Cyrene & Argel Tal Artwork

Someone sent me this a couple of hours ago, prompting me to head on a very short Google search, for Noldofinve on Deviant Art.

I’m in love with this. It’s Cyrene and Argel Tal. It’s like… actually them. And it’s perfect.

It’s also now my desktop background while I write Betrayer, which is pretty apt considering where I’m at in the story, and what Erebus and Argel Tal are discussing. Ho, ho, ho…

It’s really, really, really strange to see your writing having an effect on people. In the handful of years since I started – I’m still pretty new to all this, remember – I guess I was prepared for some of the awesome comments online,  and the reviews, and the chatter at signings and conventions. That doesn’t devalue any of them, it’s just that all that stuff was easier to imagine because it’s considered a perk of the trade. (Incidentally, I’m often cripplingly uncomfortable and anxious at signings, and do my best to disguise it, so I don’t consider it a perk. I consider it terrifying.)

Same with minis of my characters – I’ve seen so many killer conversions of Talos and co. but you almost expect it, given the passion of readers and hobbyists, when there’s a nebulous realm of overlap between the two.

But actual artwork of my characters? Someone cared enough about my head-mess to capture them outside of converted plastic? Sort of mindblowing. And this perfectly captures the soul of those two characters, at least as I imagined it. On a similar note, I’ve seen tattoos people got based on my work, like, in a language I freaking invented. That’s terrifying, too.

But in a good way.