Guest Spot: Grace Duncan

The week after St. Patrick's hopefully brings recovery from the Irish Flu (yes, i fell victim!)  To help that recovery along, we've got Grace Duncan here today.  And she's sharing some of her pretty, pretty boys.  That makes everything a LOT better!  And by a LOT i mean somewhat NSFW ;-)

Read on for more:

Fanart and fanfiction.  Two of the most hotly contested items when it comes to media.  It seems to evoke a love it or hate it reaction with people. 

I am one of those that loves it.  I have read it a lot of it – some good, some not so good, I’ve written it and it can be a wonderful outlet for creativity.  It was the stepping stone I needed to get my own writing in the right direction and I learned a lot about it and improved in many ways through it. 

I am also a firm believer that fanart and fanfiction is the biggest compliment someone can pay an author.  To know that I have moved someone to draw one of my characters or want to write one because they want more of them is nothing short of an honor to me.

I have been the recipient of fan art, already, for the Choices world.  My own husband (who goes by Rubiconn), who is a fantastic artist, has done art of Bathasar and Teman, some of which I even sent to Paul Richmond to use as reference for the fantastic cover that he came up with.  One of my favorites is of Bathasar and Teman about to kiss.

He has also done a gorgeous sketch of Cyrus and Nadir:

I am always amazed at the artistic ability of some people, my husband among them.  But he isn’t the only one who I have been the amazing recipient of art from.  Another that I offered to Paul for reference comes from Gaia77.  She did a couple of lovely pics for me for my birthday when I was just starting to write Choices.

I could not get over the emotion I saw in this pic.  It was just amazing to me then and still is, over a year later. 

Another lovely lady, known as Imlikat, has also done some lovely art for me for my story, also of Bathasar and Teman.  You can see those below:

And last, but certainly not least, is the incredible DemonDreams.  I was surprised with this and the color and detail simply leave me breathless.

Choices is not the first time that I have been gifted with fanart of my characters or stories. 

One of the first pieces of fanart I received for one of my characters is of Gylam, who you can read about in Interview.  I told my husband about him and before I knew it, I had this amazing sketch of him:

But that wasn’t even the first fanart I have been given.  I have, in fact, been gifted with fanart of… fanfiction that I have written.  I’d spent nearly three years on fanfiction before getting the gumption to write and submit my first novel.  One of the things that helped me do that is the encouragement of a particular friend of mine who was a huge fan of one of my original characters that I wrote into my fanfiction.  Seen here is Kenji, drawn by Gaia77.  He is from the series of stories I wrote called Changes, set in a friend’s alternate universe.

There are several other pieces from that same world, including one from my husband, two more from Gaia77, one of my version of Naruto’s Izumo and one of my Kotetsu.  There’s another of DemonDream’s lovely art of the two boys here, and two from Imlikat – with Kenji and without.

I have found myself the very lucky recipient of many different pieces over the years and every time I receive one, I am flattered and honored by it.  If you’d like to see a few more, you can check out the fanart from Illusion & Dream by Drawboy or the one from Imlikat, another from Drawboy done for my story Tonight, and still others for Static (like this one by Gaia77).

And if you’d really like a laugh, you can check out a couple of my own sad attempts at fan art, like this one or this one.  I find that I am much better at coloring than I am at the drawing part. 

I love fanart, love seeing other people’s ideas of what someone should look like and I do hope someday to come across fanart or fanfiction of my own worlds.  I think it is the highest honor a writer, filmmaker or mangaka can receive. 

Let me know which is your favorite! Tell me about art you’ve seen or what your opinion is of fanart for a chance to win a swag bag! I’ll be drawing the winner in about a week.  Thank you to Jessica for hosting me and thank you for stopping by and commenting!

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Blurb:

Born and raised a gypsy in the late eleventh century, Teman values freedom over everything. He and his best friend, Jasim, are thieves for hire—until one night they're caught and their precious freedom is revoked. 

Given the choice between the dungeons or palace pleasure slavery, they become slaves, but Teman vows to escape someday.

Bathasar doesn’t want the throne. He supports his brother instead, which suits their sadistic father, Mukesh. When Teman, the handsome slave Bathasar has secretly been watching, saves his life, Bathasar requests a slave for the first time. Before long, Bathasar and Teman fall in love. But all is not well. One day Mukesh brutalizes Teman before the court, angering the empress of a neighboring nation. To appease her, he then offers her Jasim as a gift, and Teman decides to stay with Bathasar for now—despite the abuse he may suffer.

The peace doesn’t last. Mukesh plans to invade Jasim's new country, and Bathasar must find a way to stop the destruction. But if he succeeds, he'll ascend to the throne and have the power to grant Teman his liberty. Then Teman will surely leave him. What other choice could a gypsy make?

Buy link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3611