 Read Chapter One: pdf, epub |
Follow-up to the Fantasy PosesWow. I can’t give precise numbers since I don’t have a way of tracking things like LiveJournal and RSS feed hits, but Wednesday’s post about trying to pose like fantasy cover heroines has now been viewed by more than 45,000 people, which is gratifying to say the least. It’s been a little overwhelming. Thank you to everyone for your responses, and welcome to all of the new folks. The absolute best part of this week has been seeing so many great discussions starting up. I did my best to keep up with comments, e-mail, Twitter, etc. I failed. At this point, I figured it would be easier to respond to some of the more frequent comments here, and also share some of the great links people have posted. How’s your back? I was fine after a decent night’s sleep. Thanks for asking! Those poses would be easier if you were more flexible/a martial artist/a dancer. I am not a dancer, but I’ve seen dancers do amazing things with their bodies, and I have no doubt that training would make it easier to match the poses. That said, I earned a black belt in one martial art when I was younger, and last year received my promotion form for black belt in a second style. I also consider myself fairly flexible. So to the commenter who said the pics are meaningless because obviously an unfit older guy couldn’t do this stuff, I bite my thumb at thee. Those poses would be easier if you were a woman. I have no way of testing/verifying this directly, but I suspect there might be some truth here. Some of this might be due to anatomical differences; some is likely due to the fact that males and females are taught/encouraged to stand and move differently. That said, “easier” is not the same as “easy,” and judging from the comments, many (but not all) of the women who tried to mimic the poses found them difficult or unachievable. This is silly. Who cares? I do. And hey, what do you know? It’s my blog, so I get to write about whatever the heck I want. Sweet! You have a pager! That’s an insulin pump. You have an insulin pump! Go Team Diabetes! You should do more of these/You should do [NAME OF BOOK]! I might, ’cause it was kind of fun, but I think the original post has made its point pretty well. My eyes, my eyes! Pass the brain bleach! Bite me. (I know these comments were generally meant in fun, and I’m not actually upset or offended. Although I find it interesting that these “horrified” responses, even in jest, came almost universally from men…) Hey, you’re kinda sexy! Thank you. The covers you’re mocking are much more interesting than the ones you posted at the end as examples of strong, capable female characters. Not to me. I spewed coffee/tea/prune juice all over my keyboard! The owner of this website is not responsible for any keyboard damage incurred during the reading of this blog. Links:
16 comments to Follow-up to the Fantasy Poses |
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I’ve been talking with another photographer about whether we can maybe adapt this idea to a panel at an SF convention. Seeing the difficulty of figuring out, and assuming, the poses would add to the experience. It would, at worst, be amusing, I think.
Personally, I think it could be both fun and eye-opening, if done well. And I’d be happy to volunteer for the panel
I’d LOVE to see a panel like this at an SF convention! Heck, I’d even volunteer for it–all that modern/ballet training should be good for some entertainment….
I actually tried a couple of those poses, and yeah, I think I *might* possibly have an easier way with a couple of them than you do, partially because I am a woman, and partially also because of the ballet in my youth (martial arts too, but I think the ballet helps more). I am not most people’s idea of beautiful or even pretty, but perhaps I’ll get around to taking some pictures.
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Again, go you! It was an excellent post. And I did like the other covers you mentioned (although I found the one for The Darkest Edge Of Dawn somewhat untenable
They say you should never buy a book based on what you see on the cover. Having seen you try and do a few other books’ covers, gamely, I am going to start looking for your works to read; anyone willing to do what you did is worth checking out…
Will this replace pictures of cats on U-Tube?
The poses were genius
I will pay you the highest critical compliment an author can receive. I am going to Amazon right now to buy your books.
Got here via Ilona Andrews blog and have enjoyed the Fantasy Poses discussion. In checking out the links that you posted, when I went through Fantasy Armour and Ladybits I couldn’t help but laugh at the photo of the female archer in breastplate! I’m an archer and that thing would not only screw up your full range of motion in drawing a bow, you’d also have hideous accuracy every time the bowstring glanced off the boob section. If I were going for the armored archer (female division) look, it would be layered leather to allow both twisting at the waist and full arm motion and it would be as smooth and flat over the chest as I could get it without suffocating or restricting motion. Besides, historically, archers are supposed to be back of the front lines, not smack dab in the middle of the fray…. Think more sniper/assassin than grunt/cannon fodder.
At any rate, I loved your post! I’ll never look at UF book covers the same way again!
After I read the original post and this follow-up, I went hunting for an older interview with Don Dos Santos, the artist behind the Mercy Thompson covers. Here it is on Tor, including some interview questions with the model he’s used for the covers. I felt like this pose pretty much captured how this process works (emphasis is mine):
“And yet, despite that attention to detail, even the prettiest of models still needs to be idealized even further. Mixing different photos, stretching limbs into impossible positions, emphasizing features, and changing hair styles is pretty much a given in every piece for me.”
The covers you mocked mostly looked like supermodels posing for a photoshoot. The covers you posted at the end of that post showed their subjects in dynamic action poses or looking determined in a setting appropriate to the story. And those are less interesting? I do not think the word means what they think it means.
These were a *really* fun read, Jim. Thanks for the chuckles. And…you’re not wrong.
Those poses transferred to real life were really interesting to see, and thanks a lot for doing that – I think you deserved every hit on your blog you got for this!
I could actually (theoretically) match some of them quite well, since I have a hyperflexible lower spine that allows me to do an insane curve with my lower back. It also means, however, that my butt tends to stick out no matter what I do (which is not always nice), and that I have a strong tendency to get back pain due to the overflexibility.
So while I might be able to actually get into some of those back-breaking poses, this flexibility alone means back trouble that prevents me from efficient superheroeing. (It also means that though I know could do them, I take great care to not actually do them – because this will promote the hyperflexibility, and that in turn promote back pain.) Which again proves your point…
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