With the Kickstarter launching tomorrow, I bring you the last of our artists!

H. Emiko Ogasawara works in a dizzying variety of media: woodblock prints, pop-up books, ceramics, and more. I’ve known her for a few years — I think we met at the San Jose Worldcon in 2018 — and not only is she a great artist, but she has the kind of mind that digs deep into the context of the art; on the Discord server for our readers, she at one point asked about what type of paper-making is practiced in Vraszan, given that we talk about them having printing presses. Y’all know me; you know I love thinking through my worldbuilding in depth. Emiko managed to catch me flat-footed: I had not given so much as a moment’s thought to that question. But it absolutely delighted me that she asked!

We say in the story that pattern decks can either be hand-painted (for the fancy ones) or woodblock-printed (for those without so much money). Obviously we’re going more of a hand-painted style for the fronts of the cards, but for the backs, I really loved Emiko’s eye for design and attention to technology. In fact, she’s cut actual printing blocks for her backing! We’re not going to actually use them to print all the decks, of course — that would be wildly unfeasible — but she’s gone to work with carving tools and several stages of lino blocks to give the image that authentic look, which is above and beyond the call of duty.

As for her work in general, you can check out her website to see her range! For visual art, I was particularly charmed by this fellow:

And with that, you have met all of our artists! Tomorrow, we kick this Kickstarter into gear!

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Time for a peek at the second of our artists! As Avery Liell-Kok will be doing the Face and Mask cards in the upcoming pattern deck, the wonderful A.C. Esguerra will be doing the bulk of the deck itself: all the “unaspected” cards in each thread, plus the seven clan cards.

A.C. has a gorgeous style that meshes beautifully with Avery’s watercolors. When they sent in their portfolio, my eye was immediately caught by this image:

The vivid colors, the dreamlike feel without sacrificing crisp detail — it felt absolutely perfect for our deck. You can check out more of A.C.’s work on their website and see the range of styles they practice, but this is absolutely the angle we fell in love with for the project.

One more artist to come!

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In the lead-up to the launch our pattern deck Kickstarter, I want to give you all a glimpse of the art style to expect — starting with Avery Liell-Kok’s work!

I’m cheating a bit here because it lets me show off the painting Avery did as a gift for me. She asked for one of my favorite photos out of my own work, with no context; when I got to a certain point and then stalled out on trying to choose, she selected this one:

Her style lately is based on blind contours, drawing multiple times from a reference without looking at the page, and then watercolors over the line drawing. From my photo, she produced this:

My poor scan does not do justice to the details, believe me. And for a deck based in a setting with dream-related magic, the overlapping shapes and vibrant colors are perfect. Avery will be doing the Face and Mask cards for the deck, the ones representing Vraszenian deities — starting with The Mask of Mirrors, which you will see very soon!

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The problem with vacation is how much you have to hustle beforehand to get matters squared away, and then when you come back there’s a new pile of things you have to dig out from under.

But hey, at least the pile of things in this case includes author copies of several things! On Spec #124 is out now (and will be available at NASfic, for those of you who are going), with my Greek mythological story “Your Body, My Prison, My Forge.” ZNB Presents: Year One has been out for a little bit, but now I have my copy; you can find various buy links for that on the story page for “Crafting Chimera.” And the Department of No Really Your Book Is Real sent me my copies of Labyrinth’s Heart! So those at least are some bright spots in a sea of emails to be answered and revisions to be completed.

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I was so busy this past weekend that I failed to post on the day of, but Flash Point SF honored me by choosing my story “The Merchant With No Coin” to run on the 24th, which was National Flash Fiction Day! It’s a little snippet of folklore from the Rook and Rose setting, very quick to read.

I’m also pleased to say I’ve sold another story in that world to Scott Andrews at Beneath Ceaseless Skies! This one is a novelette set some years before the novels, a fun little heist that also ties in with some side details in the main narrative. It will be out in August, in time to whet your appetites for Labyrinth’s Heart on the fifteenth!

I’ll have some more stuff out soon, too, I think — not Rook and Rose-related, but other short fiction (and even my Very First Poem, whee!). It’s busy times around here . . .

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