A Drift of Quills: Picture This #5

Picture this: You’re a fan of a particular fantasy novel. You love the story and the characters! Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a window on the world to see what the people or the places look like? A Drift of Quills has you covered. For this feature we’re sharing pictures about one of our works, giving you a sneak peek into our worlds!

This recurring theme is one of my favorites! I love sharing with you the images that have inspired my stories. (Or the images I’ve had to hunt for, trying to match a description!).

I’ve come back to Sherakai’s story—I figure it makes sense since his first book, Blood and Shadow, is currently part of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off (SPFBO). Hosted by Mark Lawrence, author of The Broken Empire series and other books, a total of 300 books are judged by 10 bloggers. Am I nervous? (Gulp!) Mostly, I try not to think about it. There is some serious competition in the running!

Picture This Character

Since we already caught a glimpse of things in my previous post about him, I thought I’d share some images from the second book of The Mage’s Gift. In Flesh and Bone, Sherakai receives more training from the man who would be his master, Bairith Mindar. I’ve yet to find a suitable actor or model, but this picture by Lian Yan Fang is nearly perfect:

Bairith Mindar is handsome, powerful—and has his own brand of mercy. He shows his love for his student by driving him ruthlessly, and he’s not above using magic to accomplish his goal of shaping Sherakai to be his perfect weapon in a battle Sherakai does not understand.

Picture This Thing

Since my last hunt for a picture to represent Fesh and Teth, Sherakai’s monstrous guardians and companions, I’ve found a piece of art that was, I believe, concept art for a short film. I wish I knew who’d done it!

Scary, right? Much to Bairith’s annoyance, the creatures develop an attachment to Sherakai that goes beyond a magical bond meant to keep the boy “safe” and under control. They have their own distinct personalities: Fesh is friendly and playful. Teth is more distant and strict.

Picture This Place

Sherakai’s training and education takes him to a place called “The Twixt.” He is pitted against other fighters, both human and not, in a gargantuan arena. I’ve yet to discover (or have created) a picture that adequately portrays an arena surrounded by the eighteen towers marking the outer wall. The following picture is concept art for Spartacus: Vengeance. I think it does a good job with the mood, although it lacks the shadows that hide some of the audience, and it’s missing the brassy, roiling sky…

And that concludes my portion of this feature’s “person, place, and thing”!

You can grab a copy of Flesh and Bone here (or read it for free in Kindle Unlimited)!

If you’ve read it and left a review, THANK YOU. It means a lot to me! (And having reviews means nice things from Amazon.)

All righty, then! Let’s see what treat my fellow Quills have in store for us!

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PATRICIA REDING

Author of the Oathtaker Series
Patricia’s website

This month we Quills are sharing one or more pictures that help to illustrate something from our stories. I’ve chosen to sprinkle a few pics throughout my post, all relating to the same part of the storyline from Oathtaker, The Oathtaker Series Volume One.

Before sharing any pics, let me open by saying that while perhaps a bit odd, I’ve always been fascinated by the words we give to groups of animals. Here are just a few great ones:

To the above, I would add a couple I’ve made good use of in my stories, including the words used for a group of vultures, namely, a kettle, committee, or wake, depending on what they are up to at the time. Then there is my favorite, which is the word used for a group of crows: a murder…

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P.S. BROADDUS

Author of The Unseen Chronicles
Parker’s website

I love illustration and I think it works well for the young reader genre and age. One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to flip through a book looking for the pictures, and things haven’t changed.

I’m a particular fan of simple sketches. I have a collection of them, some commissioned, some that were done by readers. I think that’s something I wish I could do as well, but my sketch art is little more than a series of stick figures.

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This is how we see our stories—Who (or what, or where!) should we picture next? Let us know in the comments below!