I know that I don't normally write on the weekends, but this hasn't been my usual weekend. I'll have to keep it short today, because I've got to dash to work pretty quickly. Yesterday was a grand day here at the con. I didn't have much in the way of free time, but I sure got a lot out of all the wonderful little things that happened throughout the day. There were few big highlights to my day... As has become the norm, Robh Ruppel and I had our "psychic connection" breakfast gathering. This time, we ended up joining up with Matt Cavotta as well. Another great start to my morning - wonderful conversation, and a nice breakfast. The next big activity was a round table dicussion I was honored to be involved in. The title of the event was "Art Director faq". I have to say though, the audience skipped right past the "frequently asked questions" and jumped into some wonderful thought provoking questions. I loved the way this event played out. It is important to note who was involved: Robh Ruppel from Naughty Dog Games (I love that name, makes me giggle every time I say it); Ben Thompson and Jeremy Cranford from Blizzard Entertainment; Lou Anders from Pyr Publishing and myself from Wizards of the Coast.
Bram Sels' Shantek
This is the first illustration that really struck me on my initial look through and it has stayed with me for several days now, possibly because there is a sense of narrative here, possibly because I believe that this thing exists in a way I don't believe all Lovecraft's creatures do (the textures here of wing and bone sell that verisimilitude nicely) and possibly just because I wonder who those riders are that are crazy enough to mount these terrible things!
The Page 69 Test
I read about this blog site on one of my writer's lists (and we now know these are where I get most of my ideas for blog topics, don't we?). Apparently authors can check their own books (or the blogger checks some) and email the blog owner. She then posted to the list, with a link to the original News Bite blog site. I find the idea interesting and so went to my book shelf to see how my books would fare if someone started reading at page 69. Would I find that page representative of the story as a whole? I was pretty nervous as I started reading, but was pleasantly surprised to find that, in all seven books, page 69 delivered the goods. Okay, I have no idea how you could plan something like that in your writing, but it is an interesting idea. It's not like you can find page 69 in an unpublished manuscript. The author doesn't control where the pages fall in a printed book. So, is it good writing or pure, dimb luck when that page delivers the goods? When you pick up a book, is random sampling part of your assessment for buying? Or do you go to a particular page? Now that I've read the News Bite page 69 site, I might become this website page 69 reader. If I remember to do it. Right now, I'm still trying to memorize a new pin number for my debit card.
James Wolf Art
James Wolf Strehle's Hound of Tindalos. This is awesome! Angels and hounds! While we don’t really see the hounds, overall the story and emotion here really allow the audience to fill in the blanks on the hounds character. The artist has seemed to take a safe and accessible road on the hounds idea; the hounds are described as being not being canine specifically, but could almost be bat like, leaving many roads you could travel down with the concept. However this approach works and overall this piece is great in its execution.
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