Been a productive weekend. Got back to work on the front and the dry streambed is taking shape. And Alizant’s cover’s done!!!!
Enjoy!
Okay…here they are. Looking at them, I’m going to need to change the proportions on Destiny (the word in the title) a bit, but not right at the moment. I’m…tired! I’m going to go curl up with my computer and the Rusalka file and pretend I’m working.
But here, just for giggles, is the set of covers.
YIPES! What’s that big blue line down Khyel’s front?!? Shoot…back to PSP…
There…that should take care of it. Whew!
Ja ne!
Here we go again!
One thing I did not want for this trilogy finale was a cover featuring any one of the boys or any one scene. “Destiny” applies equally to all of them, and each one is equally important to the ultimate fate of the Rhomatum Syndicate of Nodes. So…I knew I wanted all of them on the cover. Following the established pattern, I’d need three rings. How about each one holding a ring containing his “destiny”?
Hmmm…But…how to “capture” the individual “destinies” in single images, and without giving too much away, and keeping it simple enough to work as a single impact. Khyel…the ley caverns. Deymio…the rings. Nikki was the hard one, because his is really the most subtle and seemingly ordinary fate. Nikki…not to give too much away, but curiously, his primary function is as a…as Deymio put it, “breeding stud.” It’s not all he does, but it’s his…unique function within the overall scheme of the story.
Fortunately, there’s a lot more to that future than it sounds, considering the child he winds up with. (Not to belittle the importance of being a parent! Don’t get me wrong. But for the purposes of a Fantasy Novel, there’s got to be a bit more than ordinary scrapes, bruises, and acne!) However, Nikki, with a baby he can’t quite touch, a baby in the womb with wide open, very aware eyes…that might be cool.
So…the cover. I began with a really quick layout of the three rings, and as quickly shifted them about. Nikki got center stage/top of the pyramid because the baby in his ring was going to be larger and…heavier than Deymio’s and Khyel’s rings. Got Nikki done (harder than it sounds, tho the layers don’t really show anything very interesting.) Then began to play with the big bros. I began playing with Khyel, and to get the set of his upper body right, I had to do the rest of him…and I fell in love with the body language. I plugged the sketch it into the cover to see how it might look and…well, you’ll see.
Deymio needed to be in his horsey-gear, and to catch his unique approach to the towers and rings, I just let him poke at them, which is sort of his style. Poke and see what happens.
So, without further ado…
All images are copyright © 2009 Jane S. Fancher. Thank you for respecting that copyright.
Ja ne!
More round things!
I always knew I’d have to do the rings one day, and the Destiny cover was it. Thank goodness for graphics programs!
I actually simplified them…no way I was doing a gazzilion whizzing concentric rings! Basically, I just started with a ring, the same as I’d made the others, then I began creating concentric ovals of varying perspectives inside by selecting an oval within the previous one, filling it, then contracting the selection by 15 pixels, or something like, then cutting out the inside of the “donut.” 
Now, this isn’t exact by any means. Theoretically, the width in the back should appear smaller than in the front, but, y’know…this is going to be itty bitty, so who really cares?
Each ring, BTW, was given its own layer. Read the rest of this entry »
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!
What can I say but that he’s probably my favorite character in the series. I love him so much, I gave him one of my most favoritest names. He’s so charmingly attitudinal. And resilient! Again, hard to talk about him without giving too much away, but where Temorii is the ley incarnate, Thyerri is the mountain personified. He’s hiller and proud of it.
In his presentation dance, the night before the competition, when all the other competitors show up in really fancy outfits, he shows up in the native hiller clothing. I gave it a sparkly ley touch, he is, afterall, as much Mother’s as Temorii is, and I’ve no idea where he found these feathers, but he loved them, and who was I to argue? So…without further:
All images are copyright © 2009 Jane S. Fancher. Thank you for respecting that copyright.
Ja ne!
Ring of Intrigue is the most complex book of the three, with two very separate, but merging, storylines going. The brothers each have the own individual “jobs,” all of which are tied together, but that would make way too complex a cover to even begin to approach. But theirs is not the only story in the arc. Dancer’s is equally important.
Besides, I had this character-sketch thing going and for the dance-loving me, there was only one real answer: I had to give Thyerri and Temorii their moment in the limelight. Read the rest of this entry »
New at Closed Circle!
