Sneak peek: Orin and Orasz!
over 1 year ago
– Tue, Oct 01, 2024 at 04:44:48 PM
So far you've seen initial concept thumbnails and pencil sketches from A.C. Let's start taking a look at the inked versions! These are still very far from the finished images, but they are the point at which you can really start to see what the card will look like: the rough lines of the earlier stages have been cleaned up, so the compositions are a little easier to parse.
For this preview I've chosen Orin and Orasz. You may recall from the books that these are the Vraszenian names for the moons; what's less obvious there -- in fact, I'm not entirely sure if we ever say it outright -- is that they are also the mythic foundations of Vraszan's transgender traditions. Orin is rimasz, i.e. what we'd call a transwoman; Orasz is lihosz, i.e. a transman. In the version of the Vraszenian origin myth where Ažerais married Orasz, because he could not give her children she lay with Orin instead, and from that came all seven founders of the Vraszenian clans. (There are other origin myths as well, because Alyc and I are well aware that real-world mythologies often contradict themselves.)
I love the design A.C. came up with for this card. Without me ever saying anything, they echoed a painting a friend once made of an RPG character of mine -- a painting I love for its ability to suggest a yin-yang-like duality. This being the card of duality, it's a perfect composition:
The pattern deck doesn't build significance around cards being reversed in their orientation when they're dealt out, but this is one whose image will be equally legible whether it's upright or inverted. And that's exactly as it should be!
--Marie
About those other stretch goals . . .
over 1 year ago
– Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 04:35:05 PM
You may recall (though I know it's been a minute) that two of the stretch goals we unlocked were pieces of short fiction in the Rook and Rose setting, written by myself and Alyc, respectively. I figure I should update you on the progress for that!
Here's the thing to know about Alyc: even though they attended the Clarion West Writers' Workshop (which, if you don't know it, is a very prestigious SF/F short fiction workshop) and I didn't, they write many fewer short stories than I do. They're very good at such things! . . . but really, their heart lies in longer stuff. Which is why it's not surprising that, of the ideas Alyc has been batting around, the first one has ballooned up into something much too large and complex for what we originally intended. On the one hand, I doubt y'all would object, but on the other hand, it would also take way longer to deliver than our promised timeline, and that's not good.
They've pivoted toward a new idea instead -- one we hope will stay within bounds! I don't want to say too much because 1) it might still change along the way and 2) there should still be some excitement left for when it comes time to unwrap the surprise, but I do have one word for those who have read the novels: Ganllech.
As for me, I've started drafting my piece. It's often the case with me and short fiction that I start writing when I figure out a good entry point into the story -- opening lines, paragraphs, maybe even a whole scene -- and then I pause while I work out the rest of it. We're in the pause right now, where I have to figure out how I want to get the main character into the central problem, but once I have that, the rest of the drafting may go very quickly. For this one, I have two words to whet your appetite: Clever Natalya.
I don't think we said anything specific during the campaign about how we'll deliver these, other than "digitally." We'll definitely have a PDF version, but it's my intent to try and also get the stories formatted as EPUBs, for greater convenience of use with e-readers. When the time comes, we'll message backers privately with links to download those files. And hopefully we should have the first of them ready for you before too much longer!
--Marie
Sneak peek: The Mask of Night
over 1 year ago
– Tue, Sep 03, 2024 at 02:08:03 PM
I realized today that I've only been sharing Faces so far from Avery's work (in part because she did all the Faces first, before starting on the Masks). Let's flip around to the other side for a look at the cards of more negative meaning!
The Mask of Night -- counterpart to The Face of Stars, and the card of ill fortune -- is an interesting one because it changed fairly radically between the initial set of sketches and the final sketch. Here's what we started out with:
(Note that some of these don't come through all that well because Avery's sketching in greyscale, whereas the finished paintings use color. But they're enough for us to be going on with for design purposes.)
We knew at the outset that we'd be going with something more like #2, but we wanted to jazz it up. Alyc, inspired by Diane Damrau's costume as the Queen of the Night in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, suggested adding a headdress; I, inspired by a wardrobe item I have in one of my habit gamification apps, suggested the headdress could feature the phases of the moon. With a few facial lines added to provide contrast, here's what Avery landed on:
It's beautifully regal, evoking the night without touching on the stars that are the visual domain of its counterpart card. And, as I'd hoped, the eyelessness of the Masks gives them a faintly creepy air in contrast with the eyes of the Faces -- exactly what we wanted!
Because I am cruel, I will say that we've also seen the finished painting for this card, and it is GORGEOUS. But that will have to wait for a future update . . .
--Marie
Sneak peek: colors!
over 1 year ago
– Tue, Aug 20, 2024 at 11:08:10 AM
To change things up a bit, I'm going to show you something different: the "color test" swatches A.C. sent us.
(Since I know we have a few very arachnophobic backers, the image below does contain one recognizable, albeit very small and very messy, spider.)
The Faces and Masks will be unified by overall composition, but the rest of the cards could potentially risk wind up feeling like a random grab bag (even though done by a single artist). To give it a more coherent feel, A.C. sorted the cards into groupings of six apiece, and gave each group its own palette:
Don't adjust the resolution on your monitor; these aren't blurry versions of the finished cards! They're just rough mockups to plan out what colors will be used where. (But if you peer closely enough at them, you might be able to guess what a few of them are . . .)
Rather than try to say something about this myself and botch it, I'll just quote (with permission) A.C.'s comments during our discussion:
I grouped the cards primarily by color scheme and element. We have a set of six red/fire cards, followed by six green/plant themes, and so on with blue/water, brown/earth, and lavender-grey/air. Then the last couple sets (including the special character cards and the clan cards) mix it up a bit. It helps me make sure the colors are distributed fairly evenly across the whole deck. But you're both absolutely right, it was also to help set up repeating motifs, elements and shapes.
A super clear example is The Peacock's Web, House Vargo, and The Kindly Spinner. There seemed to be a through line from Varadi, the clan associated with crafters represented by a spider, to Vargo and Peabody/Alsius with their deep connections to textiles and arcane magic, which in turn connects to The Peacock's Web, representing secrets and riddles and, of course, spiders again. I wanted to suggest the relationship across all three cards using color and shape. So all three repeat a dark, bejeweled purple/blue/green color scheme as well as diamonds and arcing lines that suggest loose threads, draping cloth, or webs. Maybe you or Alyc picked up on all this already! I just wanted to nerd out about it for a second haha. This kind of work reminds me of something I enjoy about making comics, setting up separate panels and images to relate to each other even pages apart. It really was fun trying to visually weave (heh) together the threads of this rich world you created.
So this reinforces one of the things I've mentioned before, the way we're trying to set up links between the cards which someone might draw on in their reading, finding a resonance between two positions in a layout because of some resemblance in the art. Sometimes that's overall compositional balance -- a single focal item at the center, or a diagonal layout -- while other times it's motifs, like the repetition of birds, or the sun, or cord/rope. Color organization gives us another system that cross-cuts the threads themselves, making the whole thing, as A.C. said, more interwoven.
We're not yet to the fully painted cards yet, though. When we next circle around to A.C.'s corner of the work, I'll be sharing some of the inked drawings -- the point at which you can properly begin to see the compositional detail!
--Marie
We'll be Guests of Honor at BayCon next year!
over 1 year ago
– Tue, Aug 06, 2024 at 12:28:42 PM
Mark your calendars: M.A. Carrick will be the Author Guest(s) of Honor at BayCon 2025!
This will run from July 4th-7th next year, in Santa Clara, California -- part of the San Francisco Bay Area -- and it’s doubling as Westercon 77, so we’re doubly excited. It’s going to be rare for me and Alyc to get M.A. Carrick gigs of this type, since we’re kind of one GOH for the price of two, but given that we’re both local to the area, the con isn’t on the hook for two airfares.
And ohhhhh, do we have plans for this event. You see, once upon a time, we intended to have a big ol’ launch party bash at the World Fantasy Convention for the release of The Mask of Mirrors. Unfortunately for us, that release was originally scheduled for . . . November 2020. Yeah, that didn’t happen. Nor did it happen on the delayed release date of January 2021 . . . nor the publication of The Liar’s Knot in December 2021 . . . nor even for Labyrinth’s Heart in 2023, which was the first point at which a launch event might have been even vaguely reasonable to consider.
So it’s our intent to have that party at last! If you think you might attend BayCon next July, start planning your costumes and masks now, because we’re hoping to host some kind of fancy dress ball. (Separate from the convention’s usual costume contest, which we’ll be participating in as judges.) That’s in addition to the usual things you can expect from Guests of Honor, like readings and panels, and I might have some of my photography for sale!
Actual details will come much closer to the con -- I doubt we’ll be planning anything for certain until we’re at least in the same calendar year. But we are super excited by this, and we hope to see as many of you as possible there!
--Marie
