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Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Thousand Suns Art

I'll have some Thousand Suns-related posts coming over the next few days, but, for the moment, I wanted to share this piece of art Liz Danforth did for the upcoming Thousand Suns: Technology, which I'm hoping will be available sometime this summer. It's the opening illustration for the robots chapter and I was very pleased with how it turned out. Liz was a joy to work with and beautifully captured the slightly retro "imperial SF" vibe that inspired Thousand Suns. With luck, this won't be the only piece by Liz in either Thousand Suns: Technology or other future projects of mine.

©2012 Liz Danforth
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16 comments:

  1. Greyhawk GrognardFebruary 1, 2012 at 3:54 PM

    Very nice, but more than a passing resemblance to George Takei. Is that intentional?

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    1. James MaliszewskiFebruary 1, 2012 at 4:00 PM

      Not intentional, at least not on my end.

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    2. ARR PurcellFebruary 1, 2012 at 4:31 PM

      George Takei, but with breasts. Hey, it's the future, there will probably be more transgendered people than there are now; some of them will have robot friends.

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    3. Greyhawk GrognardFebruary 1, 2012 at 8:24 PM

      If those are breasts, they're rather... droopy. And uneven.

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    4. ARR PurcellFebruary 2, 2012 at 2:00 AM

      You're right, they don't exactly look like like they are naturally occurring.

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  2. Rob BarrettFebruary 1, 2012 at 4:04 PM

    Very nice. I need to buy me a Liz Danforth print some day.

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  3. TomFebruary 1, 2012 at 4:17 PM

    Wow, I really like that.

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  4. AnthonyFebruary 1, 2012 at 6:01 PM

    Liz is one of my favorite artists; I loved her work with Flying Buffalo.

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  5. John Matthew StaterFebruary 1, 2012 at 6:36 PM

    Nice detail on the robot.

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  6. Hipster DMFebruary 1, 2012 at 6:37 PM

    That looks cool but is that robot supposed to look incomplete or damaged in some way? It struck me like that with the exposed circuitry.

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  7. AnthonyFebruary 1, 2012 at 6:39 PM

    @Hipster DM

    That was a common style years ago. I recall seeing something like that in the old Magnus comics (especially in the skull-like head), and the exposed elements recall C-3PO.

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  8. James MaliszewskiFebruary 1, 2012 at 6:44 PM

    Anthony,

    That's right. Remember that this piece is an explicit homage to the SF art of the '60s and '70s. You'll find tons of examples of robots that look like this if you look at the cover art of sci-fi novels from that era.

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  9. Billiam BabbleFebruary 1, 2012 at 7:50 PM

    Liz D is the best! And yes, that robot is superb for the setting! :)

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  10. RobotFebruary 1, 2012 at 8:40 PM

    WHATUP HAN SULU

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  11. LizFebruary 2, 2012 at 10:13 AM

    No resemblance to George Takei was intentional. James suggested he'd like me to consider "varied and/or indeterminate ethnicities" ... as one of the few Asian faces we're accustomed to having seen in a science fiction setting, I suspect you're sliding over to that default.

    Droopy breasts??? Gimme a break, guys -- you're too used to all the plasticized supermodel porn stars. That "uneveness" is deliberate, since real breasts MOVE across the rib cage when one arm is thrust forward and the other is cocked back enough not to be seen in the picture.

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  12. buzzFebruary 2, 2012 at 10:39 AM

    Ms. Danforth is one of my favorite artists; it's wonderful to see new work from her! This pic more than anything else is selling me on Thousand Suns.

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