Brown River Queen cover art

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Art For Each of Your 29 Eyes

I've been on an art spree for the last couple of weeks.

Maybe it's because I've gotten hooked on a couple of comics -- er, graphic novels. That's one huge advantage the Kindle Fire has over the e-ink models; I can download and read graphic novels that I just cannot find anywhere in Oxford.

Naturally, I've enjoyed The Walking Dead series, as well as a few other works. Sure, I still love books, but seeing characters come to life on the page as art is a pleasure all its own.

I even took a stab at designing my own cover. The result, which I'm still proud of, is below:


One characters I've wanted to see an image of for a long time is Mug. Mug, as you may know, is a character from my YA fantasy series (which includes the novel All the Paths of Shadow and the novella Saving the Sammi). Mug isn't a human, or even a biped. He is a snarky, sarcastic enchanted houseplant with 29 mobile eyes and a dead-seated fear of aphids.

Even armed with a modest array of powerful graphics manipulation programs, my attempts to create a passable image of Mug were, shall we say less than successful. Less than successful as in so embarrassing I won't post them here.

So I shelved the 'Let's draw Mug!' project. Sure, I could hire an artist, but I'm on a tight budget, and the derisive laughter of artists is hurtful.

As it happens, though, I did find an artist who I could afford. Her name is Laura LaRoche, and she works with an outfit called Hercules Editing and Consulting. Hercules did my book trailer last week, and when I mentioned I'd always wanted to see Mug, Laura agreed to take on the project.

So, I am happy to present to you, for the first time anywhere, Mugglesworth Verity Ovis, Tirlin's foremost authority on theoretical mathematics and problematic beetles:


I know. Ms LaRoche did a fantastic job. That's Mug, single yellow eye, five red eyes, assorted other hues looking on, bemused by all the attention.

That's not the only image of Mug, either. I've added a new area to my webpage, which contains a variety of images (Mug and others) which I've resized and made available as posters and downloadable desktop images.

They're all free. You can grab any or all of them, and use them as you wish. I am particularly fond of the posters.

So head on over to my new art gallery page and take anything you like! Here are a few small samples...


Like I said, all free, just click and save! Oh, and if anyone wants a desktop sized for a particular screen, just email me the dimensions and I'll cobble one together for you.



2 comments:

  1. That artwork is just lovely. Really like Mug!

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  2. Thanks! The artist did a great job. One day I hope to post some Markhat and Darla artwork too!

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