Category Archives: Eye Candy

New Header Art

I haven’t used WordPress for very long, and I wasn’t entirely certain that I wanted to commit to staying on it, so I couldn’t imagine futzing with the layout when I could hardly navigate the features (and plugins) I’d installed. Now, when I have five minutes, I try to schedule a few posts with resources or neat things; when I have seven, I read a little documentation, fiddle with features, or work on drafting a longer post.

Today, I only have five minutes, so I’ll devote it to a neat thing. My friend Manda Lewis made me a new and monstrous header for this blog. I asked for speculative fiction goes to the library and asked if she would put a new spin on a piece of reference art, and she went for it. I especially like the creature at left, because when you look too long into a book about the abyss, the abyss reaches back for you–okay, I especially like all of them. The quiet wonder of the plant-reading alien, the juxtaposition of the big monster with the tiny butterflies, the person whose book crackles with something electric.

If this is the sort of art you’re looking for, or if you just want to send a note to the artist, her contact information is in the FAQ.

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Picture It: Fantasy Heroines

Recently, io9 featured some beautiful art nouveau portraits of 1980s and 90s fantasy heroines. Can you name their related works or creators without looking? I read or watched nearly all of the works as a child, and I think it’s nifty to see them all together. I think Lili from Legend is the most interesting, probably because we get to see her in her “good” form and her mirrored “evil” form. And I think that’s an interesting exercise–what would the negative image of a character be like? What if, instead of heroine, she were villain, and what if the villain saved the day?

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Filed under Eye Candy, Publishing, Writing