With WorldCon coming up, I wanted to do some soft promotion for The Sun Blessed Prince. There's no official cover art yet, and we're a bit too early to start any official marketing runs, but it seemed like a good opportunity to just quietly spread the word while I'm attending the convention.
I had the idea of making bookmarks showcasing some of the characters in the book. Two, in particular, made the final cut: Elician and Cat. These two are the heart and soul of The Sun Blessed Prince for a number of reasons. But that's a topic for a future blog post!
This post in particular is about the process of getting character art done.
First, I'll say it from the start, I was extremely fortunate to know a fantastic artist. Zaira, who goes by zairaalbero and whose portfolio and contact information can be found on her tumblr, and I had collaborated on some fan projects prior to me entering the book publishing field. I wrote and she drew, and I fell in love with her art then. I asked her if I could commission her for the bookmarks, and she did not disappoint.
The process of designing a character is never easy. When writing my book, I always felt an urge to keep things as vague as possible so that readers could fill in the blanks with who they felt fit the bill. Some key details, of course, are always included. But I'm a firm believer that if a reader feels a character should look a certain way: then the character is whoever the reader wants to believe they are.
I gave Zaira some basic details, then later a whole lot more details. She's a privileged beta reader who gave me some amazing feedback once the book hit the editing phase. She asked me for some actors or face casts that I could think of, and then added her own embellishments from there.
The end result was just fantastic. Elician's smile, Cat's uncertainty - both come across so well and make me feel like they're truly real. Seeing them made me feel as though they were real characters for the first time. Not just figments of my imagination. It was a startling realization, and I'm so grateful to her and her very talented hand.
I've added the character art to the main Sun Blessed Prince tab on this website, and I'll be handing out the absolutely gorgeous bookmarks to anyone who is interested at WorldCon in August.
Leftover bookmarks might be used as special gifts in the future too!
In any case, I'm very happy with how the bookmarks came out.
If you're heading to WorldCon, I hope to see you there. I'd love to give you a bookmark. :)
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