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Description
Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, wore white on the day he was to kill a king.

Part of Brandon Sanderson's original pitch package for The Way of Kings, out now from Tor books. At the very beginning of the story, Szeth commits a murder which sparks a great conflict that drives the events through which so many will suffer or triumph. Fun trivia bit: in the first draft of the book that Brandon sent me, the line above was the first line in the novel (it shifted deeper in the final edit, though it still opens a chapter. You can read it for free on Tor.com if you sign in).

Brandon actually had me illustrate several main characters from his manuscript, but only this image of Szeth made it (in a small part) into the book. Brandon's made a clear decision (which I agree with) not to define the faces of his characters in the book's concept art and illustrations any further than needed, so as to not force the reader to accept any one particular vision of how the characters look beyond the features defined in the text. That is to say, if I imagine that Kaladin looks like a certain actor, and you imagine that he looks like your brother, and someone else imagines that he looks like that cute boy in her class, so long as those visions don't directly contradict the description in the book (which is pretty loose), we're all equally correct. That personal image of a character's face in our mind is part of what makes our individual reading experiences unique and personal, and neither he nor I would want to mess with that.

Given the role that the 20 illustrations created by Isaac Stewart, Greg Call and myself play in the book, this was a necessary mandate.

But here I was trying to illustrate the shame and sadness that appear in Szeth's character even as he performs unforgiveable actions, so I purposefully hid his face as an expression of humility. This makes this probably the only main character illustration from the book which anyone is likely to see from me (at least until we collect everything into an art book, some day).

His Shardblade is atypically small compared to others, about the size of a normal sword. Brandon allowed me a bit of license with the belt tone (not being white).

I had an absolute blast conceptualizing and illustrating the plant and animal illustrations that do appear within the novel itself, but there's a lot of concept work that took place leading up to those drawings which won't see print for a while (at least until we collect an art book, which needs a few more volumes to fill up). He was kind enough to allow me to pick out a few choice bits and put them online for you to see, while we wait.

©2008-2010 Brandon Sanderson, all rights reserved. The Way of Kings is an awesome novel. If you like epic page-turning fantasy action, you might want to check it out.

Description
Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, wore white on the day he was to kill a king.

Part of Brandon Sanderson's original pitch package for The Way of Kings, out now from Tor books. At the very beginning of the story, Szeth commits a murder which sparks a great conflict that drives the events through which so many will suffer or triumph. Fun trivia bit: in the first draft of the book that Brandon sent me, the line above was the first line in the novel (it shifted deeper in the final edit, though it still opens a chapter. You can read it for free on Tor.com if you sign in).

Brandon actually had me illustrate several main characters from his manuscript, but only this image of Szeth made it (in a small part) into the book. Brandon's made a clear decision (which I agree with) not to define the faces of his characters in the book's concept art and illustrations any further than needed, so as to not force the reader to accept any one particular vision of how the characters look beyond the features defined in the text. That is to say, if I imagine that Kaladin looks like a certain actor, and you imagine that he looks like your brother, and someone else imagines that he looks like that cute boy in her class, so long as those visions don't directly contradict the description in the book (which is pretty loose), we're all equally correct. That personal image of a character's face in our mind is part of what makes our individual reading experiences unique and personal, and neither he nor I would want to mess with that.

Given the role that the 20 illustrations created by Isaac Stewart, Greg Call and myself play in the book, this was a necessary mandate.

But here I was trying to illustrate the shame and sadness that appear in Szeth's character even as he performs unforgiveable actions, so I purposefully hid his face as an expression of humility. This makes this probably the only main character illustration from the book which anyone is likely to see from me (at least until we collect everything into an art book, some day).

His Shardblade is atypically small compared to others, about the size of a normal sword. Brandon allowed me a bit of license with the belt tone (not being white).

I had an absolute blast conceptualizing and illustrating the plant and animal illustrations that do appear within the novel itself, but there's a lot of concept work that took place leading up to those drawings which won't see print for a while (at least until we collect an art book, which needs a few more volumes to fill up). He was kind enough to allow me to pick out a few choice bits and put them online for you to see, while we wait.

©2008-2010 Brandon Sanderson, all rights reserved. The Way of Kings is an awesome novel. If you like epic page-turning fantasy action, you might want to check it out.