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mattwatier — Lake Siren
Published: 2007-02-25 01:50:14 +0000 UTC; Views: 2289; Favourites: 28; Downloads: 0
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Description
Lake SirenPage Spread from my upcoming book THE SECRET MAGICS OF MAINE
I am asking for criticism. I am posting these pieces for the next few weeks so I can make changes and edits that I think is in their best interest. They are all being complied in to a collection of mythology based in the state of Maine. So please post changes or questions of flaws you see in these pieces so I can send in the best art I can when I submit this to the Publisher in the next couple of weeks.
Other pieces in the collection are:
Title Page
SPRING: Mud Gremlins
SUMMER: Knitters
SUMMER: Sapphire
SUMMER: Lake Sirens
SUMMER: Keepers of the Blue
Fall: The Four Winds
Fall: The Milky Way
[link] "> WINTER: Ice Troll - a.k.a. Jack Frost
WINTER: Snow Cow
WINTER: Lake Kracken
OCEAN: Perry Winkles
OCEAN: Queen Victoria
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Comments: 31
They eat taboo-breaking fishermen, don't they?
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or bring them to their death.
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Well, they'd kill them by eating them.
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sure just never thought about it
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Where can I find the whole picture? It looks beautiful
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I assume you are looking for the painting that is on the page. you can find the painting HERE
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Omg how come I didn't see it?! I guess I'm in one of these "blind" phases of mine 
It's gorgeous!
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I am actually touching up that painting right now. I am sending a portfolio to WOTC and I have never been happy with her hair or the tattoo on her cheek.
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Why, the tatoo fits quite well, but it's your painting if you don't like it it's just as beautiful without it. And I really like her hair
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Pretty page and nice physical and moral description.
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the lighting in the painting is wonderful! i love how it breaks in shafts through the lillies
its somewhat darker than the previous pages and i love it <3
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I wanted to clue into the darker side of the sirens. They are a nocturnal creature and they come from a race that isn't benevolent to humans.
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yeah, i like the way you didnt make them completely dark though; they have good sides too like the frightening people away from danger
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exactly
so you are from Australia?
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I would love to visit! I have had dreams of doing a book there.
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you should someday! it's really nice here 
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the weather has been weird every where. Btw how did you find me?
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paint pot dwarf is the featured deviation at the moment over at *EliteArtists
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just wondering. It is amazing how much people have loved that painting. It only took me 4 hours.
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these creatures are beautiful. i wish i could be one of them. infact...i wish i could be a character in ur book. lol for real... i'd love to be magical, and... have stories told about me... i wish that only kids would believe in me, and that one day... someone like you would tell stories of me... giving the little kids something to actually believe in. =]] it seems to heart warming to be the hopes and dreams of our future generations!!!
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someone asked me why I keep making books even though I don't have any published except one. I tell them I am practicing. I know the other books will find publishers at some point. But right now I am trying to get good enough to make a classic. When I was in high school I was at a book store in the kids department, yes even then I knew I wanted to do this, and there was this very pregnant woman and all of a sudden this guy rushed up to here holding a book it was whinny the pooh and he told his wife that this book he remembered as a kid. His mom would read it to him and he wanted to read it to his child. The wife just cupped his face kissed and said of course. I want that. I want to make books that are so impactful that the kids who grow up with it raise their children on it too.
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i definatly see this book as being something like that. =]] i know... that when this gets published, and i have my own kids... this is what i'm going to read to them. because when i was little, no one ever read stories to me... and to hear things... soo child like and innocent it just makes the world a beautiful place!! it gives children something to dream bout, and something to play with and pretend. =]] imagine little kids sleeping in their beds... dreaming about a world that YOU have created, personally for them!!! =]] its such a beautiful thing to me!!!
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The only thing I can see to be changed is in the spelling and wording. "Tentacles" is misspelled, and I would either leave out the "the" in front of dark blue tentacles ("... have the bodies of human females, and dark blue tentacles..."), or add what the tentacles are related to... as in "... the bodies of human females, and the dark blue tentacles of the freshwater Maine Cuttlefish...." or whatever is similar. I have also removed the hyphen between dark and blue, but you may want to check on that, to verify which is correct. Another thing to look at is taking out the comma between "... while away their summer evenings" and "singing their ghostly songs". Finally, I would change the last line to something along the lines of "perhaps the Lake Sirens do still retain some of the temperament of their Greek relatives." or "well, perhaps the Lake Sirens aren't as different from their Greek relatives after all." The way it's worded in the original seems to be antithetical to your statements in the beginning, that the Lake Sirens are nicer than the Greek Sirens.
I assume an editor will be looking for these types of things, and that you're actually looking for layout/aesthetic comments. If this is the case, I don't see any issues.
I sincerely hope this is what you were looking for in regards to criticism. If not, please happily disregard me, and move on.
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no This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for taking the time to leave such a helpful note.
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great design and layout. that's kind of what I want to do with my book, but a more Book of Kells thing.
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some of this is really easy I bought some water color paper and started dipping it in Tea, and Coffee. The dirt that is on the goblin page is a dry tea packet sprinkled on a wet page. I love doing this stuff because you have to think what can I do that will look like that. grass stains can be made by blue berries mixed with yellow food coloring and so forth.
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Didn't know the blueberry thing, but I use the tea trick a lot in Theatre when we need something that looks like parchment. The only problem is that the next day the whole cast has signed it with permanent marker, and it was the director's idea, so I have to do all over again.
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