Friday, August 27, 2010

New Project: Recovering the Hero

Recently (as anyone following my twitter or facebook may realize) I have fallen in love with a fantasy book series: The Lee and Taro series (sometimes called the Heroes series because of the titles) by Moira J. Moore. These books are wonderful ‘light’ fantasy in a believable world with believable characters and I have been devouring them ever since Felicia Day mentioned them on her blog. (I figured, having a similar sense in humor, she would be a good person the book stalk.)

Almost everyone familiar with the books can tell you that the cover art is terrible. It is inaccurate to the characters within, plot elements, ect. AND they are just unattractive in general. (Really, google it! I don’t even want the pictures on my blog!) Honestly, I have been thanking various deities that the books are small mass markets because it makes them easier to hide from customers, friends and enemies. Carrying around these covers with me is actually mighty embarrassing!  Especially for someone who is usually carrying around the prettiest copy of a classic novel she can find.

Luckily, today I remembered that I am an artist. Not only that, I have recently been a student and worked in libraries, I have a pretty good idea of how to construct a durable book jacket. In case you cannot see where this is headed, here, I’ll spell it out: my next art project will be to make new covers for these books to my own liking! I will probably make a PDF of some sort (with folding instructions included) so others can print them out for free as well, if they like them. I may do this for other poorly cover-illustrated books in the future, now that I have overcome my fear of the fantasy and scifi mass market section at Boswell’s.

Anyways, that’s the plan. This probably means I WILL be updating Bombshellcat Studio again in the near future with concept sketches and the like.

Cheers,
C. 

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Covers I Like Better Than The Original Song

Confession: I love making lists. Somehow, even though they rarely are on the subject of anything useful, they give me the illusion of being a very organized person. (I assure you this is only an illustion, unless we are talking about my personal library.)

This morning, as I was listing to some Pomplamoose on YouTube, I started thinking about cover songs. Hence this list, as entitled above, in no particular rank/order:

(links to video/songs, enjoy!) 

1. Pomplamoose - Mrs. Robinson
This is the song that started the list. Nataly Dawn's voice just makes it for me.

2. The Sundays - Wild Horses
I am not sure WHY I like this more than the original, actually. I just do. (Maybe because it was on Buffy? Am I really that shallow? Well, yeah, probably.)

3. Tori Amos - Strange Little Girl
At this point on the list I am beginning to notice a trend: most, if not all, of my favorite covers are female vocals covering a song originally with male vocals. This song is a favorite of mine in either version, but Amos is preferred because of the haunting quality of her voice.

4. The Greencards - 50 Ways To Leave Your Love
Specifically? I like ladies covering Paul Simon. Seriously though, this group brings a force to the song I really find entrancing.

5. Sara Radle - Sweet Talkin' Guy
Sweet Talkin' Guy (Chiffons cover) by SARA RADLE - new song from upcoming record posted!
What?! Female soloist covering female group?! I am actually not sure if I like this one more than the original. Equal if not superior.