seawasp | SQUEE over GCA Japan!

And I still am Squeeing.

They split the novel into two parts (part 1 and part 2) and gave it a pair of covers that make one great image.

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From:

lexomatic.livejournal.com

Normally, if I doodle characters inspired by an author's prose, I have no illusions regarding their canonicity. But in the case of GCA, I was a post-hoc semi-official unpaid fan concept-illustrator. I was definitely working to Wasp's feedback, and as such, I've got an emotional stake in the likenesses of the characters (not the characters themselves: they're all Wasp's). So any divergence from my interpretation (Flickr set) of Wasp's descriptions feels like a betrayal, or at least poor communication. (Not to forget: Props to the other artists who populated GrandCentralArena.com.)

Okay, now that I've deconstructed my emotional reaction in proper Vulcan fashion (whew)... The amazon.jp cover images are bigger than thumbnails, but they're still too small to clearly interpret all the detail that's been crammed in. Given that caveat, my specific comments are:

Left to right: DuQuesne, Ariane, Simon, Molothos, Amas-Garao, and Orphan(?). Busy/dynamic, but given that necessity the composition and color are good. The tonal range isn't as wide as it could be. As long as you're going with a light/dark dichotomy, the dark side could've had a darker background.

DuQuesne has the wrong kind of beard. Going with the manga/anime-styling here, there are very few anime characters with beards, and those that have them, tend to have ones like this. (And not all that many in U.S. animation; as a beard-wearing man myself, I'd be slightly annoyed that my cosplay choices are limited to Shipwreck, David Xanatos, and Ben Ten-Thousand. If I were into cosplay, which I'm not; but it's amusing to ponder.) And he's obviously burly, but given the mix of scales in the montage, it's not apparent just how huge he is. His glove has extra-intimidating knuckle-reinforcements.

Top-middle: Is that a slab-shaped spaceship? Nope, it's DuQuesne's gun. Which he's holding sideways, gangsta-style, yo. This is, I'm given to understand, a dumb thing to do with a 20cen gunpowder handgun but might be a reasonable posture for whatever this is. And it's clearly a compositional decision.

Ariane's hair is too light a shade of blue -- she looks rather like Eureka from the Gonzo/Bandai anime Eureka 7. She's in her Arena gear, her left hand is emitting subdued biomod electrical sparks, but she's not wearing "Astrella's Wrath of God" -- I don't know what that looks like, but it's wrist-mounted.

I can't tell if Simon is wearing glasses. The tail of his (from this angle not obviously) lab coat has been stretched for dramatic effect, like Batman's cape.

The Molothos is in the background and obscured, and since that species has a complex-unfamiliar shape at the best of times, it's hard to tell quite which bits of anatomy are which. Its eye is red instead of yellow, the fringe on the back of its head is spiky instead of fan-shaped, its right arm is -- that's an interesting take, less praying mantis-ish. (An exercise for the class: How does it grasp anything safely?) This pose conveniently avoids the need to figure out its feet. And it's the wrong colors: Wasp specified black, red and blue-violet. But I suspect an artistic decision tfor visual contrast with Amas-Garao in the foreground.

Shadeweaver Amas-Garao's costume cues seem to have been taken from the Baen cover by Stephen Hickman. Fine. I dig the purple-blue hand-glow miasma-magic.

Assuming that's Orphan in the corner (on the "XTs, not adversaries" cover), he's a lot more buglike than Wasp envisioned. Of course, Wasp envisioned something resembling Cell from DragonBall Z (fan art in useful pose, LEGO minifig custom), which might be just slightly too obvious an homage in the native Japanese market. But why is he colored brown instead of green? Green isn't copyrighted.

From:

seawasp

Understand that no offense was meant. Your work is excellent. So was Mr. Hickman's. But I was imagining GCA *as* an anime when I wrote it, to be honest, and this was very like much of the imagery I had.

You should also be aware that I like seeing MULTIPLE interpretations of things. Different people will take the same description and make something different -- and in many cases, it will be JUST AS GOOD. In some ways I'm reluctant to WANT to show another artist what the first artist did because I want to see what the second artist's going to do with the same stuff the first artist started with. For instance, you had a dialogue with me on what things looked like, and so did Steven Hickman. Fortunately on your side it was Email exchanges which meant they could be referenced; Steven Hickman had a couple phone conversations with me which meant that I ended up confusing him as to how some things looked.

Yes, DQ's beard should be a single VanDyke, as you did it and as Mary Dell did. Note that Mary's DuQuesne and yours differ significantly, but I can't tell if that's just because your style is different or you have a slightly different vision for him. Both are good, though. For some reason the Japanese almost always do short little beards as a double spike. I don't know why. It looks good on that version of him, but wouldn't, I think, on a more "western" take. You're right it's not IMMEDIATELY evident how huge he is, although when one notices that it's his THIGH visible in the lower left, you can start to get the picture, I think.

I suspect Ariane's lighter hair is a matter of contrast -- dark blue wouldn't pop out as much in that image. I believe she actually IS wearing Wrath-Of-God -- it's the bracelet on her forward wrist (compare with the other arm, it doesn't LOOK like she's wearing a matching object there). If that's meant to be Wrath-of-God, it's... sort of correct, but too small and missing some details (not surprising, I didn't go into great detail as to what it looked like).

Hard for me to tell on Simon, too; I don't think he IS wearing glasses, but at that angle they could be reduced to a very thin line depending on the artist's choice.

You're right about the Molothos. Your drawing of it is in general more accurate, though I like the pose and the menacing look of this one; I SUPPOSE those COULD be manipulating tendrils around the mouth, but they look more like jabby spiky jaw bits to me. I see hints of the feet lower down but exactly how it all goes together you sort of have to guess. The coloration definitely isn't what I envisioned, but -- as you point out -- it works well in context of what's around it.

Amas-Garao, well, there's only so many ways one can do Dark Wizard Hooded Robes, and I like the way they got a hint of the Really Hideous Face under there.

Orphan is ... interesting. Yes, avoiding just cloning Cell is a challenge, but this wasn't anything like I was thinking. It IS, I suppose, technically correct depending on how you interpret the words, in terms of shape (the color, as you say, is off), and taking a locust-like body plan sure gets you away from the general humanoid. But I'm not really seeing the headcrests, and for the whole face I was looking for the "Uncanny Valley" -- Orphan's face looks REALLY ALMOST HUMAN and that's really really creepy. This is more a humanoid insect, which paradoxically isn't quite as creepy. I liked your initial attempt to make a version that was obviously inspired by, but wasn't identical to, old Cell. It fits my description, keeps much of the key "feel", but isn't just a clone.

Anyway, I'm sorry if my squeeing bothered you.

From:

lexomatic.livejournal.com

Oh, I've no complaints about the "squee"ing. You're the author, and this situation justifies any manner of schoolgirlish noises of excitement (it may have also reduced you to a plush chibi); whatever imperfections this rendition (*) might have, it has the inarguable and overwhelming merit of being printed and seen by lots of people.

Naturally, different artists working in different media and with different genre conventions will produce different results. To coin a phrase, "alternately canonical." (Consider Trek TOS vs. TAS.) But when details that don't need to be adjusted differ, my eyebrow goes up and my tongue starts clucking. (Consider cover artists for Pern who give dragons mammal-style eyes, or turn fire lizards into wyverns.)

I'm already doodling some revised Molothos ideas incorporating these arms (anomalocaris-like) and leg-scales. (But it's harder to connect the pieces when somebody else isn't hogging the frame.)

(*) Do you have the artist's name? If not, we'll have to call this "the Tor Japanese edition" interpretation of the characters.

From:

seawasp

Alas, I don't have his name. I'm hoping someone will tell me, or if I get sent my copies I'll be able to get a friend who reads Japanese to find the small print that says "Cover art by".

I also have to wonder about the translation, but to check THAT requires someone equally skilled in reading Japanese AND English to take the time to compare the two.