Evening Flames Posting, and Alternate Covers · 10:25am Apr 12th, 2013
Final preparations are being made for the first few chapters of Evening Flames, and they should be live on this site by this afternoon.
Now, let me clarify—the entirety of Evening Flames isn't done yet. I'm finishing things at a fairly steady pace, but I think it would be better if I released everything at a slow, steady rate starting now rather than waiting another month or so when the story itself is finished. This way, people can enjoy the story sooner and I can feel like I'm making progress, so it's win-win.
Anyway, alternative cover art and Maxie are after the break.
A while ago, I made a blog post asking for cover art for this story, as it felt slightly more practical than my usual manner of "hoping people will randomly make art for this story" (which really doesn't happen all that often, except for songs).
Anyway, I wasn't expecting much, maybe something slightly above my own caliber of art. But what I got were responses from three talented artists, which created a new problem—suddenly, there was too much art for me to handle (I don't think Knighty would implement a "title image roller thing" for this one case).
So, as per earlier agreements, I am now spotlighting their entries in my not-so-quick and dirty contest, along with their Deviantart pages. Follow them, friend them, re-deviant them; however Deviantart works (I have a llama somehow. That's all I really know).
First up is mrmayortheiv [Deviantart link], who submitted this image:
I like this because, out of the three images I received, it was the only one that took place in Farrington. I also liked the orientation of Gilda and Iron: facing away, but he's the one looking over to see how she's doing. Without going into too much spoilers about how the changes to the story panned out, that at least fits his personality—and hers. Ultimately, I decided against this pic because the tone was too dark. Don't get me wrong, it succeeded in capturing the dark dreariness that is present for over half of my chapters; however, I felt like something lighter might capture the message of this story—As long as people care about each other, the darkest of situations still carry a glimmer of hope.
Unless you're Maxie.
Just kidding. She's adorable. Just ask half of Stalliongrad. The other half is female.
But yes, vector aside (and I find it adorable), that brings me to the next entrant in my contest: WentoX [Deviantart Link]. Wento made the cover art for Summer Days, which I like. His entry is as follows:
Right away, I liked this image because of the time frame: it took place during the evening. Pensive Gilda on her not-quite-geographically-accurate outcropping was another thing I liked; she was looking up north towards a city, which... captured the overarching conflict of both stories pretty well: "Will Gilda move into a pony city, despite it clashing with her rugged individualism / cultural heritage?"
In the end, it was virtually a tie. Wento had a slight advantage over Mr. Mayor the IV, just on account of him doing the cover art for Summer Days; when in doubt, keep it consistent, right? So, I thought I had a close race between two contestants, and that I was able to make that tough-ish decision.
Then, a third challenger appeared and, to put it mildly, he blew the other two entries out of the water. As much as I liked and appreciated Wento and Mayor's entries (and I do: thank you both very much), as soon as I opened this image, my verbal reaction was something similar to, "Holy shit. There's my cover image."
I loved it, and in a few hours, I hope you all do, too. Until then, I need to do that thing with the bed and the pillow and blacking out for a while.
Dammit man, I want it nao!
Personally, I'm alright with you posting the story a little bit at a time instead of the whole thing at once; It'll make the story feel less intimidating, I think.
Wait a tic. The story's being released today? That's awesome! I can't wait to see it and read it.
1002518
The first chapter (and the prologue), but yeah.
Out of curiosity, how much of a buffer do you have in terms of complete chapters? And will it be updated weekly or more frequently?
1002829
I'd be lying if I said I didn't have chapters 2 and 3 ready to go within the next few days. However, I'm going to hang on to them and wait while I finish up a commission; that way, when I start reworking 4-6 and... actually writing 7 and 8, there's less of an uneven spread of distribution.
So... for now, I'm going to go weekly, on Fridays, so people can read the story during the weekend. If I finish up the final chapters for this story early, I might throw in a few Tuesday updates near the end; however, that's all in the future at this point.
1002844
Sounds like you got a plan. I do hope that commissioned story of yours is going well.
From what I understand, chapter 7 and 8 are basically rewrites (or rather, take from, depending on how big a change was made in earlier chapters) of the last few chapters. After this point, everything has never been seen before.
So... after chapter 8, how long do you plan on making the story? Cause from my memory, the story didn't seem to be that close to its end at that point.
Apologies if I seem to be spamming you with questions.
1003268
Chapter 6 of Evening Flames is Chapter 10 of Summer Days and Evening Flames, the last thing I ever published on this story. Chapters 7 and 8 will conclude the story.
I have to say, the one you ended up choosing is beautiful, and it fits it PERFECTLY.
I had a fun time drawing that pic, and that's all that really matters, I can certainly say that I've improved a lot since then though, and I am not sorry to see a better piece of art make it.