WOME-art Wednesday

Here are three nice images that have reached me via the internets recently.  First, a fine Mortal Engines cover/poster by Kathryn Rosa Miller, aka Kate-Kyrillion on DeviantArt...

She writes:

Inspired by a great Abram Games poster, I wanted to create a front-cover-style piece for the wonderful 'Mortal Engines' by Philip Reeve...

This is a relatively bright and saturated version of the image... I think this balance works well for a poster image, but as a book cover I'd up the emphasis on the title and take the brightness of the city down.

So I'm glad to have finally done this. The only problem is that I'm going to find it hard to resist starting on a cover for book 3, Infernal Devices: it's largely set in the Traction City version of Brighton - my beloved hometown...

Yes please!

(As well as her DeviantArt page, Kathryn blogs on Tumblr here.  She has a good website too, with lots of images of Brighton, my old hometown. And her blog features lots of good stuff, including these great 1960s Puffin covers for The Hunger Games...)

Secondly, here's a gruesome but rather wonderful Shrike by Daniel Reuben Young:

And finally, I think this aviatrix is really a character from Ian McQue's own world of rusty sky-trawlers and airborne harbours, which has been unfolding for the past few years in the illustrations on his excellent blog. But that's a world that looks more like the WOME than anything else I've ever seen, and she'd make a very good recruit for the Green Storm's air-fleets, or possibly a young Anna Fang..

You can follow Daniel Reuben Young and Ian McQue (and also ME) on Twitter.  Oh, and the Clovenstone Goblins have their own Twitter feed now - so that's one to avoid.

Hallowe'en Goblin!

Hallowe'en is creeping up on us, and what better disguise to adopt for pumpkin parties than that of a Clovenstone GOBLIN?  Yes, you too could look as stylish as this...

Sarah McIntyre has very kindly created this fabulous downloadable King Knobbler mask to cut out and colour in.  If you follow this link to her blog you'll find PDFs in both A4 and A3 sizes.

Also new on Sarah's blog is her brilliant list of answers to Frequently Asked Questions.  It's pretty much essential reading for anyone who's interested in writing, illustrating or being published, and it's very entertaining even if you're not.

Meanwhile, here at Bonehill, autumn is drawing on.  The moor is looking beautiful as the trees and the bracken start to change colour, and Sam had his last swim in the lake the other day...

Sarah and Sam and I finally got ourselves down to Paignton cinema last weekend to see Paranorman.  It's a film I'd have wanted to see anyway, but it was of particular interest since LAIKA, who made it, are the production company who are planning to bring Goblins to the screen.  It's a brilliant movie, and highly recommended. There's something magical about stop-motion animation; it's a bit like watching toys come alive and move about on their own, which is a trick that all children can pull off in their imaginations, but which we tend to forget as we grow up - so it's great to go and see films that do it for us.  I've always enjoyed model-making, too, and admire people who can do it really well, so I loved all Paranorman's beautiful model sets and props.  Do go and see it if you have the chance. It's nice to know that the Goblins are in good hands...

Seawigs Marches On...

I'm still not sure this blog is loading properly - on my computer it sometimes seems fine, sometimes won't open at all, and other people have reported similar problems.

Anyway, if you can read this, here's a new work-in-progress picture from Seawigs, the book I'm doing with illustrator Sarah McIntyre (to be published in autumn 2013).

                                                                                               Sarah McIntyre 2012

It's going to be beautiful, especially in its two-colour hardback 'gift' edition (in the paperback the blue tones will be reproduced as grey, which still looks great, but the blue adds an extra zing).  It's very exciting watching it all take shape, and Sarah's keeping quite a diary of the illustration process over on her blog: this is episode 9, so you might want to scroll down to find the earlier ones.