Monday, December 5, 2011

From the desk drawer: Alternate Goblin Fruit art!!



Morning!

The other day I showed some stuff I found while cleaning out a desk drawer. Here is some more stuff that was in there: alternate art for Goblin Fruit, the first story in Lips Touch!

Hopefully you have seen the final art in the actual book. It is gorgeous beyond anything. That artist is just so talented! (If you are new around here, that artist is my husband, Jim Di Bartolo! And also, Lips Touch is my last book before Daughter of Smoke and Bone; it is fully illustrated and makes a great gift, hint hint :-)

But it is so fun to see this, the very first stab Jim took at it, with which we pitched the book to the publisher. As you can see, it is more whimsical and stylized than the book ended up, plus which we had not yet hit on the concept of "prequel art." Originally we imagined a traditional illustrated book, with art plopped in wherever we felt like it. And there is nothing wrong with that, of course, but I think the way it ended up is so cool and unique. 

Still, I really love this art. 


Title page:





Kizzy:

The hair! The anvil! The billy goat! The peacock! The ax!




Another version of the same scene as above, naughty girl is smoking:





Kizzy's weird family. I love this. Loooooooove.
See the pouch around her father's neck with his finger bones in it?
And the aunts smoking pipes, and the children racing around?

So good.




Look at these faces! The text description was, I think: 
"lots of hairy blue-eyed uncles with old beautiful guitars." 
Something like that.

 


I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

Writers should marry illustrators. They're so handy. And in Jim's case, also cute.


Next time I'll show you yet another stash of unused Lips Touch art,
for Spicy Little Curses, in yet another style.


Cheerio!






12 comments:

Serena said...

That art is AMAZING. It compliments the story so nicely. I need to get me a Jim, for realsies. There should be a match-making site for writers and artists to couple up and make beautiful creations together.

Connie Onnie said...

I particularly love the chest hair.

persnickety_jen said...

The hairstyles particularly remind me of Chris Riddell's work on The Edge Chronicles, which is awesome. Those are some epically hairy men, haha!

June G said...

I loved Daughter so much I had to get Lips Touch,Blackbringer and Silksinger. They're all on the shelf, waiting for me to dig into them. A friend saw that I had them and asked where I got them because she was looking for Silksinger. When she went to Amazon, it was sold out! Looks like I got the last one--at that time...hee hee hee...

Jillian Schmidt said...

This post is especially eerie/amazing for me, because I just read (and ADORED) Lips Touch yesterday. It's really cool to see how the illustrations evolved. I especially love the dramatic long hair with a mind of its own that shows up in both versions. I can't wait to see more of your desk discoveries - thanks for sharing!

Cristina said...

Lips Touch made me fall in love with your writing. Your imagination and story telling abilities are out of this world.

I agree with writers needing to marry Illustrators. I myself married one. At least one of us has made it , he's amazing and does book covers (www.dandossantos.com, in case you know, you wanna check him out).. maybe someday, someday, he'll get to do a cover for me.

Your husband is super fabulous himself, I LOVE the illustrations in Lips Touch. So awesome that you guys got to collaborate :)

Kristan said...

Love love love! Jim's illustrations are the reason I'm buying the hardcover (even though I've already read my friend's copy and even though I'm poor). I can't wait to see the other drawings! Thanks for sharing your little "extras"/goodies. :)

Kathryn Rose said...

Holy cow, the faces have so much character in them! I could look at them all day and wonder about who they are.

Tom S. Figueiredo said...

Hi, Laini. These illustrations are really amazing. I’ve read about LIPS TOUCH at National Book Foundation website. Your book was finalist in “Young People’s Literature” category. Why there is no Kindle version of Lips Touch? Thanks!

Laini Taylor said...

Hi Tom! There is a Kindle edition. Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Lips-Touch-Three-Times-ebook/dp/B002TSZD6W/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

:-)

Kate said...

I haven't read Lips Touch, Three Times, I clearly need to! :)

Bets said...

I love this. It is amazing to see the same thing imagined in other ways.

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