Saturday, January 1, 2011

Happy New Year! (Extra Goody #7 + Mermaid Stuff!)

Mildred Loves Extra Goodies
(A Grabbag of Miscellaneous Thises and Thatses)

Extra Goody #7 - "Mildred Presents: Lenia - from Carolyn Turgeon's book MERMAID - as a rub-on-tattoo design"


(click this image to see the larger website version)

Lenia will be available as a limited edition rub-on tattoo tucked in between the covers of Carolyn's Turgeon's book MERMAID, which will be going on sale in March of this year! I was delighted when Carolyn asked me to design it for her!



It's also fun for me to know that the artist responsible for another book-promo goody for MERMAID is none other than the legendary Easy-Bake Coven palmist, illustrator, and musician Dame Darcy herself!

I well remember my first encounter with the Dame's work - long ago - in a back corner of the comic book store Grober Unfug here in Berlin. I was fascinated by the dark and scratchy interiors of her comic book MEATCAKE, and was astounded and impressed with their fearless celebration of all things ornate, girlie, and darkly Victorian.

And so here are the main characters of Carolyn's book MERMAID as paper dolls - brought to us all by the ever energetic, enigmatic, and delightfully unapologetic
Dame Darcy!



I got to see Dame Darcy's paper dolls before I finished my tattoo design, by the way - so her take on Lenia - as well as my own style of cartoon pin-up illustrating over at MildredLovesYou.com - informed the Lenia-tattoo's design. I would however, at some point, like to do a less cartoony rendition of Lenia that is closer to the darkly luminous vision of her I had in my head as I read Carolyn's book - just for my own personal pleasure, you see...

In the meantime, here is my rub-on tattoo design once again, this time in the various color-versions I played around with a bit before finishing up the final version...



And here is the splash-page version I did for the entry to Carolyn Turgeon's website. I'm assuming this splash-page will stay there until such time as her next book is released (upon which a new splash-page with the theme of her new book will become necessary of course).



And of course: HAPPY NEW YEAR! - and all the best to all of you in 2011!

...Which brings me to the one-more-thing I wanted to mention to you before saying goodbye again for this time around...

It looks as though 2011 will be The Year of the Mermaid - at least in Carolyn's Turgeon's corner of the world. She has created a blog called "I Am A Mermaid" and has declared her intention to post something mermaidy there regularly all through the year of 2011. Let us all wish her well in this endeavor! She has collected all sorts of delights to shower us with: interviews with multitudes of professional mermaids, mermaid legends and trivia, and assorted other goodies - from all over the world - including an interview with our very own Lorelei Vanora!

Remember:
"Just because you're half a fish doesn't mean you have half a heart."

Hugs + kisses,

LaLaVox
www.mildredlovesyou.com
[edit: March 28th, 2011]
Because of problems with my current mildredlovesyou.com domain host, I have set my Mildred Loves You site up at an alternate address for for safe-keeping (but am still hoping that my mildredlovesyou.com domain will go back online at some point anyway)...
www.lalavoxbox.com/mildredlovesyou.html