Thursday 31 January 2013

Dangerous Beauty, A Homage to Fan Art by Tali Spencer





Guest Blog Post – FanArt

Thanks, Nephy, for giving me this chance to visit and promote my new release, Dangerous Beauty. I’ll get to that. For now I’d like to talk about fan art.

Authors almost universally love fan art. I say almost because I’m sure there’s some author out there who despises rainbows, puppies, happy couples, and fan art. I have yet to meet that author, though. All of the ones I know are astonished, delighted, and flattered by art work their fans have created.

I’m a huge fan of fan art. No surprise there, right? I mean, I go all gooey over my book covers and praise the people who create them. Dangerous Beauty has a gorgeous cover by artist Adrian Nicholas, who also did the cover for Captive Heart. One of my sons is a successful artist and animator whose earliest efforts were based on artists he loved. As a teen he sent one of his fan art drawings to Bill Watterson, creator of the Calvin and Hobbes comics, who wrote back a lovely letter and critique that sealed the kid’s career choice.



Most of the artists who create fan art are amateurs and most fan art is devoted to visual media such as movies, TV shows, comics, and video games. That said, some artists are fans of books and sometimes they create images to go with their favorite 
characters or stories. That’s the fan art I’m talking about today. These artistic fans turn words into pictures and their work ranges from worshipful to fun to amazing.

Writers often feature artwork created by fans on their websites or blogs. Why not? We’re proud of them! Fan art is like a trophy: visible proof of our work having touched someone besides our mothers or spouses. We certainly share them with our friends: “Look what this person did! See? Here’s my character!” I shared mine with my dentist. Few things tickle a writer more than knowing a story reached someone else and moved, inspired, or provoked them.

Want some examples? I’ll start with one of my own. Bailey Zweifel, a fan of my romance novel Captive Heart, made me squee like a teen girl at a Bieber concert when she sent me this picture she had created using Doll Divine, an online doll-making program. Here are the three female main characters of the novel—Julissa, Aurelia, and Adora. Bailey captured each woman’s appearance and personality in her choices of dress and accessories. This is adorable!



Some of you may know M.A. Church and her novel, The Harvest. (Hurry up and get that novel published, M!) Here is one fan’s interpretation of Keyno, the feline alien. What a character looks like is one of those things where every fan will have a unique vision. Michelle’s opinion? “I think having a fan take time to do a drawing for an author is the ultimate compliment!”













Isabelle Rowan author of the novel, INK, uses her fan art to help promote her novels. “I have some character pics from INK that an ex student of mine drew. I made them into postcards I loved them so much.” The artist is Benson Noynay and you can see more of his work on Isabelle’s website. Here’s his character sketch of Dominic, INK’s centurion/vampire.



DJ Serani’s new book, Choices, inspired this vision of her characters Bathasar and Teman by the artist Rubiconn. How gorgeous is that?


















Andrea Speed was delighted when a fan tweeted her with this image inspired by her Infected series. This one is from Infected: Prey. The artist, Raelynn, is a dedicated fan artist.



Chris T. Kat, author of Secret Chemistry, shares this gorgeous pic drawn by the artist Mondriana for Chris’ story, “Fundamental Changes.” She loves it so much she uses it as her avatar on some sites.



















Christopher “Kit” Moss, whose novel Frankie and Johnny will be released in August by Dreamspinner, shared images inspired by the book and characters. Here’s artist Linda Laaksonen’s concept of Frankie:


Fan art also can convey setting or other elements of the book, as Laaksonen does here:



Some writers create fan art for other writers whose books they read and love. Not only is Pinkie Rae Parker a talented writer (“Curtain Calls”), here’s her illustration of Harry Dresden from the Dresden Files, written by Jim Butcher. Pinkie’s fan art is well-known in writer circles.
















WARNING. Some fan art—like fan fiction—veers into adult territory. Click away now if you don’t want to be ambushed by the following examples, because they’re definitely NSFW.

Adrienne Wilder, author of City of Dragons, writes red hot M/M urban fantasy and paranormal romance. No wonder her work inspires images like these. Or is it that her work inspires her writing? Because—that’s right—Adrienne is also the artist.  “I do it to help me to ‘see’ characters sometimes,” she says. Judging by these pics, she sees her characters just fine!

Here are Joey and Taylor from Adrienne’s novel, Skin Deep.


Here is another of Adrienne’s pics, this time of Jericho and Vesh, from Worth.




* * * *


Hope you enjoyed my little tour. I don’t have any fan art from Dangerous Beauty (yet), but here’s the blurb.


Blurb:

Once the Kordeun family ruled Sebboy…now they are imperial captives of the Uttoran Emperor. Devout and studious, Endre Kordeun loves his family and will do anything to free them, even if that means pretending he’s gay so he can pass messages to his father’s shady allies. With his golden good looks and a beautiful male courtesan posing as his lover, Endre finds Uttor’s decadent society more than willing to believe his ruse.

But when a passionate kiss from a dark, gorgeous man unlocks feelings Endre had been hiding even from himself, lies start to unravel. Arshad, prince of Tabar, is Endre’s match in every way…including a shared love for science and celestial mechanics. Going forward with his charade will be dangerous, and not only because he might be discovered. In that event, even his own father would kill him. How much is Endre willing to risk for love?

And a really short (but juicy) excerpt:

He lay on a rug in a room at the center of the universe. Arshad kissed his belly, hair tickling his skin, then moved to his thigh where it rested against that broad dark chest. Endre swallowed a moan as the discomfort in his ass turned slowly to pleasure, his lover’s finger moving deeper, curving and brushing the core of his body to create sensations that were strange but no longer painful.

“I have you now, princeling,” his dark prince taunted.

This time the turning of his finger brushed something deep and hot, releasing a burst of pleasure that left him gasping. His cock quivered and half-filled with blood.

“God, Arshad—”

“You like that? Let’s do it again.”

He did it again. And again. And again. Endre rolled his pelvis, pushing back onto Arshad’s finger, begging more. Arshad kept hooking his finger inside, finding that place until he wanted to scream.

“Please. I want you inside me.”

Those full lips passed lightly atop his and he sought them hungrily.

“I can tell.”

* * * *

Thanks, Nephy for letting stop by to talk about my love for fan art and introduce my new book! Here’s more information if anyone should wish to contact me.

Dangerous Beauty is available at Resplendence Publishing and also at AllRomance.
My Amazon.com author page. 
My Goodreads author page.
I'm on Facebook
and Twitter


What an amazing collection of fan art, Tali. Thank you so much for sharing and for letting me be involved in the promotion of your book. 

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a HUGE fan of fan art and particularly of one wonderful artist who captures my own characters so well and so excitingly. I squee like a teenager whenever I see one of her depictions, especially of my darling Silver. You'll see them all over my blog. 

I can't let a post on fan art go by without including some of her work.

Here are two of my favourites


7 comments:

  1. A great posts with absolutely fantastic artwork. Thank you, Tali, for compiling the post and thank you, Nephy, for posting it!

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    1. I have to admit this was the most fun I've ever had writing a guest blog. :)

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  2. Replies
    1. Thanks for stopping by the gallery. :)

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    2. Thanks to you :) This was such a fun post to work with. Thank you Tali you can come by anytime :)

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  3. Great post and gorgeous artwork :)

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    Replies
    1. Glad you enjoyed it. The artists did all the work. :)

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