Royal Destiny Cover!

Here it is, the Royal Destiny cover for the main page of the Royal Destiny site!!! Lunacat finished it yesterday evening. I don't even know how to begin to thank her because it is beyond what I could have possibly expected. Thank you Lunacat, thank you so, so much!!!!

As you can see, the cover isn't really a scene from the book but a collage from several characters. Aras and Taira are the most prominent of course, with the five guardians in the sky in front of the moon. I seriously love Taira's expression - it is exactly like I imagined it in the story when she realizes what Aras has done to her. Aras looks like his evil self, of course. I especially love the details on his wings.
I'm glad the guardians in the sky remained so vague and distant. It's how they are in the story as well. If you look closely you can make out small details between them though!
At the bottom you have the breach, of course. On the right you can see Twinkle Star with her adoptive daughter Câlin and on the other side are Takato and Ruki. Twinkle Star needs no explanation of course. I always really loved writing about her special relationship with Câlin and I'm happy it comes across in this drawing so well, you can really feel the attachment between the two ponies.
And Ruki... What can I say? My beloved little girl looks so amazing. Her sad and cold expression match how she feels in part 2 and 3 so well!!! I especially love how wild and unattended her mane looks. It's such a great little detail. Takato is his proud young self of course. I love how Ruki clings to him.

So yes, if you didn't catch it yet, I LOVE the cover! It's up on the main site now of course, and so is the cover of part 5 (tho there's not much to see yet otherwise on the part 5 page). I'm writing chapter 329 right now, which only just got its name changed. I'm getting close to the end of part 4 which I promise will be a lot of fun (can't wait to write it!). And then it's on to part 5... I can't believe it's the final part of RD!

Royal Destiny 5th cover!

So I decided to dedicate my first "real" post on this blog with a scoop: a wonderful piece of art that Lunacat has recently finished for Royal destiny. If you don't know Lunacat, she's the artist who drew all the ponies (and much more) for Pony Island and the author of Worlds Apart, an amazing piece of MLP fiction. She's also the artist who drew all of the illustrations on the Royal Destiny site such as the cover pictures on top of each part. She'll do some amazing other drawings soon as well, but those will remain a secret for a bit longer!

Anyway, as I am close to finishing part 4, I asked Lunacat to draw the cover picture for part 5, The Daylight Star, and she outdid herself once again!

I absolutely love it. The ponies are, of course, Caleantha in the background and Asteria, Firian and Meran in the foreground. Now I won't go into detail about this particular scene yet (considering it would spoil a lot), but I chose it for the cover drawing because of the symbolic meaning. I'm sure it'll be clear in time what I mean by that (and if you read RD, I'm sure you can figure out some things already).
This might actually be the only cover that is not an accurate picture of a scene as I'm not sure if things will be like this in the story (in fact, I'm pretty sure they won't be), but I felt it was important to put it in one picture like this anyway (it's more like a combination of two scenes).
I especially love how Meran looks in this picture. It's so accurate compared with how I picture her in my mind, I couldn't be more pleased. Not that the other ponies aren't accurate, because they are; Lunacat's ability to capture my characters is simply amazing. But when I saw Meran for the first time in this picture I immediately thought yes, that's my girl.

I'll upload the drawing to the website soon. Don't worry though, this won't be the last piece of art related to Royal Destiny for sure!!