Here are a couple character sketches and some rough concept art for the cover of the next novella, Valorous Daughter.


Meet Shaifennen Roehe, the Terror of Twelvety Town her very own self.  The upcoming full-length novel(s) are from her point of view.

This one's Zeddie, the protagonist in Valorous Daughter.  She appears briefly in The Terror of Twelvety Town and will play a major part in A Kiss For Damocles.  I've started using DAZ 3D because not only is it faster than sketching by hand, but once I've designed my models I can use them to create references for my own freehand drawing.  Plus, real-world models won't work for toaster shakings and good intentions.  Still learning my way around the program, but it lets me create concept art to feed my actual cover artist.  Easier than saying "Noooo.... her nose should be... I dunno... more nosier or something..."  I've still go to learn how to tweak the settings... get the shine in her hair to look like shine rather than grey, etc.  I'll be doing some freehand work later, but right now Manuscript Editing is my master.

The Terror of Twelvety Town actually takes place an Ayeden year (just under two Terran years) after Valorous Daughter.  In Terror of Twelvety Town, Zeddie's not only a full Rider, but assigned to act as Lead Rider for Shaifennen's escort detail.  In Valorous Daughter, Zeddie is a lowly Cadet-Petitioner.

Her full name is Zeddinbecker te' Emhain-Abhlach.  She was named by committee and Vivienne of the Gentle Walkers has been threatening to tell her how her adoptive father, Kadien Jess came up with "Zeddinbecker."  Alcohol played a role.  As a Foundling, all Zeddie knows is that her mother died.  Her pedigree tattoo is down the back of one shoulder rather than a cheek or the side of the neck like those of Homesteaders and Townies.  Instead of T'Ren scripts like Arabic, Korean or English, the characters on Zeddies tattoos are a vertical strip of characters formed with upright lines with the odd angled branch or dot.  Zeddie's spent a great deal of time studying the T'Ren diaspora and has narrowed her heritage down to the Punjab region of Terra.  A good many of Ayeden's original colonists where Sikhs from New Amristar, so that's a possibility.