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Posts Tagged: Art

150,000 LEGO bricks, 1,700 figures, 160 pounds, 1 Helm’s Deep

By May 24th, 20131 Response
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Who doesn’t love LEGO? As a child with a strong sense of imagination, and a tendency to be happy enough staying indoors on a rainy day, LEGO was a door that allowed me to enter into an infinite number of other worlds. My time with LEGO and my time discovering Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings didn’t quite intersect, but they’re both formative parts of my childhood and adolescence. Hell, I have a LEGO set of Gandalf’s carriage, from the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring sitting on my desk at work right now.

Based on the layout of Helm’s Deep featured in Peter Jackson’s film adaptation, this 150,000 brick set piece is astounding. The artists, who go by the names Rich-K and Big J, apparently, nail the atmosphere and scale of the conflict of one Lord of the Rings most iconic scenes. At the time these photos were taken, the model was about 90% complete, with an estimated four months worth of work. The time, money and personal investment that must have gone into this project is impressive.

More photos of this LEGO Helm’s Deep can be found on the artist’s MOCpages post.

“Space: it’s not just for straight white dudes,” says Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

By May 22nd, 20139 Responses
Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel by Jacqueline Koyanagi

Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel by Jacqueline Koyanagi
Art by Scott Grimando

Okay. So, maybe I made up the quote in the title, it’s not from this book, but, well… it’s true, no? Just look at this awesome cover.

I think we can all agree that, in general, there is a lot of pretty awful Fantasy and Science Fiction cover art these days, right? Sure, there’s some great work being done (like this, or this), but there’s also a proliferation super generic, dudebro, fistbump, “Pass me my hood, brah”-style covers that do little to improve the mainstream opinion that Fantasy is for kids, or neckbeards living in their parents’ basement. Continue reading

Hand-modeled Maps of Westeros and Middle-Earth

By May 16th, 20131 Response
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I happened across these maps a couple of weeks ago on the Fantasy sub-Reddit (enter at your own risk), and they haven’t left my mind. So, like any thought that won’t escape, I felt it’d be best to set it free so I can move on.These maps are hand-made, and gorgeously textured. The map-fetishist in me (and, frankly, the ol’ Warhammer fan) is madly in love. It’s been discussed to death, but there’s something magically tangible about a good map, one on paper, or leather and hung on a wall, and I’d love to see how these models appear in person. Continue reading

Matthew Stover’s Acts of Caine arriving in the UK. Cover art (extremely) questionable.

By May 2nd, 20138 Responses
Acts of Caine by Matthew Stover

Orbit Books announced today that Matthew Stover’s Acts of Caine novels, beginning with Heroes Die, will be arriving, as eBooks only, in the UK for the first time. They say,

All four books in the Acts of Caine series – HEROES DIE, BLADE OF TYSHALLE, CAINE BLACK KNIFE and CAINE’S LAW – will be released digitally in the UK & ANZ on 27th May 2013.

This is good news for reading in the UK. I’ve not read the series (SHAME ON ME!), but they come highly recommended and the ebay prices for the earlier novels are, well.. outrageous. I should really sell my copies. Releases like this, eBook only, are a great way for out-of-print books to come back into circulation and find a new audience among those who previously couldn’t find (or afford) to read them. It’s also one of those fun times to think about the fact that publishers continue to try to convince the world that eBook publishing costs are similar to hardcopy publishing and distribution costs. The novels are already available as eBooks in the US and Canada.

But, can we please talk about these covers for a moment. I mean, I’m fairly certain that I’m being very specifically trolled by the art department at Orbit Books UK. Four hooded, bodiless men staring pensively menacingly at the reader, daring them to read what, underneath, must only be the most bro-tastic, grimdark, grimy, gritty, dudebro novels in the world? WTF. But, well, with a lineage like this, can I really expect any less?

Cover Art for The Very Best of Tad Williams

By April 30th, 20137 Responses
Cover Art for The Very Best of Tad Williams Art by Kerem Beyit

If you’re read this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that I’m something of an unabashed Tad Williams fanboy. He’s best known for his long (long, long, long) fiction, like Memory, Sorrow and Thorn or Otherland, multi-volume epics that would make most other authors weep at their length, but it’s often overlooked that some of his most finely crafted and powerful fiction is actually found among his shorter works. If this collection, coming from Tachyon, is, indeed, the ‘very best’ of his work, readers are in for a treat. The art on the cover is by Kerem Beyit, and is just lovely.