Cover Preview for Uncharted!

I just received the mock up of my cover for Uncharted! I'm so pleased that Rhemalda used my painting of Marlena, the peculiar young waif who disrupts the life of shipwright Sam Wesley (funny how girls can be so disruptive). Over at Rhemalda's blog, they've written up a nice article on the cover and provides a synopsis of the novel (like you'd see on the back of a book).

Rhemalda's cover designer, Melissa Williams was wonderful to work with. 

Just five months until Uncharted is released, on October 1^st —this makes it finally feel real…

Another Version of Marlena

by Pascal Gentil

And here's the painting* by Pascal Gentil, that inspired my Marlena (the painting, not the character--she's all mine!) See how sneaky I am, not placing them side-by-side in the same post!


I believe this is an oil on some sort of plaster or rough canvas*. Gentil's other work is pretty amazing, but there's not a lot about him online, just an obscure Website. Beautiful and sensual work!*


This Marlena has a little more chin than I wanted, and although her hair looks a bit matted, that actually fits into the story. Todd voted for prettier hair, so I conceded on that!


*if naked bodies offend you, don't click on the link!


* Edited to say that I just found Pascal Gentil's Photography Website only to discover his "painting" is in fact a digitally enhanced photograph, which takes a great deal of talent and in no way diminishes my esteem of his work. Oh my, how I'd love to paint many of his subjects! And in a way, it makes me feel all the better about my work.

Marlena

I’ve been staring at a lot of UNCHARTED lately, which I’m pre-editing before Rhemalda’s editor gets a hold of it (I can’t believe how may times I wrote ‘he knew’ or ‘he thought’ or ‘he watched’—Egad, you’d think I never read a writing blog in my life!)


Not only have I been focusing endlessly on my MS Word doc, but to keep me motivated, I have an amazing painting* of what UNCHARTED's Marlena looks like, by Pascal Gentil. His version is perfect, really, but the more I stared, the more I wished I had a painting of my own—and I haven’t painted in a long time, so I decided to give it a go and produce my own rendition of Gentil’s painting*. I’m posting the process over on my art blog—Unsupervised & atLarge. I actually finished it, so I’m posting my completed watercolor here. Next week I’ll post Gentil’s painting*. I like this one very much, but when I compare it to his, I still kinda like his better. Maybe mine will grow on me…


* Edited to say that I just found Pascal Gentil's Website only to discover his "painting" is in fact a digitally enhanced photograph, which takes a great deal of talent and in no way diminishes my esteem of his work. Oh my, how I'd love to paint many of his subjects! And in a way, it makes me feel all the better about my work.