I am not a brilliant artist. I’m a 20 year veteran of commercial art and decor, so I know some insider tips and tricks that make my attempts look better than they should.
But like many writers, I want to know what my characters look like, even if it’s just for my own sanity. Sometimes I can browse images on the internet to get ideas. For Moro’s Price, most of my characters are human or humanoid, maybe with some minor cosmetic differences.
I can’t link to him here because of copyright issues, but a steampunk photography model gave me a chillingly-gorgeous shot of my lead villain Lyton Sardis. I knew what he looked like before I wrote his first line.
Features culled from a few dozen male models gave me baseline images of Valier, my feisty and slightly-warped aristocrat with dark golden skin and flyaway pale hair. I knew Moro, my brooding and damaged gladiator, would stand out even in the multiracial 50th Century future I imagined for humanity, with his nearly white opaline skin, blue-black hair, and black eyes.
At one point, I wanted a composite piece I could use as the foundation for possible cover art, if I had to go the self-publishing route. This scared the hell out of me, because I’m neither a portrait nor a cover artist. But a little photo manipulation and some work with Painter 12 digital art tools gave me something I could use. And of course, once I had that formal image, I wanted to showcase a more private, tender moment between Moro and Val: a non-graphic love scene with a little edge.
I’ve set aside a Photobucket folder with some of my digital sketches from the book, plus a cartoon of side characters, and the Loose Id cover for Moro’s Price:
http://photobucket.com/morospriceart
Here’s a teaser:
Wow… this is quite wonderful. You’re really good!
heh, and I love the sketches. 🙂
It’s hard to find models to match your charas, I think. I mean, I figure, unless you kinda got the inspiration from a model there is no person that looks like the one in your head. I can definitely see how hard it is to find two people to represent the charas, your babies, for the cover of your/their book.
Judi
Love the photos! I like it when authors share photos of how they imagine their characters because it makes it clearer for me to picture them (I like to see what the author is portraying instead of making up my own idea from descriptions, more accurate). Thanks for sharing!
tiger-chick-1(at)hotmail(dot)com