Hi, everyone!

Some of you have heard of this already, so a brief explanation. For my little sister tencups_i_swear 's birthday the other day (ahem. Happy Birthday, tencups!) I gave her copies of our favourite books, The Thief and The Queen of Attolia. Before I sent them, I printed off some chapter headings kindly translated from the Japanese edition of these books by ninedaysaqueen , and illustrated each heading with a scene from the chapter, and slotted them and some other surprises between the pages.

Those of you who know tencups know that she's a MUCH better artist than I, so my efforts aren't anyway near such entertaining caricatures of the characters as hers are (try http://goat-foot-baa.deviantart.com/gallery/#Queens-Thief ) but here they are!


( The Thief illustrations )
( The Queen of Attolia illustrations )Tons of thanks (and international cookies) to everyone who contributed to the present, and also to the people whose work I used without warning them, namely peggy_2 (for the original Japanese photos) and ninedaysaqueen . Also, thanks to thelasteddis for her very helpful feedback on the pictures. She'll have noticed that I didn't take her advice, for which I can only defend myself by saying that I ran out of time, and ink drawings unfortunately don't lend themselves to much last-minute revision. But it was very much appreciated :D

Also, I *am* aware that I spelt 'thief' wonky. Mea Culpa!

Those of you who know tencups_i_swear  may also know that she has a Deviant Art page on which she posts quite a LOT of Queen's Thief art. http://goat-foot-baa.deviantart.com/

Being her big sister, I'm biased, but I think a lot of it is quite good. She's also made a Queen's Thief picture meme! Now, I don't even draw, but I had heaps of fun filling this in, even with all the ink and scanner and cropping dramas it entailed.


I do apologise that it's so tiny. Clicking will bring it up larger, but I can't figure out how to make it bigger on the page...
 

I finished my map!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I officially have too much time on my hands, and so I tried to research and map the geography of Eddis, Attolia and Sounis. And tried. And tried. And screwed up drafts and threw them at the walls.
And finally, I have something geographically coherent. Even if the river does run uphill. 

Anyway, I'm going to wait till the results of the song contest on Sounis are up (lol. I can't wait to see who wins!) and then I'll post it on there. I just wanted to celebrate!

Here is a snippet of what the finished map looks like:


Since I drew it longhand and scanned it in, the colours are just slightly off - a bit faded, I think. Ah well!


Edited: Exclamation mark overload, anyone?

... I am trying to map Sounis, Eddis and Attolia! 
After tearing out my hair over my first draft, making notes from all three Queen's Thief books the morning before my NCEA Geography exam, and extended discussion on Chatzy... I am trying again.
AND ... I AM SO EXCITED! I JUST PUT IT ALL TOGETHER! ATTOLIA'S BORDER FORTS WITH MAGYAR ARE IN THE NORTHEAST!
And... this is the border that Eddis is NOT...
Ergo! Eddis is South of Attolia, and Sounis South of Eddis, which fits with what I originally thought!
We are getting somewhere!
*goes off to scribble more notes*