(Yep. Gotta download for the full thing. I'll go back to making nice, web-friendly-sized illustrations, now.)

So...I have this guilty pleasure in the form of The Symphony of Ages fantasy novel series, by Elizabeth Haydon. It is absolute literary junk food, full of too much saturated fat*, refined sugar**, and artificial flavorings and colorings***, with no nutritional value****. Still...There is something weirdly addictive about them.

(To be fair, they're not among the worst books I've ever read; they're just among the most ridiculous. Haydon does manage to create memorable (if overstuffed) characters, a fairly interesting world (if somewhat inconsistent) and she puts together some decent imagery-heavy prose (even if she does feel the need to repeat herself over and over and over.))

So...Last month, I guess it was, I felt the need to reread all these books. And in doing that, I felt the need to draw, like...every character. Partially, this was due to feverish delirium brought on by my brain turning to mush from the books. Partially this was because I like an excuse to dust off the ol' anatomy books and study the vascular system. And a lot of this was jumping on the chance to get some practice in on character design for a fantasy series, here having the opportunity to do it for a book that has never been made into a movie (at least, not yet) and I could therefore work unimpeded by anyone else's visions; I got to work just off of the character descriptions from the books. Rock'n.

Yeah, my crazy fanartapalooza didn't stop with just doing character designs for the whole cast. I also found myself compelled to draw some dumb cartoons with a few observations on the series. No, none of this dialogue is from the book. I'm just paraphrasing.
...You don't have to actually do anything to make these books funny. You just have to summarize them. Heh heh.

(And...it's pretty obvious by now that I rather like this Achmed guy. He's the reason I read these books. I mean...he's a dryly sarcastic, kindof ugly guy who kills people. And occasionally eats them. That's sortof right up my alley. )

characters by Elizabeth Haydon, Tor Books
art (c) J. E. Seames 2008
(As per always, no using this for any purpose without my permission.)

* Too many superpowers.
** Too much sappy, and downright voyeuristic romance.
*** Plot holes, inconsistencies, and made-up languages.
**** Intended moral messages come across either as overly simplistic and preachy, or just nonfunctional. The philosophical overtones just don't hunt, dog.