“Strangeling” includes 3 full page images and a map. I’m not great at getting a face from my imagination onto a blank page, so I learned some basic 3d rendering in Daz3d and then put the character illustrations through a bit of Photoshopping. I’m mainly a portrait and event photographer, so that was the easy part… Anyway here’s a bit of the story behind those pictures.
The first image is Rigs’ map of the river run plans. The “Twin Ports Free Strangelings” are based around Duluth, MN, and Superior, WI; Dusty is stuck with her family for spring break in her hometown, Stinkwood (know as Cloquet currently). The run has them drive down what are now minor highways and backroads down to St. Cloud and then canoe down the Mississippi River to Strangelingtown (currently the town of Elk River). Of course, Division 51 and Strangeling Brigade are based out of a prison there, so it’s a dangerous route, and one they only risk because getting small children through the monster-infested Edgelands is a lot easier by boat than on foot. And of course, they’ve got Coral – she’s water fae and can at least alert the team to dangers in the river, and influence its currents and eddies. The river route is not, of course, the only route to Strangelingtown, and the Underhill Railroad varies which way they take every time they conduct Runners to Freedom.
Arthur Hart is the hardest of my characters to illustrate, for some reason, and I don’t actually feel any of the pictures I’ve made is very good. He needs a mix of extremely fine sidhe features and an intensity with a primal, raw edge. Also, his ethnicity is mixed, and I’m not actually certain how to illustrate that.
Anyway, he’s really not doing great at the start of book one – trying to hold the remnants of his human self together and stay in control of the fae “monster” inside him, and he’s still grieving for the life he lost when he Changed. Plus, he’s pretty much the only one in his entire troop that really takes their job seriously – everyone else thinks being in Div 51/ Strangeling Brigade is more or less a death sentence, so why stress about it? Just try and make the best of things on the way out.
Anway, here’s Arthur in his off-duty army t-shirt, brooding about the terrible fate that left him hot and fae.
Aisling actually inspired this sort of stonewashed picture style, since it looks a bit like a wanted poster… I think of her more as Dusty, as she mostly thinks of herself, and was thinking about doing fancy fonts for each character’s name in the chapter headings. Wasn’t able to figure out the technicalities of that, but I would so have used the infamous “Bleeding Cowboys” font for her – it’s grungy, overly dramatic, and hopelessly stuck in the 90s. (I used it on like every Angelfire site I made back then; I thought it was AWESOME… as did everyone else, until it went down in history as one of the most over-used fonts ever created. Can someone make a similar font that’s like, more Irish? I’d use that in a hot second.)
Anyway, here’s Aisling in her inherited sidhe armor, off to hunt monsters, drink raccoon moonshine, or smuggle underage strangelings past a military unit whose captain has it in for her specifically.
Connor’s hilarious to write and I adore him, but a lot of his goofiness is coping mechanisms for severe trauma and probably PTSD. There are Bad Things in his past, but right now there are shiny lights and sparklies and maybe even a new lover or two? Earth is insane, but anything’s possible here, maybe even starting over, maybe even making a life again.
Anyway, here he is playing twink but looking dangerous anyway, because for all he plays at being the department screwup, he actually is pretty good at what he does. And of course, his life is about to get a lot more complicated… but he’ll finally get some answers to what destroyed his homeworld as well, and learn exactly how much danger his people are now in.
