SF Novelists Day
• Interested in a custom-painted mini of Jig the goblin? Garden Ninja has offered one for bidding here to benefit Tu Publishing, a publisher focusing on multicultural SF and fantasy for children and young adults.
• Mel Grant’s cover sketch for Red Hood’s Revenge showed up in my e-mail today. My biggest fear was that switching artists in mid-series would mean book three wouldn’t be recognizable as a princess book. While I did have some feedback on the cover, I’m feeling better about this fear now. He obviously worked very closely from the earlier covers, and it shows. I’ll share the finished art with you all just as soon as I can.
• Today was my day to post at SF Novelists. I used this month’s post to talk about humor (and to plug the 2009 SF/F Humor Roundup): http://www.sfnovelists.com/2009/11/24/sff-humor-roundup/
Finally, your LEGO fix. I went small scale on this week’s pic, which comes from LEGOWOW. This is another set that you really need to see close-up to appreciate. I don’t know which impresses me more, the guitars themselves or the detail on the amps. Click the pic for the full photo set.
Steve Buchheit
November 24, 2009 @ 12:47 pm
The best illustrators (and designers) are the ones who can do a variety of styles and choose the one most appropriate for the market instead of the one they may want to do their next illustration in. It always used to tickle me when clients (and some bosses) would say, “We need a (insert style description) kind of design here.” And my brain would be thinking, “Really, for this market? You’re going to lose business that way.” Clients are rarely right, but they’re always the client. (In fact just did one for a high end product that if the client handed me the brochure he forced me into, I’d kick him out of my door thinking he was trying to scam me.)
Glad your illustrator knows the importance of marketing over “making pretty pictures.”