One More Detour on the Writing Road

Something that with some hair tweakage and lettering and additional open space for blurbs and such would look a lot like the cover for Endgame.

For the record, ::cover love::.

Link courtesy of the_art_dept. Covers for all 2006 releases.

Warning: it can take some time to load, even with high-speed.

Chris McGrath, who is doing the ENDGAME cover, has 6 covers. JP Targete, who did the first 4 Jani covers, and doesn't do much in the way of covers anymore--although I thought I might have heard that's changing--has 1.

As a follow-up to this thread, and specifically, my response to madbaker's question about how much input an author has when it comes to covers, I should add that part of my day was spent
emailing back and forth with Editor about the length of Jani's hair, as well as tracking down images of suitable short hairstyles. Whether any of these short styles winds up being applied is still up in the air.

Checked out the Incident e-arc again--hey, it's my first online story, ok--and saw that there's another illustration. Jani, running with the girl, Annalise. And Jani has short hair! And dark skin!

It's quite stylized, and very neat.

In other news, my editor sent the second pass at the ENDGAME cover. This has the background. Shades of sepia, dark brown, and greyed blue. Desert. Buildings that seem a cross between Petra and Angkor Wat. Moons, and spaceships and Jani walking down the stairs of a temple-like building, knives in hand. Her hair is too long--shoulder-length--and will be fixed. But even now, it's flippin' gorgeous. A Dune-ish science fantasy cover.

Could be a wrap cover, with lettering in sliver-blue metallic ink. A complete departure from the first four covers, but in the mood of the story and like I said...I love it.

ETA: Upon further review, one could say that this cover compares somewhat to that of CI, and that there is some semblance of logical progression.

By golly, I like it.

Received permission from the artist who illustrated Incident to use the illo as an LJ icon and show the artwork. The artist's name is Lee Kuruganti. Some of her work can be viewed here. Of those illustrations, I think Ghost Sea (page 2) is my favorite. The cover of Staticmovement VI (same page) is pretty neat, as well.

A larger version of the Incident illo is behind the cut.

( Read more... )

One more day of long weekend to go. Could use a month.

I noticed a few days ago that the Incident E-arc at Universe possessed something that looked suspiciously like artwork. It doesn't blow up well--I tried--but it's sized perfectly for use as an icon.

And once again, Jani-of-the-baggy-coveralls is poured into second skin Spandex. And the weapon's too big. But her hair is short, which is a nice change of pace**. And Annalise (the young girl/other main character) looks pretty much as she ought, from what I can tell.

Artwork, be it covers or other first page stuff, is designed to attract readers. I know this. The Jani covers, which some folks have really liked and others have labeled "Baen surplus", imply certain story elements--adventure, violence, crime, explosions, some sort of military/espionage/whatever. Not quiet. Not a cozy. I'm not sure if the Spandex-clad limbs imply sex. Female characters in space opera have worn revealing clothing for as long as I've read the books and watched the movies/programs. I tend to think it's more anatomy as scenery as this point than 'come and get your love'. As an aside, that's one reason why I enjoyed Alien and Aliens so much. Ripley and the other women dressed appropriately for messy, physical jobs. No makeup. Functional haircuts. Not that miniskirts and knee-high boots don't have their place, but I'd hate to have to shimmy up a ladder in them.

But I digress.

I'm not sure if anyone would buy a Jani book if it bore what I would consider a true representation of Jani Kilian. A Claudia Black look-a-like with short, black hair, brown-gold skin, and green-on-green eyes, wearing a functional trouser suit or baggy coverall, holding a sidearm that would actually fit into a holster, and staring out at the reader. Glaring, maybe. Or just waiting to see what their intentions were. The image might make me feel better, but whilw it would imply much on a character level, I'm not sure it would telegraph all the information to the prospective reader that they would need to see in order to determine whether it was a book they wanted to read.


**although the possibility exists that the cover for J5 may feature Jani-with-short-hair.