Concept art for the Queen's Thief books

[deirdrej.livejournal.com]

Hi, everybody!

I'm sure you will remember that some time ago, the awesome Vince Natale, creator of the cover art for our favorite books, sent me the sketches and preliminary paintings for the Conspiracy of Kings cover art, which I shared with you. Well, Vince tells me that he really enjoyed the discussion about that post, and he has now sent me preliminary art work for the other three books! Which I will now share with you, after the cut (which I hope works this time -- fingers crossed!) The explanations of the drawings and paintings are all Vince's own, and I hope you enjoy them!

Happy Holidays, everyone!




INTRO
Vince says,

The work:

There really weren't any rough concept sketches on these first three books, as there were for "Conspiracy of Kings", as the publisher already had a good idea of what was wanted on the covers. There are, however, some parts of the images that needed to be worked out, and there are alternate sketches for these bits that I've included here.

Here are sketches and art from the other two Attolia books.

Enjoy!

The Thief
"The Thief of Attolia" : This one came about pretty painlessly. ;-)
1. Working out the look of the stone amulet.


2. Tight sketch with hands and stone, and written descriptions.

3. Final painting.


The Queen of Attolia

1. The first sketch according to what was initially described to me.


2. Alternate hook set-up with engravings and a slightly different hook shape. I was going with something more traditional in the shape of the hook rather than fanciful.


3. Experimenting with different styles...


4.  A new pose was requested and along with that I made a new style hook - a little more aggressive looking, and a different engraving pattern.

5.  It was decided to go with a hook style similar to one of the rough sketches, and I then incorporated with hand positioning.

6. Alternate hand positioning and hook body style. We ended up going with yet a different positioning.

7. tight sketch with final positioning.

8. Rings requested on her hands, and then on to final art.

9. Final art


The King of Attolia

1. Initial sketch.

2. Changes required... scar on his cheek, rough up his hand(scrapes/cuts), wedding band on queens hand, change pattern on his cuff.

3. Just before starting on final art, more changes. Primarily the sword hilt. Also, change style of shirt sleeve cuff, and add jewel to wedding band -not shown here.

4. Final painting. Ooops, forgot scrapes/scars on his hand...More changes requested anyway....

5. Darken background and sleeve in foreground.


________________________________________________________

That's everything Vince sent me! Is he not awesome?
BTW you can see more of his art (though not the Queen's Thief drawings/paintings) at his website, www.vincenatale.com

Comments

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

1, esthetic: WOOWWWW!!!

---

2, technical: LJ cuts don't always work the way they should, and even if you try to set them up right they may not contain all you want them to. This one didn't. To (hopefully) fix it:

a. click on the HTML editor tab
b. click IN the HTML editing pane
c. run your browser search for lj-cut, just like that (I used bold instead of quotes because you shouldn't put it in quotes). For what I think you meant to do on this post, you should find just two instances:
 - the beginning of the cut, <lj-cut>
 - the end of the cut, </lj-cut>
... the only difference being the slash at the start of the end tag, just after the left-angle-bracket and before the name of the tag

It looks like either you or LJ put the end tag right after the beginning tag, so there's nothing cut except maybe a blank line or two. If you want to fix this, what you need to do is...

d. select the end cut tag, </lj-cut>, and CUT it: hit Ctrl-X (in Windows) or Command-X (in Mac) (or I'm not sure in other systems)

e. Scroll all the way down to the very bottom of your post, or maybe to the line before "That's everything Vince sent me! Is he not awesome?" Paste the end-cut tag there.

f. DO NOT click the "Rich text" tab: switching between editors in a single edit session can really screw things up. And I don't think even the "Preview" button will show you your cuts; it didn't use to, and I haven't tried it in the past week. So just... Post your post.

g. Your cuts DON'T SHOW UP when you're viewing your own journal. So instead, go to your Friends page or the Sounis page and see how it looks there. You can edit it from there, too, but if you do, remember that "View the post" will give you your own journal view again, without the cut; go to Friends page or Sounis instead.

Good luck with the mechanics, and keep up the awesome posting. And happy holidays and a favorable new year to you.

[deirdrej.livejournal.com]

Thank you, thnidu! (& by the way, I was practicing pronouncing that :-D)

I feel very silly -- I was in a rush and just used the rich text editor, forgetting that it doesn't work.

But anyway, thanks for the sage advice, & very happy holidays to you and yours!

[loquaciousquark.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, this is so incredible. I am legit flailing over here you guys.

[magicsandwiches.livejournal.com]

Flailing, yes. No other way to describe what I'm doing right now!

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

::dies::

That is just sooooo awesome. King... is my very favorite, and I love seeing how it came together.

[chubbyleng.livejournal.com]

*SQUEEEEEEEEEE*

I love all the new covers for the QT series, but I think I'm always most fond of the KoA cover (although my sister hates it, because she thinks the hand on the shoulder looks a little pedo. I showed her the *real* pedo cover, and apparently she thought that one looked nice. Bleh.)

Hmm... it seems as if he had a lot of ideas for the CoK cover. He really played that one up.

And I'm loving all the hook sketches. We now have a reference!

[deirdrej.livejournal.com]

The "real" pedo cover? I think I'm glad I don't know what you mean -- but no, my curiosity is getting the better of me -- what do you mean? Unless ... do you mean the one in the boat, where Gen looks older than he should?

Well anyway, happy holidays! & I'm glad you enjoyed the pictures!

[chubbyleng.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's the one I'm talking about. The creepy-Gen cover for Queen of Attolia.

I enjoyed them very much. Thanks for posting! Happy Holidays to you too.

[booksrgood4u.livejournal.com]

Hey...Now I know that the object on the cover of QoA is definitively a hook....I was never quite sure before! THanks for posting these deirdrej, they are beautiful...Mr. Natale is reeeaaallly talented!

[deirdrej.livejournal.com]

Funny! My sister told me she thought it was a perfume bottle! But I saw the hook right away...& yes, Mr. Natale is pretty amazing. I looked on his web site and found he teaches, too -- how I'd love to take a class!

Happy Holidays! I must run ....MUCH to do!!

~D

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING THIS HORDE OF AMAZINGNESS!

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

I agree with you 100%, except for one thing.

It's a "hoard" (as of treasure), not a "horde" (that attacks you).

:-)

Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, and Philological Busybody

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Strange as it may seem, I was actually correct in that I was thinking of it as a great marching horde of amazingness. (Imagery not workin' for ya? Well... it made sense to me! Ha.)

But yes, it could also be described as a hoard, as it's certainly an amazing treasure. So we both win. :)

[deirdrej.livejournal.com]

LOL!

You are both awesome -- Happy Christmas (or Hannukah -- or Kwanzaa -- or all three!)

[openedlocket.livejournal.com]

At a loss for words. This was just amazing.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Wow, these are amazing. It's so cool to see the process the artist went through to develop the lovely covers. Thanks so much for sharing! It's interesting, too, to see the final art vs. the final cover. The jewel on the sword hilt does not show, nor Eugenides's short haircut.

The lj cut is not showing up--thindu is right; the beginning and end html tags of the cut are right after one another. Looks like you just need to cut the and paste it at the end of the entry.

[deirdrej.livejournal.com]

Thanks, checkers. I did see that when I went into the HTML. I'll just have to try and remember that livejournal always does that if you're in the text editor.

Thanks again, & Happy Holidays to you and yours!

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Ack, and I apologize to thnidu, whose username I butchered.

And the same to you! A very Happy Holiday(s)!

[elvenjaneite.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I kind of fangirl Vince Natale, just because of these covers.

[haleysings.livejournal.com]

This might be an odd observation, but...Attolia has such PRETTY hands on the QoA cover. I don't know why but that really stood out to me while looking through these.

[booksrgood4u.livejournal.com]

I have always noticed her hands too...but coming from a person who can't draw hands to save her life(and then for some inane reason decided to do a 18 by 24 inch drawing of hands playing the piano for my final project), I notice that sort of things!

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for posting these--and to Mr. Natale for offering them for you to do so! I enjoyed seeing the evolution of the pictures, as well as the various possible ornamental designs, such as what Gen's sword was like at first. Did he say what medium he used for the final paintings?

--Handmaiden

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, these are incredible! I also noticed Attolia's pretty hands- is that weird? Also, not to sound nitpicky, but shouldn't Gen's skin being a few shades darker as that's how he's described in the book? Otherwise, these covers and their processes of being made are simply stunning. <3

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

I agree, he's very pale on the KoA cover, and probably a little too young, too. Though I do love the covers. I noticed Attolia's lovely hands, too.

[magicsandwiches.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity (def not trying to start the whole age discussion again, but I really am curious), how old do you think Gen is in KoA?

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Deep in my heart, I like to believe he's at least 21, though I guess it's been established that he's--what, 18, tops? I've always thought of Attolia as being in her late 20s, so it just makes me feel better to pretend he's a little older.

It's funny, when I read the Thief, I assumed Gen was middle-school-age, 13 or so. QoA read so much older that I had to revise that upwards, and figured Gen had to be more like 15 or 16 in Thief for the whole romance in QoA to be feasible.

What about you? How old do you see him in KoA?

[magicsandwiches.livejournal.com]

I don't keep track of LJ these days very well! Thanks for responding.

I TOTALLY want him to be at least 20. But, yeah, he's probably 18 or 19 tops. Which is fine, now that I've had years to get used to it. :D

I pictured him in his late teens when I read Thief and then had to re-evaluate when I read Queen. But I had never actually put a specific age on him until I found Sounis and everyone was talking about it.

[drashizu.livejournal.com]

These are amazing! Thank you so much for sharing them!

[magicsandwiches.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just wow. What a highly enjoyable post. Thank you so much for posting these. Fascinating!

[meltintall3.livejournal.com]

Ditto on the thanks to deirdrej and Mr. Natale and awe. This was soo cool! :D

[(Anonymous)]

Magnifique.

If a picture is better than a thousand words, art such as this demands a million of my finest words - and I must admit myself far, far, FAR too short of words potent enough to describe this glory.

MAGNIFICENT!!!!!!

I couldn't imagine anything more beautiful than the covers themselves, but the pencil sketches - and the detail therein - have a bold beauty that took my breath away. Mr. Natale is truly a master of his craft.

[(Anonymous)]

Oops, sorry, forgot to sign -

Scottykarrde (keep on forgetting my sign-in info and too lazy to figure it out../..)

[(Anonymous)]

Wow! I could not even guess about it)) Not bad.