Help us help our cover artist

[rolanni]

OK!  Asyouknowbob, David Mattingly will be doing the cover art for Dragon in Exile.

Today, he wrote to us asking for help with descriptions.  Most of them, Steve and I will need to do, since the characters/situations are unique to this novel

However!

He also needs physical descriptions of Val Con and Miri, who have been described many times in. . .books that David hasn't read, because -- while he's illustrated five books for us, he started with, so to speak, Theo.

So this is your chance to go through the Liaden books that have already been published and find your favorite description of Miri and of Val Con.

Gentlefolk!  Start your engines!

Comments

Descriptions

[bookmobiler.livejournal.com]

I know there are physical descriptions out there, but I wonder of a list of the names the Clutch know them by might convey the attitude.

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

Not read them? HERESY! ;p I'll go back, but not tonight - I'll be brewing ale tonight ;)

[pedanther]

To begin at the beginning, here's Val Con when we first meet him:

a slender young man with straight dark hair and green eyes set deep in a high-cheeked, golden face ... shoulders level, carriage smooth and easy

high cheeks curving smoothly to a pointed chin, a generous mouth, straight brows above the shuttered eyes, thick, glossy hair tumbling across a smooth golden forehead—a boy's face, though the papers claimed thirty Standards for him

These are both from Chapter 2 of Agent of Change. Miri doesn't get as much description in that chapter; only that she has long copper-colored hair in a single braid worn wrapped around her head.

[edit:] On re-reading the chapter, I can add that Miri has gray eyes, and that Val Con is bigger than her (but then, it adds, so is everybody). Also that Val Con is said in Chapter 1 to be six inches shorter than the Terran average, for what use that is without knowing the Terran average.

Miri

[elbales]

From Carpe Diem, first Del Rey printing, p. 44:

"no beauty"
sharp-angled face, freckles, snub nose
square, willful chin
full mouth
speaking gray eyes

From Plan B, Meisha Merlin hardback printing, p. 47:

slight breasts
direct eyes
willful, intelligent face

Descriptions from Carpe Diem

[Ани Хачатрян (from livejournal.com)]

In general, I remember that both Val Con and Miri are very slim and short for Terrans, but rather tall for Liadens (Val Con is just a bit taller than Miri). While Val Con is a "traditional beauty", Miri is more like charismatic rather than "beautiful", and her skin is very pale (basic things like green eyes and braided red hair have been mentioned).

They're 30 and 28 Standarts respectively (more like 31 and 29 by now?), but many characters describe them both as looking much younger, for ex, Kamele in the end of Dragon Ship:

>a slender young man with untidy brown hair
>the hall door opened to admit a wiry, sharp-faced woman, red hair falling in a single braid, far down her back. Like the boy [...] she was surely much too young to administer the star-spanning businesses of Clan Korval, and far too open-faced to have given an order for genocide

Ah, also, now we know that by current events Miri's hair is REALLY long. :3