One White Soul

One White Soul
Size: 12x18 inches
Medium: Watercolors
Prints & Original available -here-
Detail closeups -here-

Cover piece for The First Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle, that Tachyon Publications will be releasing soon (for real this time). Shows a scene that was taken out of the final draft of the The Last Unicorn, of a confrontation between the unicorn and one of her immortal rivals and fellow anachronistic mythical beast in a world that was rapidly moving forward and beyond magic, a dragon. "Little white soul," he calls mockingly to her when she speaks to him naively of the world.

First Last Unicorn sketch

Ready to paint! And I'm ready to sleep. Good stopping point for tonight

First Last Unicorn sketches

Well, many years ago (I think 2004ish), I did this painting, as well as a number of pencil drawings that were intended for a book by Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn. It was going to be called The First Last Unicorn, because it had many chapters that were taken out of the final version of the book, but which were interesting in their own right and as stand-alone pieces seemed almost like self-contained short stories. These chapters, as well as a few other previously unpublished stories were going to comprise the volume.

Unfortunately, the project never was published and I didn't hear any news for a long time. In recent months there has been mutterings of reviving it, and while there is still no set release for those original paintings and drawings I did, Tachyon Publications will be releasing another edition of that book, which they have commisisoned me to do a different cover for. I'll be paintpaintpainting furiously the next couple days because it's a very short deadline (Monday, eek!)

Meanwhile, here's a peek into my sketchbook.

Some initial thumbnail scribbles for general composition.

More detailed unicorn scribblings.

More detailed dragon scribblings, and some birds.

The final rough sketch, all the pieces from those previous sketches combined and tweaked and resized and rotated in photoshop.

On Computers, Productivity, and Unicorns

*grumble* Well, my new computer is delayed STILL. It was supposed to be shipped out on the 18th, but at this point it doesn't look like it will be shipped until the 28th at the earliest. Which leaves me very grumblesome.

On the bright side, without computer distractions I have been extremely productive. Can't scan any of the art yet, but I'm down to the last two zodiac paintings. There will be big pile of new stuff to upload once the new computer gets here. I might possibly be done with all of them by the time this mythical "new computer" ever shows up on my doorstep. So patience for your next fix of art -- this famine will definitely have a feast at the end of it.

Also, all pre-orders of The Art of Shadowscapes Tarot have now been shipped (up to 10 business days for US orders, up to 8 days for international, so if you ordered yours more towards the end of the pre-order period, it might be a couple of weeks before you see it yet), after a flurry of sketching all of the past two weeks, and marching many armloads of books up and down the two flights of steps from my front door to the street. Dana is convinced that I'm having him shuttle the same box up and down the steps each morning and evening as a thinly veiled ploy to exercise him.

And finally, I heard from a little bird that The First Last Unicorn book by Peter S. Beagle might actually see the light of day, nearly 5 years after I did that painting (and the series of pencil drawings I did for the interior as well). I had thought that the publisher decided to scrap the project completely when a long period of silence ensued completion of the art, but they contacted me last week to let me know that it would possibly be released early next year. I might be adding a few more pencil drawings for the additional stories that had been appended to the collection in the intervening years.

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