.cover art: cesperanza's "Te of John"; fiercelydreamed's "Rebuilding Babel"

[aesc]

There are few pleasures in life so sublime as making art for kick-ass stories.

For cesperanza's very awesome Te of John and fiercelydreamed's also very awesome Rebuilding Babel. If you haven't read either of these yet, you really really should. I will leave it at that.






The vertical text is a selection from the Tao Te Ching, and the Chinese characters (God, I hope) are te (in red) and tao (in blue).



I've had this in my mind for ages, and it's gone through about three different drafts. I got the idea for it back during artword's Typographic Illustration challenge, and "Rebuilding Babel" seems to lend itself really well to anything having to do with broken, jumbled-up letters and words.

.extra notes: The very minimal texture work in the background comes down to two very awesome and handy stock textures by elli ♥ ♥

Comments

[unaccompanied-g.livejournal.com]

Oh! Oh, wow, these are gorgeous!

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!! :)

[amberlynne.livejournal.com]

You are so awesome.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

*huuuugs you all up!*

[unamaga.livejournal.com]

Oh, beautiful. I love the simple, clean look of the first one.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! "Clean" is not usually something I do :D

[newkidfan.livejournal.com]

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

[aesc.livejournal.com]

And I love YOU!!!! ♥

[sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com]

Wheeeeeeeeeee \o/

[aesc.livejournal.com]

*snorfles!!*

[cindyjade.livejournal.com]

you have such talent, lady! both of these are made of AWESOME.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Meeeep, thank you! :">

[pollitt.livejournal.com]

*applauds madly*

These are gorgeous. "Rebuilding Babel" is just... I'm in awe.

Amazing job.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you very kindly! :) :)

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. Oh, WOW.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Eee, thank you! :)

[tex.livejournal.com]

Both are gorgeous. The last one - wow. So imaginative and original.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!! :)

[dogeared.livejournal.com]

These are SO lovely, aitches! I love how spare they are, how the blank space feels as important as the images—affecting and beautiful!!

[aesc.livejournal.com]

*snorfles Jenns allll up!*

[sloganeer.livejournal.com]

These are both amazing. I love the crease in the paper of the first, and the second is just really really impressive.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! I think that particular piece of paper stock is now one of my all-time favorites :D

[tardis80.livejournal.com]

OHMYGOD AESC, HOW ARE YOU SO AWESOME?!!11!!!11! Seriously, these are both gorgeous and perfect for their respective stories. What a perfect use of typography. I am in awe.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

*flaps about stupidly* Thank you!! ♥♥♥

[d_odyssey.livejournal.com]

Wow, beautiful art, perfect for the respective stories. Love the spacing, characters and centering in the first and the shading and lettering in the latter. Very original and gorgeous.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I'm happy you liked them! :)

[sage]

These are both gorgeous beyond words. *stares and stares*

I think I love the second, especially, because I've always had a thing for impressionism and forms of art that rely on alternate usages of other media (a million tiny images put together to form a giant image, etc.). And I'm really hardpressed to love these more than I already do.

Oh! And also! Your use of color (so subtle, but so compelling) is fabulous. What a wonderful eye you have!

*adores adoringly*

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!!!

I used to do simple pen pointillism on actual paper with actual pen... The "Rebuilding Babel" cover is sort of the mouse-and-Photoshop version :D

[http://users.livejournal.com/tesserae_/]

These are both so, so beautiful, and capture the atmosphere perfectly...

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! ♥♥♥

[catvampcrazines.livejournal.com]

These are both just so gorgeous. I'm so struck by how serene the first one is, and the second one is amazing (not that the first isn't). Thank you for sharing them with us!

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked them! :)

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

These are both SO beautiful, and fit the stories so well. I really love the textures of the first one, and the juxtaposition of John looking away and Rodney looking at us. The second one is amazing.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you very kindly, Toft! ♥

[winkingstar.livejournal.com]

Those are both amaaaaazing! Such simple and yet powerful images.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! :)

[grammarwoman]

How do you DO that? Make such beautiful pictures and write so fabulously? *gazes in awe and wonder*

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! As for how... :">

MAXIMUM FLAIL.

[fiercelydreamed.livejournal.com]

If there had been anyone in my kitchen at around 5:30 tonight, they could've testified to the fact that I opened up your email and blurted, "Holy shit!" God, the RB cover just takes my breath away every time I look at it. The absolutely dead-perfect likeness, the fantastically spare design, the jumble of letters that I took to be random until I looked closer, the beautifully subtle use of color -- and this image feels how the story feels in my head, in a way I can't articulate properly. I have some very limited, now very outdated experience in graphic design, just enough that I understand the amount of talent and skill it takes to do something like that. Lady, you've got both in spades. I'd recently recalled the post where you asked for stories to do art for, where I'd offered up RB, and had been imagining somewhat wistfully what you might do for this story (as I fangirl your art madly). This is so much more gorgeous than anything my head had been able to concoct, and I'm so honored to have had anything to do with its genesis.

And the Te of John cover -- wow, it's just beautiful. The luminescent watercolor wash of both figures, the sense of space you create between John and Rodney, the dead-perfect incorporation of the text (god, I love how the title, the te, and the vertical text combine to create the feel of a ribbon, crisply tied and bowed, and the way the tao disguises itself as a shirt graphic).

Both images also demonstrate one of the things I love about your art, which is your use of texture to make these wholly digital creations feel like corporeal objects, with tooth and body to them.

I'm just going to page back to these every half-hour and gape for the rest of the night. That okay by you?

Re: MAXIMUM FLAIL.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

*flails stupidly* I never quite know what to say, except "thank you," which sounds incredibly, incredibly lame. But it's true, very deeply true, because I love and respect your writing a lot, and it's kind of amazingly awesome that you see something of the story in the art, which is always something I try for but can only hope I get right.

[not-sally.livejournal.com]

Freaking gorgeous.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

[mystisblom.livejournal.com]

These are just so cool, I love them!

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! :)

[gaffsie.livejournal.com]

These are both amazing. Beautiful, and more importantly, perfect for the stories they represent.

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! One of the fun things about covers is trying to figure out an angle of the story... a scene or a theme to play with, and these two stories are perfect for that sort of work :)

[ladyoflisquill.livejournal.com]

Wow! Both of these are amazing. Rebuilding Babel is one of those stories that redefined everything I thought fic was about. I'm not sure if I've read Te of John but knowing cesperanza's work I'll be popping over there right now!

[aesc.livejournal.com]

Thank you kindly! And you really need to read "Te of John," if you haven't... omg, it's amazing!

[villainny.livejournal.com]

You're kind of incredible, you know that?

[aesc.livejournal.com]

*flails incredibly!*