Diminisher of Peace
Always Becoming
A Corner Not Dipped In Styx
Nanowhere Chapt. 1
This is turning out to be the most difficult thing I've ever painted. I've always meant to do this, a character painting with all three sisters from SEABORN, Jillian (left), Kassandra (center), Nicole (right). I've cut each of them out and posted them below. A piece of the painting with all three sisters at the bottom. I'm not even close to complete, and I've spent a good four hours painting so far.
Click for the larger view.
Kassandra:
Jillian:
Nicole Garcia:
Thanks, Lori! An interview I did with author Lori Devoti a couple weeks ago just went up on her site, and looks great--I'm a little blue, however, but that's just my author pic from the Juno Books site.
http://loridevoti.com/blog/2008/07/01/interview-urban-fantasy-author-chris-howard/
...you'll start seeing bumper stickers like this. They're as prone to petty parental competitiveness as the rest of us. And they're crazy about their pets.
Buy an actual waterproof bumper sticker from ZAZZLE:
http://www.zazzle.com/giant_squid_bumper_sticker_bumpersticker-128253530269414100
Here's a vertical badge for your blog. Paste this HTML into a post or the sidebar of your blog or web site (Example on the right sidebar):
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<p><a href="http://www.saltwaterwitch.com"> <img height="398" border="0" width="113" src="http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/the0phrastus/images/2008/06/30/giantsquidbadge.png"> </a></p> |
Here's a 300 DPI PNG image of the above if you just want to print it out yourself:
http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/files/GiantSquidBumperSticker.png
More about my novel Seaborn here: http://www.saltwaterwitch.com
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Spent a couple hours painting this afternoon, this one for Illustration Friday topic: fierce. (Yeah, I'm a little late). This is Kassandra dragging some unfortunate Seaborn troublemaker to the surface by the hair. Click for the larger view.
Romantic Times Booklovers Magazine has given SEABORN 4 out of 4.5 five stars. (4.5? Who knew it was this complicated? Read Lori's explanation in the comments of my LJ x-post).
...Howard’s fantasy tells the story of a woman who is seaborn and must fight to win back kingdoms as the wreathbearer. This novel is graphic in violence and leaves nothing to the imagination when it comes to mutilation and death, but readers who love a good fantasy can overlook the gory descriptions to see what happens to the heroine of this fascinating read.
It's "Wreath-wearer" not wreathbearer, and it's really more of a nice oozy undead decay than mutilation, but I'm not going to be picky.
That is one of the most beautiful book covers I have ever seen--yeah, I'm trying to be impartial. Love the spine. They'll be in stores in a few weeks, 18th or so of July. Click the pic for the large view.
Okay, who wants to read and review one? I have more than a few. Email me at chrishoward.author@gmail.com and tell me where to send one!
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Ran a chunk of Seaborn through Wordle (http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/33549/Seaborn). Thanks Skott!
This is an old one--one of the first sketches and paintings I did of Kassandra.
Click to see the full view.
Here's a page from one my many attempts to put some of my writing into something more visual. The first scene of Saltwater Witch, with Kassandra falling into Red Bear Lake in Nebraska. She was pushed. I saw the whole thing. Click for a larger view--or click over to my deviantArt page to get even more. (http://the0phrastus.deviantart.com/art/Getting-graphical-89733965).
I just received an email from Paula at Juno Books, the subject was "Books!" Yes, she has Seaborn in print, and she's going to send me a box.
I have a character in Seaborn, Michael Henderson, who's a minor character with a background in science, and I've sort of left it up to him to try to explain how people can live and breathe under the sea. He has the "curse" himself, all the abilities the Seaborn have. He writes pages of notes, sketches the things he sees in the deep, imagines why things work the way they do with the Seaborn--all with a scientific mind.
I've written and drawn a bunch of stuff in the character of Michael Henderson, which started out as part of the worldbuilding exercises, and just kept going. I wrote the chapter headings in Seaborn from Henderson's perspective, taken from his notes, his journal, his "conversations" with various notable characters.
Here are some samples from my journal:
Seaborn Notes
Michael Henderson
I have been to the deep ocean, the Very Deep, and I have set my feet down in billion year old sand. I have kicked through the dark with blind animals that change shape with their moods, with fish ten meters long that glide through the deep sea without fear--and only eat microscopic food, with arthropods made of glass, and creatures that defy classification, I have touched the bioluminescent lures of fanged ambush predators in the abyss, and I still have all of my fingers. I have done all of this without equipment, without SCUBA, without feeling the pressure, or need for air. I am no longer a surface human--or as the Seaborn, say--a surfacer, a Thinling. I have become one of them.
I have experienced, l’ivresse des grandes profondeurs, Jacques Cousteau's "rapture of the deep," but not as the nitrogen narcosis that Cousteau described in Silent World. Say, rather, that I have experienced the rapture of the unexpectedly normal in the most unexpected place on earth: the deep sea.
The Seaborn do not suffer from any of the affects of breathing compressed gases, for example the squeeze of barotrauma on descent, because presumably, these do not exist in effective amounts in their bodies.
SCUBA stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. This is a device enabling surface-living humans to recreate, as near as possible, and within well-defined limits, everything the human respiratory system needs above the ocean surface, in the air. While in the water, it appears that the Seaborn do not--or even need to--breathe in the same manner, possessing a different, possibly more advanced system for taking in the same gases and nutrients directly from seawater. Out of the water, the lungs of a Seaborn human appear to function the same way as the lungs of any surface human.
Lungs: Alveoli are the small grape-bunch like structures that line the lungs and take up oxygen, CO2, Nitrogen--gases the human body needs to survive, with oxygen fueling so many of the processes. The Alveoli are highly susceptible to damage from heavy substances like seawater, which really shouldn't be in the lungs. Damage then leads to low blood oxygen levels (hypoxemia) , low tissue oxygen levels (hypoxia), and then death. The alveolar-capillary membrane is a delicate, one cell thick membrane through which the gases we breathe are exchanged. It appears to be the case that the Seaborn possess a more rigid surfactact--a sort of stiffening coat for the alveoli to prevent them from collapsing under the weight of heavier substances like water in the lungs.
Sketched this for Illustration Friday topic: forgotten. A character study for something new I'm writing. Click to see the larger view.
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I drew this tonight, another take on the circle of Macrocystis porifera (Giant Kelp), but this time went with the direct marketing approach for SEABORN. What do you think? Would you wear a shirt with this on it?
Click to see the large view
A quick painting of Kassandra--still looking good after all these years, digital, about 45 minutes.
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Will you still be sending me a valentine,
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
Oodles of them from Sean Wallace at Wildside Press (Juno Books is an imprint of Wildside). These contain the first ten chapters of Seaborn, with a very nice introduction by Paula Guran, and an essay at the end of the book (last couple pages) by me--on underwater acoustics.
You can find these at a Juno Books or Wildside Press booth at conventions like RTC (Romantic Times), ComicCon NY (I think), WisCon (definitely--because I'll be there), ReaderCon, and others.
If you want a stack to drop off at your local bookstore, library, writers meeting, just let me know where to send them (chrishoward.author@gmail.com ).
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Here's a new one of Kassandra, 100% percent bad-ass.
Just so you know, normally yelling at something nasty like this doesn't work at all--you'll just get eaten. So, here's Kassandra from a scene in chapter 25 of my current work in progress, taking on something I'm calling a Basilikalchainos, (basil-, king; kalchaino, make purple, dark, troublous like the sea). This is about 4 hours of work. I'm still tweaking, but I thought I'd post what I've painted so far. Detail of Kassandra below.
Selling a limited edition of 20 signed prints of this one on Etsy.com for $32. http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=8681638
Please click the images for a larger view.
Painted this afternoon. Here's where my main character is right now...
Here's an update...with tentacles.
If you're writing in this world and not some other, do you have real places in mind when you write something like, Joe turned left at Nor'east Lane, and made his way down the sandy path to his cottage on the beach? And is it ever a real place? Some place you like? Your favorite house in the world?
Do your characters live somewhere nearby? Are you neighbors? Maybe a better question: would you like to be?
For the longest time, one of my main characters, Kassandra, has lived in a great big house at the end of Atlantic Avenue in North Hampton, New Hampshire. I've had a particular house in mind from the beginning, a place in Little Boars Head, one of my favorites along the coast of New Hampshire. All completely fictional, of course, but this is the house I imagine when I need to think about where Kassandra lives.
We were renting a place in North Hampton for a couple years, and all of this seaborn stuff comes from that too short a time when I could hear--from any open window--the Atlantic tides coming in.
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I have this idea (perhaps lunacy) that I want an animated book trailer for Seaborn. So, I spent hours tonight playing with what turned out to be four seconds of animation. Posted it to YouTube. Love to hear what you think.
http://www.youtube.com/v/lfYJgzS9Rr4
Here's one frame:
Click the pic to view the larger version.
I spent most of the morning and another couple hours tonight painting Poseidonis, the daughter of Kassandra. She'll inherit everything from her mother at some point. Kassandra would be in her early forties at this point.
I've just started goofing with a web site (a page or two really) for my novel Seaborn. It won't be in stores for months, but I figure I can't be too early for some things. Got to start building a presence and momentum now. As far as domain names, Seaborn.com was taken, but I've picked up SeabornBook.com, SeabornOnline.com, NineCities.com, and SaltwaterWitch.com, and I'll probably alias them all to one.
Anyway, I'd love it if you took a look at my first pass and commented here on what you think. If you click the pic on the left, you'll see a screenshot of the site. Click the link below to see the latest--which may or may not have changed:
New: http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/
http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/saltwater_witch/index2.html
One of the things I'm particularly interested in knowing is how it appears in different browsers. I'm checking with IE7 and FF2, but I don't have Safari, Opera or others. Let me know how it looks Safari users!
I see a lot of room for improvement, but it's a start--and it's fun playing with video software. Did this in MS Movie Maker. Still goofing with ideas. Let me know what you think.
See more of Tim Lantz's work at the gallery page at Juno Books.
I absolutely love it. What do you think?
See a little bit larger pic on Tim Lantz's dA page: http://archeon.deviantart.com/art/Seaborn-68259916
Seaborn by *archeon on deviantART
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Paula Guran, editor of Juno Books just sent me a first look at the Seaborn cover painting, and...wow. I mean, WOW! I'll post a pic when I can.
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Spent a few hours painting this afternoon, Kassandra swimming through a kelp forest, all motivated by the Illustration Friday topic: grow. Some kelp species, such as Macrocystis can grow 30 to 60 centimeters vertically in a day.
Click the pic to see it larger.
http://illustrationfriday.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelp_forest
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I woke up this morning with this scene in my head, Kassandra diving off a cliff into monstrous storm waves. Here's a detail crop and the full. Perfect for IF: extremes. Click the pics to see them larger.
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"She is The Sea" --another character study for Kassandra, and very blue. Click the pic to see it larger.
Here's a detail crop of a commission piece I'm working on for a friend of mine--title: Phaidra's Love. Not sure if this is the final or what changes I'll make, but this is where it stands tonight. This is Phaidra, Kassandra's aunt, a soldier of Rexenor. She will one day rule House Rexenor. (These are characters from my novel Seaborn).
Click the pic to see it larger.
This one (left) was the obvious one to go with for juggling--Jill (character from Seaborn) juggling worlds, but I sub'd this one to Illustration Friday a few weeks ago for "momentum," and so I was thinking of other ways to use juggling that didn't involve bowling pins, things on fire, or chainsaws. Managing time, and a pile of responsibilities came to mind, so I'm going with my latest colored pencil sketch below. This is Kassandra at the very end of Seaborn (Juno Books 2008), with almost one and a half billion cubic kilometers of ocean on her shoulders--for which she's somewhat responsible. Hence the trident. (The volume of all the oceans combined is about 1,300 million cubic kilometers).
Click the pics to see them larger.
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Working on a second edit pass of Saltwater Witch--a dark YA fantasy set in the same world as Seaborn. At the beginning of the month, I received a bunch of suggestions from my agent. He enjoyed the tale a great deal, but pointed out some logic and consistency issues--most of which surfaced after my prior editing pass in which I weakened some of characters' motives. I'm also tightening up the first six or seven chapters, getting them a bit leaner…swifter in the water.
We worked out a schedule. I've just finished one pass, printed it out for some reading and peer critiquing, and then I'm planning another edit pass to be completed around the end of October. Then I'm going to send everything to him and he's going to "start selling it."
Cool.
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Alice and the kids gave me a pile of art supplies yesterday for my birthday, and although I did some pencil sketching in one of the drawing tablets, I also hit the Wacom tablet with two characters, a new one, Bachoris, the surfer guy below, and Nicole Garcia, an old character of mine. Nicole appears in my novel Seaborn (Juno Books) and Saltwater Witch, and Bachoris debuts in my current novel in progress as a love interest of Kassandra's. I always have a pretty good idea what my characters look like, but this is the first time I've put pen to paper (so to speak) for Nicole.
Although not necessary, I find drawing my characters--even quick unclear pencil sketches--helps bring them into my mind clearer. Maybe that's obvious, but drawings also act as a sort of booster when you need help with the story. I don't like going back and re-reading my work. A writer can only do that so much before those early chapters lose their freshness, but I can always pick up the drawings and use them to imagine the next scene.
I'm also less likely to go overboard on character description. I know what Nicole Garcia looks like. I don't need to describe her in great detail in the book. With a clear pic of who she is, her character will come out in the process of writing her in action--not in a paragraph of description. Drawings work, I'm telling you. Justine Larbalestier has a terrific post on what makes a character real and believable that I meant to comment on but was too busy (or too lazy). Check it out.
Love to hear what you think. Click the pics to see them larger.
Here's a sketch of Kassandra as she appears in the sequel to Seaborn. Started this one Friday night and I'm still tweaking. She's in her twenties, a serious badass, a stronger, tougher, less girlie Kassandra--and with a lot more responsibilities. Alice remarked that she's a bit too boyish. I don't think so. What do you think? Click the pic to see some detail.
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