With What I Most Enjoy: Goblins, Elves, and Art

A huge and magical thank you to Megan Derr for hosting me on the Goblins blog tour!

Today I’m going to show you some of the picspiration for my fantasy series, Goblins. I am, after all, a frustrated artist. My hands suck at drawing, so I type my fantasy ideas instead. *grin*

I am obsessed with art, and photography. My favourite artists are a mix of classical and bizarre; Aubrey Beardsley, Brian Froud, Jan Pienkowski. I also love Arthur Rackham:

Arthur Rackham illustration ~ from Das Rheingold

I love anything beautiful and sinister. Fairy tale illustrations that intrigue and scare you a little bit are my favourite.

My favourite painter is J.W. Waterhouse, because I also love ancient Greek mythology. Waterhouse was famous for painting lithe and pale beauties, male and female.

Waterhouse ~ The Naiad

When I was writing the first Goblins story, my focus was very much on the goblins themselves, the ‘baddies’ of the forest. I don’t tend to write plots; once I’m going I’ll just write what comes… (ha, ha)… and in this story, one of the elves made an appearance.

What I wanted for my elves (and what I love about paintings like the Waterhouse above) is the way the pale, human-like bodies are almost at one with the trees. So the way I wrote Elfren, my elf who makes a guest spot in the tales, is that he very much blends into the forest, and materialises out of the greenery.

All of my goblins and elves wear the forest as clothes, in leaves and vines (the elves are summery, the goblins are wintery) but Elfren is also covered in faeries, no bigger than butterflies.

I loved that aspect so much; it’s both my ode to Peter Pan and also so I could get in a joke about Elfren’s faery entourage. There will be more of the faeries to come, when Elfren has his turn at a story.

Art and inspiration plays such a huge part of the Goblins series, because each and every scene is total fantasy. I wanted to create pretty and romantic images; stills for the brain, in a way. One of the reasons that we ended up with original illustrations for the first book was that imagery was so important.

I’ll leave you now with a very pretty picture. Photography that inspires my goblin characters (as they’re all shape-shifters), and I am a huge fan of masks, and/or big hair, so this one is a double win for me:

Blurb:

In the 17th Century, the ancient sprawl of Epping forest is bursting with magic and those who go unseen by human eyes: the elves who rule the summer court, and the goblins who rule the winter court. It is said that if a human catches the eye of one of the fey, they are either doomed or blessed.

Wulfren & the Warlock

When Wulfren wakes from a strange dream of a human captor with long silver hair, and grey eyes, his brothers tell him they rescued him from a warlock, and take Wulfren back home to the goblin king's palace. But Wulfren isn’t so sure the matter is that simple. Why was he missing so long? What are the strange dreams of the beautiful man with the silver hair? Dalliances with humans are severely frowned upon, especially by Wulfren’s father, but Wulfren is willing to risk the scorn of his family to find the human who haunts his dreams.

Quiller & the Runaway Prince

After a hard winter, Quiller is sent deep into the forest on a family errand, and is surprised when a human stumbles into his path. Quiller swoops in to pester him, perhaps even eat him, but there is something special about the human: his scent is royal, though he protests that he is not, and soon Quiller finds himself agreeing to help the human with his troubles—in exchange for a kiss.