Quarantine Warding Contest Prizes & Updates
Hey all. Late again, I know. Time is just a vague notion these days. It seems to drag on moment to moment, and yet the weeks have flown by. But while I have not been keeping to the spirit my promise to pick winners every Friday by announcing them, I have followed it to the letter, choosing favorites and working with Dominik Broniek to bring those readers’ favorite scenes to life.
Before we go into details, the Demon Cycle Quarantine Contest is still accepting entries! Also, with regard to prizes, every entry remains in the running. There are so many wonderful entries to choose from, and honestly, I love giving out prizes. When the Brooklyn Post Offices become less of a infection hot spot, I will offer some runner-up prizes, as well.
We have the first two prizes!
Laetitia requested a portrait of Bruna and Leesha just enjoying a quiet tea in the Herb Gatherer’s hut during Leesha’s apprenticeship in The Warded Man.
Dominik Broniek really came through with this heartwarming picture of one of the series’ most beloved characters (and also Leesha).
The small number of illustrations in the Demon Cycle novels tends to restrict them to exciting, pivotal moments of the series, often full of action and movement. That makes it extra lovely to have gentler images like this one come out of this contest.
One of these days, I am going to find time for the Bruna novella I wrote a rough outline for a few years back…
Róbert Zelei, who works as translator for a few of my books in Hungarian, is a Wonda Cutter Stan, and requested Dominik capture a very specific moment from Desert Spear.
When Arlen casually shows off his hidden weapons cache and the treasures he’s collected from ruins of the old world, Rojer whoops with joy to find a perfectly preserved classic violin. But despite riches and art piled to the ceiling, Wonda and Gared both agree they liked the weapons room better.
Like the Leesha and Bruna moment, this scene isn’t something that would ever have made it onto the list of top 18 moments Dominik captured in the Polish edition of Desert Spear, and generally word balloons are frowned upon in book illustrations, which makes it extra delicious.
There were a lot of other fantastic contest since my last post. You can see the full collection in this Quarantine Warding Contest Album, but here are some callouts:
The April 24 winner was the mysterious @Mbeaureg6 from twitter, whose partner made him this fantastic warded face mask to keep the viral demons at bay. NGL I kinda want one, too, even if Peter B. Parker says it’s gauche to wear your own merch.
His first request was an illustration of a greatward, but the scale of such a picture made it difficult, so his second choice was One Arm breaching the Wall of Krasia. Dominik is working on that one, now.
The May 1 winner was Shanna from Plushes by Oh Joy. In her words: “I have always been jealous of Renna’s warded brookstone necklace, now I have a piece of self warded jewelry of my own! I took a break from homeschooling my kids and sewing face masks to make this warded bracelet. It was a nice little project to calm the nerves and now I can feel a bit safer walking in the naked night.”
Her request, next on Dominik’s docket, is: “I would love to see an illustration of Ashia and the sharum’ting kicking ass fighting demons and putting their arrogant male counterparts to shame.”
I haven’t picked a scene yet to fill this request, so if you have a favorite Sharum’ting scene from any of the books, post it in the comments and maybe we’ll bring it to life!
Last but absolutely not least, there was a surprise entry in the contest from my daughter Cassandra, who warded her most precious possession, her iPhone.
We’re all struggling to manage our new schedule, and Cassandra has been glued to her computer and phone for both schoolwork and gaming. It made me so happy to see she carved out some time to be creative.
That’s all for this post. I will try to be better about doing these updates weekly, but no promises. I do promise that winning entries will continue to be selected and prizes worked on, even if I can’t find time away from Daddy Daycare and working on Desert Prince revisions to get a blog done.
There’s still time to enter! Ward something, anything, and send a picture to contest@www.petervbrett.com!
Stay safe out there.