failing with ambition

This is really rough and actually about a year old, but in honor of my reread of Elizabeth Bear’s exceptional Range of Ghosts in preparation for reading the undoubtedly exceptional sequel (Shattered Pillars), I thought I’d put it up on the internet as a placeholder to the proper Samarkar piece I have in my head.

Because I owe her, of all of the characters in that book, a proper piece.

One could be content. …Content in a life devoted to the pursuit of perfection and the compassionate understanding that is is unattainable.

She was what she was and what she would be. She was imperfect and full of striving. And that would be all right.

matociquala:

SHATTERED PILLARS release day! Get it while it’s hot!

My preordered copy is in the maaaaail~

(guys guys guys look at this Donato cover. I saw it finished in his studio and somehow restrained myself from stealing it. It was not easy.)

To two different comments on two different pieces - thank you. I’m sincere when I say it means a lot to me.

And to those of you who have followed me in the last week or two - thank you as well. This blog is a collection of Things I Like and it makes me happy that people seem to like them too :D

matociquala:

The mighty Donato posts some early sketches for the SHATTERED PILLARS cover, and a finished version. Also, a Ghenghis Khan portrait.

I have seen the original of the finished version of the first sketch. I spent… a long time staring.

bluecohosh:

donato giancola

This really hasn’t stopped being my favorite Donato piece since I first saw it.

Also, the book it covers is pretty fuckin’ rad, too. Non-Western fantasy with some of the most incredibly capable female characters I’ve read in… a long time. It is called Range of Ghosts and you should read it.

(I’m going to cry because I bought the book the moment I could and the second one’s not out for months and months and months and the third isn’t actually written yet and this is why I don’t read in-progress series if I can help it.)

Whiskey and Water

Oil on board, 12”x16”

I really like this painting, guys. There are problems with the structure of the light that my professors all pointed out, but… yeah, no, I love how this came out.

maasslitagency:

ELIZABETH BEAR - RANGE OF GHOSTS - AVAILABLE MARCH 27, 2012

Temur, grandson of the Great Khan, is walking away from a battlefield where he was left for dead. All around lie the fallen armies of his cousin and his brother, who made war to rule the Khaganate. Temur is now the legitimate heir by blood to his grandfather’s throne, but he is not the strongest. Going into exile is the only way to survive his ruthless cousin.

Once-Princess Samarkar is climbing the thousand steps of the Citadel of the Wizards of Tsarepheth. She was heir to the Rasan Empire until her father got a son on a new wife. Then she was sent to be the wife of a Prince in Song, but that marriage ended in battle and blood. Now she has renounced her worldly power to seek the magical power of the wizards. These two will come together to stand against the hidden cult that has so carefully brought all the empires of the Celadon Highway to strife and civil war through guile and deceit and sorcerous power.

Buy RANGE OF GHOSTS! 

Visit Elizabeth Bear’s Website

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Reblogged with equal passion and furor for the author and the artist.

(via matociquala)

Hell and Earth

Oil on masonite, 12”x18”

The photo isn’t very good, but I quite like this painting - not least because of the Herculean feat that is making Elizabethan men’s clothing look not stupid.