[Malazano]

First version of the cover illustration of Gardens of the Moon, by Marc Simonetti. According to the artist, it is not finished yet.
Really awesome!



There is also a making of

Making of

[D'rek]

Tayshcrenn is looking fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine

[QuickTidal]

D, on 19 January 2018 - 05:04 PM, said:

Tayshcrenn is looking fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine

He looks quite Groovy!

[Abyss]

Now it's bothering me.... were Calot and Hairlock on the hill with Tattersail before the sorcery enfilade kicked off?

...or is that a very loose interp of SisNight, Bellurdan and Akaronys or Tays...?

[D'rek]

Abyss, on 19 January 2018 - 08:49 PM, said:

Now it's bothering me.... were Calot and Hairlock on the hill with Tattersail before the sorcery enfilade kicked off?

...or is that a very loose interp of SisNight, Bellurdan and Akaronys or Tays...?

Tattersail, Calot, and Hairlock were all on the 3rd hill together. Nightchill, A'Karonys and Bellurdan on the second hill. Tayschrenn alone on the first (well, he might have had some assistants with him, but no mages with him).

[Corporal Nobbs]

This is awesome news. Marc Simonetti is one of my favourite artists. So happy he's doing some Malazan covers.

[Dolmen 2.0]

D, on 20 January 2018 - 05:29 AM, said:

Abyss, on 19 January 2018 - 08:49 PM, said:

Now it's bothering me.... were Calot and Hairlock on the hill with Tattersail before the sorcery enfilade kicked off?

...or is that a very loose interp of SisNight, Bellurdan and Akaronys or Tays...?

Tattersail, Calot, and Hairlock were all on the 3rd hill together. Nightchill, A'Karonys and Bellurdan on the second hill. Tayschrenn alone on the first (well, he might have had some assistants with him, but no mages with him).

So this is likely tattersails group we're looking at on the third hill?

I like it so far!

I like how much depth he managed to get into the image, I wonder how he'll detail moon spawn...

Edit:

Just realized the figure in red is a bit too...slim to be tattersail. None of those guys look like Bellurdan so Tayschrenn it must be.

This post has been edited by Dolmen 2.0: 20 January 2018 - 10:25 AM

[Puck]

Love the image, just not happy at all with Tattersail... What's so difficult at communicating that she is fat? And I am putting that at the feet of the publisher.

Edit: And before anyone goes "But artistic considerations!" I think the image would actually work better with having Tattersail look as described rather than a stick in the wind. She looks like made of putty compared to how solid and cool everything else looks.

This post has been edited by Puck: 20 January 2018 - 12:22 PM

[Corporal Nobbs]

He has stated in the thread on facebook she will be 'plumper' in the final version.

[Adhara]

I love the whole image (Tattersail's issues accepted, of course). It makes us see the scale of Moon Spawn, how big is it and how dwarfed the army must appear compared to it. It's difficult to convey sizes in writing, and our imaginations are sometimes poor sighted. As in The Lord of the Rings, readers need imaginery to help us see the huge mountains, the distances, the landscapes.

[Abyss]

Morgan Lefay, on 23 January 2018 - 04:44 PM, said:

I love the whole image (Tattersail's issues accepted, of course). It makes us see the scale of Moon Spawn, how big is it and how dwarfed the army must appear compared to it. It's difficult to convey sizes in writing, and our imaginations are sometimes poor sighted. As in The Lord of the Rings, readers need imaginery to help us see the huge mountains, the distances, the landscapes.

I like that part too. On intro it's hard not to think of Moon's Spawn as the tropetypical 'flying castle' from various fantasy mediums, but it's meant to be a full blown massive city.

[worry]

To me it's easy. When I want to picture something that massive, I just imagine my brain.

[Gorefest]

A tiny speck floating in a massive cavern?

[worry]

[Malazano]

The final version



By Marc Simonetti

[Abyss]

DAMN.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 01 February 2018 - 05:30 PM, said:

DAMN.

Yeah that's awesome. Tattersail even looks perfect.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 01 February 2018 - 05:48 PM

[amphibian]

That's absolutely amazing and is up there with Komarck's work as the best art interpretations of GotM.

[Aptorian]

Amazing. Though, if we ignore the rule of cool when painting pictures, I'd imagine that you wouldn't position mages in the middle of an entire legion of soldiers before a mage battle.

For some reason I always imagined the Siege of Pale having the mages standing spread out wide on a big open field, far away from the main army and city, maybe with, say, 20-50 soldiers guarding them in case something teleports in close.

What I really like about the picture though is the depiction of Moon's Spawn. I think this is the first time I've seen an artist really capture the looming presence and emanation of power from that floating fortress.

This post has been edited by Alternative Goose: 01 February 2018 - 06:16 PM

[amphibian]

The opening of Gardens of the Moon specifically says Tattersail is beloved for her protection of the soldiers from direct magical attacks. If the army is incinerated, the mage cadre cannot occupy a city or control/transform territory.

So the mages are mostly embedded into the soldiers for mutual protection.