I was recently asked by some cosplayers about the clothes in the world of Leviathan. Like, what color are they? After all, the illustrations are in black and white.
Now, luckily for you detail-oriented costumers, the Manual of Aeronautics will have a ton of full-color illustrations of uniforms, both Clanker and Darwinist. But I don’t want to start releasing art from that book a year ahead. Especially not with Goliath about to come out.
But when I said so to these cosplayers, they suggested the next best thing: outtakes from the cover shoot for the series. (For the new covers, obviously.) These photos, after all, show the clothes that the models were wearing in color!
So I said, Sure, what the heck.
First we have Alek:
And here’s Deryn in the same coat:
As you can see, they put both models into the same clothing. After all, there was only so much steampunk-appropriate stuff on the rack. So here they are in black leather:
Hah! Not only are they wearing the same jackets, but also the same ties! Note that the fur collar (which made it to the final) is just stuffed in there. It’s not part of the jacket, really. And the jacket’s too small for him, and too big for her.
It’s pretty weird, how much gets changed in Photoshop.
In any case, these are not by any means canonical Leviathan-world uniforms. Use them if you want, cosplayers, but for me it doesn’t count unless Keith draws it! For the real ones, you’ll have to wait till August of next year, when the Manual of Aeronautics comes out.
(Of course, these could be like the Ravenclaw tie colors that are wrong—er,um, different—in the movies. Alternate reality cosplay!)
And now for a couple of outtakes, because models are peoples too:
And this look totally didn’t work for Alek:
On that somewhat dorky note, we end this blog post. See you in a few days for Fan Art Friday (now totally weekly)!
Update:
The September 1 art reveal is tomorrow, Thursday! And it is a doozie! Don’t miss it.
Let’s start with some non-Leviathan stuff, as this site will be ALL Leviathan for the next two months or so.
First from the world of Midnighters, is Jessica Edge’s wonderful flame-bringer tattoo:
As you can see, it’s very faithful to the book. (And perhaps a bit fresh and ouchy-looking as well. Aloe vera!) That’s the second Midnighter tattoo I know of out there in the world. I wonder if there are any more . . .
And now a rare piece of The Last Days fan art. It’s Minerva, as interpreted by Spearare:
Appropriately seductive and mysterious, IS IT NOT?
And now from the Uglies world, we have a character from Extras. Nana Love as drawn by DolceCircee:
Very manga-liscious, which is entirely apt.
And another from the Uglies series, but from the absolute other end of the character spectrum, we have Dr. Cable.
WARNING: SCARY FACE!
WARNING: SCARY FACE!
WARNING: SCARY FACE!
WARNING: SCARY FACE!
WARNING: SCARY FACE!
Yes, rather intense. But great use of shading.
And finally, to recover from the scary, here’s some Alek and Deryn hanging out from Julia D (jurodo):
Heh. I’ve always suspected there’s a trunk full of dresses waiting for Deryn back in Scotland. But maybe she burned them all!
Okay, enjoy your weekend. Twenty-five days till Goliath. And only a week till the next (and final) art reveal!
Last weekend I did a long interview with Girls Read Comics Too about the Uglies manga. Devin Grayson, who’s writing the manga’s scripts, joined me and said some pretty interesting things.
Click here to read it.
And because links to interviews make for a boring blog post, I give you Croy, the manga version!
Note that this is untoned, and has no speech bubbles yet (they were spoilery!) but it does show you the fiery enthusiasm that is CROY. He’s the dude in panels 1, 2, and 4. And you can tell that he is CROY.
The girl with pig-tails is obviously Shay, the girl with shorter hair is Astrid Astrix, and the white-haired dude is Zane.
Wait, isn’t Zane’s hair pitch black?
Ah, but don’t forget, they are all still uglies at this point! (Heh.)
Okay, Fan Art Friday is in two more days. w00t!
And as a bonus, next Tuesday I’ll be posting lots of photos from this photoshoot . . .
Wha???
UPDATE: Hey, Forumers, how is the forum working now? Please leave your comments below. It should be okay now, with both steampunk stylin’ and functionality.
Here at last are the dates for my upcoming tour for Goliath, which comes out September 20.
As always: I’m very sorry if I’m not coming to your city/town/iceberg, but rest assured that this is NOT because I don’t love you all; it’s because you outnumber me.
Here we go.
TO PREVENT CONFUSION, TOUR INFORMATION HAS BEEN MOVED FROM HERE TO MY APPEARANCES PAGE. Go there to check on dates, times, and places.
Can’t wait to see you guys.
Welcome to FAFNLF, which of course stands for “Fan Art Friday—No Longer Fortnightly!” Given that Goliath comes out imminently, I’m going to do a FAF every Friday until I go on tour.
Now, I promised you tour dates in my next post, and you shall have them in great detail tomorrow, August 20. That’s exactly one month before the book comes out.
And now some arts. The theme of today’s FAFNLF is “Not the Usual Suspects.” That’s right, there will be no Deryn, Alek, or Tally! So let us begin with a bit of Newkirk fan art.
It’s called “Like a Boss,” from fellie220:
Heh. It’s good to see Newkirk mixing some attitude with his altitude. (Bada-boom.) And yes, after that Huxley crash at the beginning of Behemoth, he has some bragging rights.
Next is some cosplay from theonlybandgeek99 and her photogenic friend Renee:
So who is this contemplative figure, exactly? Onlybandgeek suggest that it might be Alek and Deryn’s daughter, who “steals her late father’s sword and her mother’s middie uniform.” (But when I first saw it, I figured it was Alek borrowing one of Deryn’s outfits for a little cosplay session of his own. Heh.)
From Braeden, here’s a cool Cyklops Stormwalker created in the game Spore.
Pretty slick, huh?
And waving goodbye from Not the Usual Suspects FAFNLF is Special Shay, from Serena:
Okay, that’s it until next Friday.
You: But I thought you said you were posting the Goliath tour dates tomorrow.
Me: Oh, right. I’ll definitely do that.
You: Are you sure.
Me: Um yes. Or Sunday.
You: Why can we not TRUST you to blog things when you say you’ll blog them?
Me: Because of my busy life! What with all the . . . tweeting and stuff. Look, it’ll be sometime this weekend, unless you’re in an Australian time zone, in which case it could be, like, really early Monday.
You: Pfff.
Yes, well. I’ve made it before the weekend ended. Fan Art Friday Fortnightly!
ComickerGirl has graced these pages before, but this is too funny to pass up. It shows Deryn and Alek doing some Full Metal Alchemist cosplay! Because you know Deryn would cosplay if she could, and would totally drag Alek along for laughs!
So I give you “Full Metal Darwinist”:
If you don’t know FMA, click here to see the relevant costumes. And then go read the manga and watch the anime (both of them!).
From Bridget, here are Alek and Deryn in a more clay-like form:
This is what we need, Leviathan stop-motion animation! Like Gumby, they could walk into other books and mess up the plots. Someone get on that! (And don’t forget to check out Bovril in the upper right corner.)
And now for you Uglies, from Seth, we have this painstaking rendering of New Pretty Town:
Hot-air balloons! Hovercars! Fireworks!
And from Star of Dusk, here’s a cool shot of Lilit:
I think Lilit is beloved of fan artists because she has such cool clothes. (Plus she’s awesome.) Her sleeve ties are the best. One day I’ll ask Keith where he sourced them from.
I’m pretty sure that IsabelStar has appeared on FAFF before, but this is so moody and lovely:
Click here for the bigness!
By the way, that one’s called “Austrian Princes Turning Gay.” Heh. But princes? Hmm.
Thanks to all our artists for your many efforts. If you want something included in FAFF, please send it to me, even if you’ve already sent it! (I get lots of mail and I lose track of some of it. It’s a thing I do. DON’T HATE ME.)
The next post on this blog will be ALL THE TOUR DATES. I’m very excited about seeing you guys soon (some of you *sniffs*), and about Goliath finally coming out. And I’m also excited about taking some time off after that.
What will I be doing next? Well, that’s an interesting question. There is, of course, the Uglies manga (aka the Croy Project) and the Manual of Aeronautics (aka the Leviathan Full-Color All Singing and Dancing Art Book). But there are also various secret projects which will be revealed here once they have taken some sort of publishable form.
Watch this space for revelations.
Good news: the Forums are working again! But as you can see the interface doesn’t look all Leviathan-y anymore, which is sad. We’re going to get that fixed, but I figured it was more important to make them work again before making them boo-tiful.
That was not scheduled maintenance, by the way, just a tech’splosion followed by some updates that we had to do anyway. Sorry for your withdrawal symptoms! I hope you spent the extra time learning French or something useful like that.
Better news: the paperback of Behemoth is officially out today! You may purchase it at better bookstores everywhere.
Okay, now for your manga questions! (All taken from the last comments thread.)
Do you know where you will be going on the Goliath tour yet?
It’s almost confirmed. I will be posting the tour dates soon! Most of you will hate me, but that’s the way it works, because you outnumber me and are widely distributed. (You should, like, all clump together.)
People on the west coast will certainly be happy, and some people in the middle too. No plans for anything outside the US yet, but I will be doing something in Australia this next southern summer. (If you’re Brazilian, write my publishers and demand me! I want to go to there.)
Any particular reason you chose left to right instead of right to left?
This is original-English manga, which are usually read from left to right, cause that’s how we English speakers roll. I read both ways without much bother, as I’m sure most of you do, so I didn’t actually think about it.
Regarding the Uglies light novel in Japan- did you try to branch out and make the characters look different from that one?
My artist never saw those editions (even though he’s in Japan), so we weren’t starting with those characters at all.
Where can we buy this manga?
AT ALL THE STORES (that sell manga or graphic novels) and on the usual internets. The publisher, Del Rey, has very wide distribution in stores, schools, and libraries, so it should be pretty easy to find.
Do you know when they’ll be available in stores?
May 2012. That’s as specific as I have so far.
You should, like, give us a slight sneakity-peakity every so often. Just enough to make us want it more, you know?
Yes, I do know. And I WANT you to want it more.
Luckily, there are lots of pages to show.
How, if at all, do you think the creation of this manga will influence the making of the movie? Do you think the casting director will try to chose actors based on their appearance in the manga, etc.?
Casting directors will probably pay no attention. With actors, it’s more about stuff like fame and chemistry and salary. But I have sent manga pages to Lola (the vfx company involved with the Uglies movie), and they’re doing “pre-visualizations” now, so it’s possible that the architecture and tech in the film will be influenced by Steven’s work.
There’s no concerted effort at consistency, however.
So….which big announcement was the Croy project?
The manga! As one of the original Crims, he’s in volume 1 quite a bit. Do you want to SEE HIM?
Anyway, will any pages be in colour, or is it all going to be in black and white?
Just black and white and shades of gray.
I honestly pictured dorm uniforms having a plaid kilt EXACTLY like the one in the illustration! Maybe someone important read my fanfic…JK LOLZ.
Yes. We ALL read your fan fic. And, yeah, manga is all about school uniforms.
What IS manga, anyway? What sets it apart from plain old comic books?
Well, as someone pointed out in the comments, “manga” is just the Japanese word for “comics.” Here it means, of course, comics in a style that started in Japan but that has become global in reach and influence.
Steven has done both manga and western comics, and co-created Tokyopop’s Pantheon High with his wife, Megumi. (He pencils, she inks.) And like I said, he lives in Japan. And our toner, Yishan Li, hangs out a lot in Edinburgh, but does loads of manga for Yaoi press in the US and has been published in China as well. (SINO-SCOTTISH MANGA!)
But the reason I thought manga would make sense for Uglies is simple: manga has a set of codes for dealing with beauty that western comics do not have. And most of these codes match up with the pretty operation in the books.
Like, big eyes, anyone?
Pretty! (Whether or not you’re into purple hair.)
There’s a wonderful thing about text-only novels: you make things happen with words alone, so you can convince your audience of all sorts of things that would be hard in a movie.
For example (*SPOILER ALERT*), in the The Last Days I write about a band that rocks so hard that they can call up giant monsters from the underground. Now, if you adapted a film of that novel, the band would have to ACTUALLY ROCK THAT MUCH, or it would be stupid when the giant monsters arrived. And even if the band rocked a lot, some people would still hate the film because they simply don’t like that sort of music.
But in a novel, you can just declare things and they become true (if you can write well enough, that is).
The same problem obtains with Uglies. In text, I can make you and your friend both think pretty Zane is wicked hot, even though you both have totally different tastes in lanky emo dudes. The power of the word!
On the other hand, when the movie is made, if you think the main actors cast as pretties are totally not pretty, or were way hotter back when they were “ugly,” it sort of messes up the reality of the story. (This is why I’m working with a facial visual effects company as a financial backer, so they will have a real-world motivation to get that stuff as right as possible, and we can do computery tricks with people faces.)
But back to manga. In most manga, “pretty” is a style: big eyes and sparkles. (Not that we’re going with sparkles, but you see what I mean.) Manga comes with a pre-existing package of ways to communicate beauty, even if your audience doesn’t all agree on what’s beautiful!
Remember when Hollywood used to do “ugly” by putting a fantastically pretty woman in chunky glasses with her hair in a bun? Her being unattractive was signaled by codes rather than actual unattractiveness, a polite fiction. (This, of course, created a generation who react to chunky glasses and hair-in-bun by saying, “Whoa. Hot!” But I digress.)
Anyway, that’s where I started from. We’ll see if this works.
And just so I don’t look dumb, let me say that I do realize that western comics have beauty codes as well. But they’re mostly kind of like this:
And I didn’t want to go there.*
_________________________
*Yes, literal-minded denisons of the internet, I KNOW that manga has sexy girls and boys as well. But I think the codes are genuinely different, and the manga ones line up better with the Uglies canon. The proof will be in the pudding.
The day after tomorrow, Tuesday August 9, is the release date of Behemoth in paperback! So Keith and I made this poster for you all.
Click here for a wallpaper-size version.
And now for some more exciting news: The Uglies manga!
For those of you who haven’t seen this elsewhere on the interwebs, my OTHER big announcement at Comic Con was the upcoming manga based on the Uglies series. I say “based on” but rest assured, this isn’t simply the same story in graphic form. Instead, we’re telling much the same story as in the novels, but it’s all from Shay’s point of view. (So who’s we, you ask? More on that later.)
Now as you Uglies scholars know, Shay taught Tally everything she knew. Shay was involved in subversive activities long before the novels open, and was part of the Crims back then they were an ugly clique headed by . . . Zane. (Ugly Zane!)
And remember how Shay and Zane almost ran away to the Smoke together, but they both chickened out? Well, that’s the story they told Tally. But what really happened back then?
In these manga—three of them, about 180 pages each–we will tell all!
Okay, we includes me, Devin Grayson, Steven Cummings, and Yishan Li. That’s right, there are four of us. Here’s what we all do:
Devin is writing the scripts. She’s written lots of superhero comics, including a ton of Batman titles, but I was won over by a miniseries she created for Vertigo called User, which is about the fantasy lives of gamers in the real world.
Now you may be thinking, “Why didn’t you write it, Scott? Arne’t you, like, a writer and stuff?”
Rest assured, I outlined every book in detail, rewrote some bits, and approved every word. But, seriously, I don’t know how to write comics scripts! And part of wisdom is knowing what you can’t do. It’s been amazing to see Devin adapt this story to another medium, and get into the mind of Shay. (A great learning experience that I may put to use one day . . . )
Steven is the artist for the series. He’s drawn many western titles for DC and Marvel, and manga books for Tokypop and Udon. He lives in Japan, and has worked bravely through earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear meltdowns. Again, I’ve paid close attention to everything, approving all the characters, costumes, technology, and the architecture of the Smoke, New Pretty Town, and other locales. Of course, Steven brings his own flair to the characters’ expressions and movements, and to the look and feel of the future. For me, it’s kind of like directing actors who have their own style.
Yishan is doing the toning and lettering for the series. In other words, she shades Steven’s art and adds the word balloons. Key steps, and ones I never really thought about much before this project. But you’ll see below how Yishan’s shading “lights” the scene.
Let me show you how this all works, starting with page 12 of the first manga.
We start with the script:
PAGE 12, panel one
ECU on Shay’s interface ring as she gently puts it down on a bedside table.
1 SHAY: Good night, stupid room.
Page 12, panel two
Pull back for our first establishing shot of Shay’s dorm room. It’s very small and very basic, the only truly decorative elements (IMPORTANT!) being huge software-generated pictures of Shay as a pretty taking up whole walls, larger-than-life and overwhelming (not all identical, though – some variations on the theme; some with weird plastic surgery, cat-like or whatever, but all recognizably Shay). Scott says wall screens are cheap tech in this world, so the images can be animated, changing between frames (though Shay would be used to this, so no need to draw undue attention to it, just let it give the visuals an extra futuristic kick). But these aren’t just projections, they’re mammoth, digitalized photo-posters.
There’s also a bed (see references at end of script), the previously mentioned bedside table with some kind of post-modern light, maybe a super utilitarian desk, and her hoverboard leaning beside a window just big enough for her to crawl through.
Shay has just put her interface ring down on the bedside table and is pulling down the blankets on her bed. She’s not dressed for bed, though, instead wearing her normal day uniform including her hoodie.
NOTE from Scott: we need one specific balloon shape (and maybe font) for objects talking. It can be fairly obvious and zappy.
2 ROOM/ tailless: Sweet dreams, Shay.
2 SFX: TOK
Page 12, panel three
Shay pulls off the parka and shoves it under the covers…
3 CAPTION/SHAY: Got the coat-interior set close to body temp…
Page 12, panel four
…before shaping it to look as much like a person sleeping under the covers as possible.
4 CAPTION/SHAY: …not perfect…
Page 12, panel five
Shay then grabs her hoverboard…
5 CAPTION/SHAY: …but neither are the sensors in this bogus dorm.
Page 12, panel six
…and climbs with it out the window with a brief glance over her shoulder.
6 CAPTION/SHAY: Sometimes I think they want us to sneak out.
END OF PAGE
Okay, first I take a look at the script and add notes or edit dialog. Then Steven reads it and emails me and Devin with any questions. Once everything is clear to him, he does very rough “thumbnail sketches,” which look like this:
At this stage, I approve things like the furniture and the general flow of the page. I love all the high camera angles and such. We’ve already discussed ugly dorm rooms, which are really basic, kind of like a rustic summer camp. And of course Shay and her dorm uniform have already been drawn a few times and approved.
With my blessing, Steven moves onto the pencils stage.
As you can see, lots more details have appeared. I still love the page, but I’m leery of the books on the shelves at first, because there aren’t a lot of physical books in Tally’s city. But Shay does take handwriting classes, so I can imagine her keeping a diary or maybe having some old-fashioned books around. Plus, technologies don’t completely disappear. There are people who still write with fountain pens, after all.
Speaking of fountain pens, the next stage is inks!
I don’t usually have comments at the inks stage, because everything has already been approved (and it’s hard to erase now, dude!). But that’s okay, beacuse it’s starting to look pretty real.
Next it goes to Yishan for toning and lettering. And thus we have the final version:
So that’s basically how it works, except with more emails between me and Steven and Devin (and our editor) than I’ve let on, plus lots of up-front design work on costumes and characters, x 180 pages for each book.
Phew.
But we are on our way, and the first manga will be out from Del Rey in May 2012. Of course, there will be lots of previews between now and then, especially after I get back from the Goliath tour.
Hope you like the look of things. Ask any Uglies manga questions you have below, and I’ll try to answer them in my next post.
Hey, I’m back from Hawaii. Which looks like this:
In addition to hanging by the pool, I saw a whale while kayaking (dangerous scale discrepancy!), inspected a volcano by helicopter, and braved a tiger shark alert several times. Plus, ate lots of pineapples.
Pics will be provided soon.
As you know may have noticed, the August art reveal was hosted by my pals at io9.com. For any of you who missed it, or wanted to comment on it here, check it out:
There’s lots more to discuss, given the exciting news at Comic Con, so I will be posting again soon.
As you can see, my website has had its first makeover in many years. This is to celebrate the fact that my first new series in years, Leviathan, comes out this autumn. (October 6, to be exact.)
Things may be wonky for a while as we play around under the hood. But I hope you enjoy the new look. Let me know what you think!
Click here to contact Scott Westerfeld.
Jill Grinberg
Jill Grinberg Literary Management
info@grinbergliterary.com
