Keith and I have come up with the winning image concept, and it is SEASONALLY APPROPRIATE. And Keith has done such an awesome job with the art that as a bonus to the bonus, I’m going to write a piece of fan fiction to go with it!

Now, debatably this won’t be fan fiction, because I am not a fan of me, technically. (I mean, I think I’m fairly cool, but I AM me.) But if Middleman-creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach can write Middleman fan-fic, then surely I can also fanboy my own oeuvre.

Besides, I declare this piece non-canonical, so it has to fit SOMEWHERE in the endless fan-fictional definitional matrix. I’ll be posting both the story and the art on Friday, along with some fan art by you guys.

Oh, and starting next week, I will be doing a weekly Uglies Manga reveal from now till the first book comes out. We will start with the characters. Keep your voting hats on.

Okay, that’s it. Hope you’re having good almost-Hanukwanzamas-break times!

UPDATE

The Japanese version of Leviathan has just come out! Feast your eyes:

Okay, so the novels of Leviathan are done. Finished! We will probably have to wait for some major change in medium (movies? comics?) to see more stories from that world.

This is sad, of course, even though we still have the Manual of Aeronautics coming out next August! The Manual will have dozens of pieces of art showing the machines, beasties, uniforms, and equipment of the world of Leviathan. And it’s all in COLOR!

In the meantime, however, I’ve noticed that a few people felt like SOMETHING was missing from the trilogy itself. Like, they needed ONE last illustration of one sort or another for the series to feel totally complete. So Keith and I have decided to create a final piece of art to satisfy your whims. (Yes, we all know that your whims are infinite and will never be satisfied. But we can PRETEND, can’t we?)

We aim to please, after all.

So you will be voting on what this image should be, Keith will be drawing it, and I shall post it here as an early Hanukwanzmas present to you all!

After extensive research into comment threads, Westerforum discussions, and random reviews of Goliath, I have identified four illustrations that the Leviathan trilogy didn’t contain, that you most want to see:

1) Deryn in a dress.
Many of you have expressed a need to see this image, for a certain kind of closure, I suppose. After all, Deryn literally starts out the series by putting on boy’s clothes, so you want to see her come first circle. I doubt she would approve, but Alek would, so we’ll put her in a dress if you want!

2) Alek in a dress.
Because you just want this. Needless to say, Alek wouldn’t approve either, but it would be pretty darn amusing. And Deryn would approve!

3) The Kiss, but a close-up.
There were many complaints that the illustration of a Certain Event at the end of Goliath was from a SLIGHTLY wide angle. Some of you clearly want that image to be shown in close-up. I doubt that either Alek or Deryn would approve of SNOOPING, of course, but it’s not like they don’t do a lot of snooping themselves.

4) Bovril in a dress, or a goatee, or just doing whatever’s funny.
Everyone approves more Bovril, I assume. Including the wee beastie itself.

Vote for the one you want in the comment thread below. Feel free to use this space to cajole, debate with, and pressure your peers! (Despite what they tell you in health class, that’s what peers are for: pressuring!)

Also, if I’m missing anything, say so below. Write-in candidates are welcome.

It’s Friday and time for another FAF. This is the second of three FAFs dedicated to fan art given to me during the Goliath tour.

But the concluding tour-FAF will not be next week, because next week is CosPlay FAF! This is Halloween weekend, after all, so many of you will be dressing up. If your costumes are based on any of my books, please send them here! (Click the Contact button in the right panel, way down.)

And NOW . . . some fan art. My apologies that I don’t know/remember the names of the folks who handed these to me. Tour is a memory-melting experience.

These first three pieces were given to me in Kansas City, I think.

Yes, that appears to be a Twilight reference, plus there’s a bit of Full Metal Alchemist in there too.

Half Deryn, half Dylan! I’ve seen a few of these around the interwebs. Is it that you all want to see Deryn in a dress?

This was handed to me right before I went to the airport. THE AIRPORT, WHERE THEY LOVE IT WHEN YOU BRING IN STEAMPUNK GUNS. But it was made of plastic, so I’m not blogging from Gitmo.

This next one was done by the staff of the Wild Rumpus in St. Louis.

Wild Rumpus actually has a ferret named Ferdinand. And given Leviathan‘s hero’s father’s name, I demanded a bonding session with the beastie.

It turns out if you hold ferrets this way, they think you’re their mother and go to sleep. So Ferdinand is not dead, okay? Just resting. (Pining for the moors, maybe.)

This piece is from that very visit, and was one of those artsy kids who drew it while I talked, then gave it to me.

It’s very light here, but in person the lines were very beautiful and aerodynamic.

And finally, a bit of fanfic. Well, not fiction at all, really. More in the persuasive writing category. But you can see that this young wordsmith knows the value of repetition.

Okay, that’s it for this week. early next week I’ll give you guys a more formal tour report, with lots of numbers. It might be interesting. Or maybe not.

Don’t forget to send me your costume photos! And if you’re on FaceBook, you can also take a picture of yourself with one of my books and enter the Show Us Your Steampunk contest. Win the actual aviator caps and goggles from the cover photo shoot. Click here for details, or just to look at stuff.

Hey, all. It’s time for FAF(cake), the cosmic all-kissing edition of Fan Art Friday. I think this needs no explanation, because we all love cake.

Let’s start with Alek and Deryn, shall we?

First a tiny wee gif from UniYuki:

Awwww.

And here’s an eerily similar in style, but way bigger and non-moving, image from Ridgetail95:

She looks like the surprised one here, which tells a story. (Like, he’s figured out her secret and is like, ba-BOOM, and she’s all, “Wha??”)

That’s something I’ve noticed while trawling the interweebz for Dalek lip-on-lip action: every picture tells a story. Sometimes they’ve obviously been together for a while, and are just chillin’; sometimes she’s surprising him, and sometimes it’s the other way around, like the above.

Here’s a case of them having obviously known each other’s secrets for a while, from stkidd (who seems to specialize in kissing fan art!):

Go check out all of stkidd’s art. She has a great one of Deryn snoozing with a sketch of Alek. Heh.

From DanyDiSalvo, here’s one with the ever popular title, “Engine Grease.”

Pretty intense. (And seriously, I do see the title “Engine Grease” a lot. Is THAT what the kids are calling it these days?)

Here, from Miyu999, comes a more comical approach. Clearly it’s right before a battle (“Will we ever see each other again?”), and it also proves what I learned while writing this series: all scenes that feature Bovril are fundamentally awesome.

Note that we’ve made the all-important jump to Alek being on the left side of the frame! Is it just me, or do the vast majority of Dalek kisses have Alek on the right? Is this a geographical thing, like Austria is kissing Britain?

Seriously, HAS ANYONE ELSE NOTICED THIS?

And now an even more comical, in the sense of sequential comics, take on kissing from britata348. (Note that Alek is back where he belongs, on the right!)

And here’s a fanciful image from Art-BandGeek (who we’ve seen here before, but CAKE demanded a revisit) that actually is a bit like a scene from Goliath. (only in that Deryn’s wearing wings. But this was drawn BEFORE yesterday’s art reveal. Hmm.)

And yes, Alek on the right again. Hmm.

Are we bored of Alek and Deryn yet? Never!

But let’s have a slightly different take anyway, another lovely sketch from stkidd:

As the French say: Yowza.

All you naughty shippers, Dr. Barlow is married, you know, and had had two children by 1914!

And finally, one last Dalek kiss, a sweet one from MaiaBlackWolf:

Again, I say: Awww.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for all the kisses!

(Don’t forget: I’m going on tour soon. Check out my Appearances page to see if I’m coming anywhere near you.)

Yes, this is the last one. So I thought I would make it a really good one, even though this image is maybe just a BIT spoiler-y.

So if you hate to experience even the slightest bespoilment, I suggest you turn your computer off now and set it on fire. Then go live in the forest until September 20.

Have you done that? Good. Now I can reveal the September Goliath art sneak preview!

Would you like to see it zoomable? I think that you would. Click here to do so.

That’s it. I have no comments about this image (or its alarming caption). You may interpret it as you will.

See you tomorrow for Fan Art Friday, which will include CAKE!*
_______________________

*CAKE is an acronym. Real cake not included.

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.