Liberty Bell Titanide

I couldn’t get rid of this image plaguing the back of my mind for

three days, so I had to draw it.

Then I had to suppress a nagging impulse to draw the whole regiment.

In case the picture does not ring the Bell, it’s based on a scene in the third and final book in John Varley’s “Titan” trilogy, in which a rather unorthodox psychological diversion is staged by having a whole orchestra of gaudy Titanides in gaudy uniforms march playing “The Liberty Bell” by Sousa. For non-Americans, a record of that can be found at http://ia200032.eu.archive.org/1/audio/EdisonGrandConcertBand/EdisonGrandConcertBand-TheLibertyBellMarch.mp3

or in MIDI format http://www.dws.org/sousa/mid/liberty.mid , so now the tune can plague you too.) It’s outlandish enough as is, even without super-deforming the Titanides.

2006
Pencil
Back to galleryNext picture

Viewers' comments

Oh my God, I can't believe there's someone else who loves Titanides enough to draw them! There's probably one other person on DeviantArt who drew Psaltery, Cirocco and Gaby and that's it. My skills are woefully lacking or I'd be drawing them left and right! :D
dj_aida
Fri, Nov 19 2010 13:28
John Varley's work is sorely under-represented, if you ask me. :) Not just the Titan books, but other works too.

Was that other person on DA good? Can I see his interpretations of the characters? :)

Eugene Arenhaus
Sat, Nov 20 2010 07:44
(I originally replied via my mail, not noticing the robot_noreply address, so I'm re-posting here) I haven't read much of his other work apart from some short stories (I thought Air Raid was brilliant, and loved the Anna Louise Bach stories), but I've asked a local bookstore to see about ordering some of his books.

The artist is ~Ophiuchi, and I thought what he/she did was great. I mostly dabble in amateur photomanipulations myself, since it's been years since I last picked up a pencil and my job leaves me very little time for art lessons, but I'd love getting some practice and doing some illustrations for these books. Psaltery is at http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=psaltery#/d19hxlf

dj_aida
Sun, Nov 21 2010 14:43

Add comment

E-mail address will not be published or disclosed to third parties. All email, including user messages, is sent via server side.
Your input is subject to premoderation. It will be published after a staff member reviews it and considers it acceptable.
Please wait 30 seconds before submitting. Premature submission will be rejected. This delay is issued to thwart robots and protect you from seeing unwanted content on this site.
Back to galleryNext picture