books with the covers available to see what they really look like!
I have the paperback editions of the first 3 Ring novels, all printed by DAW, and the covers are different than you’ve drawn here. In “Destiny”, I see Mikhyel kneeling on one knee by the side of a lake, and there are three lights in front of him suspended just above the water. Behind him, Nikki and then Deymorin are standing watching. I am intrigued by what those three lights represent, since the three of them have their rings, and Khyel gets Deymorin’s original ring back.
BTW, I’ve already discussed this with OSG, since I got the books second hand from an Amazon affiliate, you don’t get royalties on this sale, so I’ll be buying you a round of drinks at Shejicon3.
I did these covers since I don’t have any rights to the covers on the DAW editions.
Regarding the three lights…I’m not really sure. I sent a description of the three bros to Roya, the cover artist (I wish I still had the correspondence. I remember I really liked the descriptions…Mikhyel was, I think, Byron crossed with Machiavelli!
) I don’t believe he read the book, but I might have included the link between the brothers and the ley. I’ve always thought of the three little lights as their “reflection” in the ley.
This is the only cover Royo did for me, but it’s definitely the best cover I’ve ever had.
I wish I could say that Change was available in dead tree format, but unfortunately, it isn’t. I’m hoping one day to have some kind of PoD version available, but as far as I know at the moment, any quality version will require a log more monetary outlay on my part than I can afford. And like the others, it’s a long book and more extant PoD’s don’t handle long efficiently at all. I’m thinking of breaking it up into two parts for dead tree publication, but until I get into the ebook edit of it, I’m not sure how well that would work…unless I just broke it in half. I suppose I could do that since availability will never be an issue!
Ah, but breaking it in half seems rather drastic. I am not one of those readers who are intimidated by an extremely thick book. I’ve finished the first 3 of the Ring books, and you’ve left me hanging!
I’m quite certain that the death of Lidye has resulted in the child being “inhabited” by the lives before, and that begs the question, are the lives that were inhabiting domMaurii the same as those inhabiting Lidye, and if so, it speaks of much more potent evil than the Triumvirate is going to realize, now that the child, and perhap Mikhyel are inhabited.
I’ll tell you this, at first, I couldn’t stand Mikhyel, but I think he’s the most important of the three. As the oldest of 6 brothers, I’d think I’d relate more to Deymorin, but I find Mikhyel to be the most complex and most captivating character. Despite his flaws, and I don’t count his sexual orientation as a flaw, I still like him much more. Perhaps because he has so many “faults”, but has yet to realize his full potential, not only as a man, but as a member of the Triumvirate and the world itself.
If I split the book(s) it will only be for physical reasons. I’ve not seen any publish on demand books that were the better part of 200,000 words. Books that size are very hard to bind. I’m still looking into it. I’d rather not break a book up.
Khyel, like most of my characters, is an acquired taste. He began life as the oldest, but I knew, the minute he came onstage, that he was younger than Deymio. It made the whole dynamic much more interesting.
I sooooo want to get Change up, because he truly has come into his own. He and Dancer are SUCH a cute couple! And Jeremin (Nikki’s child) is really pretty neat to write…for a baby. He’s going to be an interesting teenager, to say the least. And then, there’s Deymio’s wedding….
And Nikki makes a surprisingly good papa. I really love watching the characters grow. I don’t really know how they’re all going to come out when I start a book, let alone over the course of the series.
As Kirystin says to Nikki, that he’s really become someone she likes. Khyel, for such a dark character, shows that he really is not the person he thinks he is.
Looking forward to Change…..I’ll have to see if someone donated it to my local public library, then I’ll check it out.
One other question: Where do I find a copy of “Ring of Change”? I know you’re going to bring it out in ebook, but I like the aroma of paper in front of me when I read. And a book doesn’t need electricity, software, or any of the other forms of power consumption inherent with an electronic reader.
Jane, as you say your books are not available in paper, I think you should reconsider pricing them as new, instead of backlist-books. The backlist-books have to compete in the secondhand and cheaper paperback editions bookmarket, so $5 for them is reasonable. But your books are almost totally unavailable elsewhere, or else priced as rare collectors’ items, and are quite new for most readers, so I think that asking the new-book-price of $9 for them would be reasonable.
If you want to entice people into a new series, perhaps keep book 1 at $5, and then ask $9 for nos.2 and 3?
I’d rather like you to make a good living out of selling us books, so you can go on and write more of them, and over here, new (English or American) paperbacks are 10-16 euros so $9 seems quite reasonable to me.
What do your other readers think about this?
I suppose I should have read your response more closely. I misread it as “no longer in print”, not that it was “never in print”.