Process of turning Kerri into her character: Piper, the elf fighter/magic-user

 

 

It was a fun process transforming Kerri into her character Piper.  I wanted to include some initial sketches as well as the final product that was used on the book cover.  My illustrator, John Manders, liked the concept of having Piper's hair flow around her, using this as the transformation from Kerri to the elf Piper.  I think he did an amazing job with Piper for the cover.

Kerri, normally a blond human female in the normal world, becomes Piper, a dark-haired elf fighter/magic-user.  When they played the game, Kerri made the ears for the elf character and wore a black wig, as elves normally have dark hair. When her and her friends fell into the alternate realm, Kerri became Piper.  She was no longer playing her character, she had become her character(this was also one of the reasons I included a main character list at the beginning of the book, as I wanted to make it easier for people to catch the name changes and know who each person became).  

As I continue to write this blog, I will actually explain more about Piper, her on/off relationship with Borhai, and I may even have her make an appearance and write a post herself. I just wanted to start to get some of the characters into my blog and include some of the artwork involved in created them.