Dragon Art... and a new giveaway!

During the Dragonforge give-away contest, the vast majority of the submission were poems, but I did get some art as well. The first is from Nancy Fulda, a work she calls "Heatwave."

I really like the dragon's mouth in Nancy's drawing. The lips look like the dragon is either preparing to blow smoke rings, or as if it's in the middle of saying a particularly clever pun.

Tysha Dawson sent me a link to her webpage full of dragon art. She said I could use any art I found there as long as I acknowledged her copyright. I was particularly drawn to the following image (copyright 2008 Tysha Dawson).

The reason I like this image is that it really has some strong similarities to the way I imagine the character of Graxen the Gray in Dragonforge. A mutant sky-dragon borne gray instead of blue, Graxen is an outcast, ostricized by other members of his race, fated by orders of the Matriarch never to mate. One of the major threads of Dragonforge is a tale of forbidden love as Graxen's heart is captured by a beautiful valkryie (a female warrior dragon) who shows him unexpected kindness when they first meet. There are differences between the dragon depicted and the Bitterwood/Dragonforge dragons. My dragons don't have horns, and their ears are just flat disks a few inches past the back of their jaws. They have three fingers at the upper joint of their wings. Other details match perfectly, however. I do imagine the wing scales of my dragons strongly resembling feathers, and I do imagine that they have manes of these feathery scales running along their necks and spine. For a more detailed drawings of how I imagine my dragons, so my post at my old Bitterwood blog, Building a Better Dragon.

Which leads me to announce a new Dragonforge Giveaway. I've set aside ten free copies of Dragonforge for anyone who will send me fan art of their favorite character (or characters) from Bitterwood. Any characters are fine, but I'd love to see how you imagine the human characters of Bitterwood, Jandra, Pet, or Zeeky, or dragon characters like the wizard dragon Vendevorex or the hunter dragon Zanzeroth. Even a sketch of Poocher, the pig, will earn a book. This isn't a contest: If you send me artwork and I use it, I'll be paying you with a free copy of the book. Unlike my giveaway of review copies, I'll mail you a copy wherever you live, even if you're in Antartica for the next six months stuck at some research facility. By sending me the art, you'll be agreeing that I can post them to my blog, or other internet forums like the Solaris chat boards or the Amazon customer images area. This offer is good until I give away ten copies, whether that takes a month or a year. I'll also give away a copy if it's a character from Dragonforge, though I understand that if you have a copy of the book already, the prospect of a freebie of Dragonforge isn't as enticing. So, I have a special reward if you send in artwork of a Dragonforge character like Burke or Graxen and don't want another copy of the book: Once I finish the third book of the series, Dragonseed, I'll print out a copy and mail it to you. Since it costs more to mail a manuscript than a paperback, I'll limit this offer to three readers, but, again, I'll mail these to you anywhere.

Just email your jpegs or gifs to nobodynovelwriter@yahoo.com. There are no size restrictions on the artwork--I can size them down in Photoshop if need be. They can be color or black and white. Now... start drawing!