Ordinary Day

So here I am working on Warder Soul, Book 3 of the Free Court series… but I have a problem, y’all, and my problem is this: my awesome cover artist for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker is no longer available. 🙁

Which means I am in the difficult position of needing a new artist! This is made more complicated by these specific problems:

One, a lot of indie cover artists these days appear to focus on doing photo manipulation art instead of line art. I specifically need someone who does line art, in order to match the style of the previous covers.

Two, in my ideal world, a new artist would have already have a style that’s similar to Kiri’s. Because while two different artists may each be individually awesome, I acknowledge that asking artist B to draw like artist A, if artist B doesn’t already have a similar style, is asking a lot of that artist! So I’d like to make a new artist’s life as easy as possible here, and start from a point of “new artist already has a style pretty close to old artist”, if at all possible.

What will make this at least a little easier is that I do not actually need this new artist to worry about doing the actual cover layout. Dara will take care of that for me, as she did for both Faerie Blood and Bone Walker. I just need someone who can do a piece of art for me that’s reasonably close to Kiri’s style, in dimensions similar to what the Book 1 and Book 2 pieces were, so that Dara can take the Book 3 art and do the same layout to it. I already have a pretty good idea of what I want that art to look like, even; I just need somebody who can actually draw it.

So does anybody out there have recommendations for line artists who have an established history of fulfilling commissions in a reasonably timely fashion? Names, contact data, links to DeviantArt pages, other galleries of previous work, etc., would be most appreciated. Also, if you know anybody who might be appropriate and who is actively seeking commissions, please feel free to point them at this post, or at my own contact data.

I do have plenty of time to get this done, at least, since I’ve only barely begun work on the book and it’ll be a while before I finish it. But I do need to actually settle this now, so that any new artist will in fact have time to work on the piece and chat with me about any necessary changes.

Thanks in advance all!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Kiri just shot me a rough draft of the color version of the cover!

General notes, especially for those of you who haven’t read Faerie Blood yet:

• Yes, Elessir is supposed to resemble Elvis. It’s part of his character. Although as he’s on record as telling Kendis, he was here first, and Elvis had the good fortune to resemble him.
• Elessir’s ears are bigger than Kendis’, because he’s full-blooded Unseelie Sidhe, and Kendis is half-human.
• For reasons which will become evident in Bone Walker, Elessir has a smaller magic ‘swirl’ going on on his cover than Kendis did, and he’s also specifically supposed to look lean and a bit wolfish, all of which I communicated to Kiri. I feel she’s capturing these things very well!
• And since I also pointed Kiri at Elfquest for my inspirational source of What Elves Should Look Like, alert observers may see notes of that in both Kendis’ and Elessir’s covers.

Kiri informs me that these colors are rough background colors and will be enhanced as she starts adding in shadings and highlights. I’ve told her to favor blue and black for Elessir, especially with that guitar he’s playing. Very, VERY much looking forward to seeing the final product!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

We’re getting closer here, people! Check it out! 😀

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

For those of you not following me on the social networks, I can now show you this, now that my agent and I have signed off. Behold, the cover art for Valor of the Healer, coming to ereaders NEAR YOU on April 15th!

It is very, very odd seeing Faanshi now with an actual face. 😀 She’s more scantily clad here than I tend to envision her, but y’all can think of this as the Faanshi that the storyline is going to be aiming for, not necessarily matched up in details to the Faanshi who starts the story.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

YOU GUYS. Look what my Dara made for me! This is going to be the version of the print edition cover for Faerie Blood, as we’ll be flinging over to Third Place Press for printing! Any last tweaks will be for the actual bar code and the listed retail price–the latter being because I’ll be talking to Third Place about whether they can carry print copies in stock in the store, in case any of you lovely people out there want to order it!

(Dara says it’s really, really weird to be resurrecting Low Orbit Publications as a name, too! Which actually existed, way back in the day, when she published her Low Orbit zine!)

Faerie Blood Second Edition

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Check it out, Internets! Kiri Moth just sent me what may well be the final shipping version of the Faerie Blood second edition cover art!

Barring any final tweaks Dara will need her to make to get the layout to work, I’m thinking this is it. I really like the colors of Kendis’ outfit, and the overall feel of the scene being drenched in light, which is absolutely appropriate given that the idea here is that Kendis is not only playing her violin, she’s throwing off a huge swirl of magical power. And magic does make a light show in her universe, so!

Accordingly I’m also pretty okay with the background seeming a bit washed out by comparison–because it’s getting drenched in that light. And also, title and blurb text and such need to go cover most of the background anyway, so it’s all right if they’re much less distinct by comparison than Kendis herself!

Tell me what you think, people, and remember–if you want an ebook or a print book with this gorgeous thing on it, the Kickstarter is waiting right over here!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

I’m getting excited over here, people, I gotta say. Because OMG OMG OMG look what Kiri Moth sent me tonight! (Those of you on the social networks, you saw this already, but here it is for LJ and DW and blog and Goodreads peeps!)

It’s a mockup, I know, but HOLY CRAP it’s starting to sink in for me that I’m going to have an actual, honest-to-gods, drawn-by-a-professional-artist book cover. ON MY BOOK. That I’m going to be printing and making for all of you folks out there! I can’t wait to fire up the Kickstarter. Dara and I need to make a video, the last thing I need to do before submitting the project for review. And this shiny, shiny thing from Kiri is going to figure prominently in the You Want to Support My Kickstarter, Don’t You? Video of Awesomeness. 😀

Because I mean damn. I’m swooning over this already and this is just the mockup, people! I cannot wait to see what it looks like in final full-color glory!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Active negotation continues with my cover artist, ladies and gentlemen, and she just offered for my pleasure and delight these rough sketches of my girl Kendis, fiddle in hand!

We’re going to be going with something more like sketch #2 as Kiri, solarbird, and I proceed with the cover design, since it seems a bit more dynamic and better suited to Kendis as a character. And. Oh. My. God. I cannot wait to see a full color treatment of this!

I invite you all, O Internets, to imagine a more detailed version of this, in color, with Kendis’ golden eyes alight. And imagine what this same artist is also going to do with Elessir and Christopher. Now be thinking about that, because this, oh my yes, is going to be part of what that Kickstarter on the way is ALL ABOUT. You all can help me make this happen. And it is going to ROCK.

Internet, I am EXCITE!

ETA: And, having just posted the cover art, I have been immediately asked: does Kendis play her fiddle right handed or left handed? Faerie Blood never said whether Kendis is right handed or left handed, so it’s fair to assume she’s right handed. Therefore, fiddlers out there who haven’t already seen me post this to Facebook or G+, my question for you: she should be holding the bow in her right hand when she plays, yes? Because the fiddle will be resting on her left shoulder? This will of course impact the final art since Kendis needs to be holding the instrument correctly!

ETA #2: Just for everybody’s reference, while I tend to use the words ‘fiddle’ and ‘violin’ interchangeably in casual speech, I have been advised that there IS a difference between ‘bluegrass fiddle’ and ‘classically trained violin’. So Kendis, who learned to play in her school orchestra, should clearly be considering herself a ‘violin player’. Doublechecking Faerie Blood, I see that I used the word ‘fiddle’ twice; once was in a bit of dialogue of Christopher’s, so that can stand, but the other was Kendis in the narrative. So I’ll need to fix that in the second edition release.

I’m also being told that EVERYBODY pretty much learns with the instrument on the left shoulder. I’ll make sure this is appropriately reflected in the final art.

And I’m also being advised that the difference between ‘fiddle’ and ‘violin’ matters for how the bow is held as well, so I’ll make sure Kendis is holding the bow correctly as well.

Thanks to all who’ve advised me on this!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.