Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Hi peeps,

My name is Devon Cady-Lee, A.K.A. Gorrem, and I love the Dune series. I've been lurking on this site since 2012 for information and now I've decided to reveal myself! During the day I work as a concept artist and illustrator for video games, but at night I am driven to illustrate my vision of Frank Herbert's series. In my spare time over the years I've made a few paintings and pieces of concept art for purely personal reasons (some of which have even been featured here before!), but now I would like to pursue this effort with some more gusto. I've decided I am going to make enough pieces of Dune art to make up at least a small art book.

I've lurked these forums for information gathering on visual descriptions of characters. Any sort of wiki has been rather weak at describing the characters visually in detail, and I myself am pretty bad at remembering small text notes no matter how many times I reread passages. Often i resort to audio books, since I have to spend so much of my time painting. On one hand I do take artistic license with the descriptions... you probably won't catch me painting navigators that wear black leotards and utility belts for example, and it's fun to make Vladimir fatter than how he's described in the books. On the other hand, Frank does describe some things very specifically and usually with reason, like yellow representing the color of death for Fremen since it is the color of the sun. I'd rather have all the details in front of me before I make decision on what to emphasize and what to tone down.

random information about Dune and me:
-My first Dune piece was in 2008 and I've been maker-hooked (haha...) every since. I felt there was a big gap missing in quality Dune art, compared to other influential works of fiction like LOTR. Dune needs love too!
-I am less interested in the politics of Dune, so much as the unique mood and characters Frank crafts. Most of my pieces explore the quality of the characters than anything else.
-I've only read and made art for the first 6 books, which I consider to be the canon. If any of the ones past Frank's are worth reading, let me know!
-I have a signed copy of a first edition print of God Emperor. God Emperor is my favorite book, and Leto II is my favorite character.
-I've shown Brian Herbert my work. it did not go well considering he was very concerned about me selling it, but he did like it enough to try and get me to do art based on his newest novel.

Here are some examples of my work. I'm sorry if they don't fit everyone's minds eye, it is intimidating to show Dune work to a huge number of Dune fans! These images reflect my personal interpretation, I can't expect to meet everyone's expectations.

My latest piece, an interpretation of the God Emperor.


This was my first full painting, which was done for a tutorial. An more mature version of St. Alia, like in Children/Heretics timeline.


Leto II cleansing Arrakis after gaining the Sandtrout skin.


concept art for the Fedaykin.


My first ever Dune piece! Not quite Chani, but inspired by.


I have more paintings and sketches, but I figure I should start a separate thread in the Dune media section.

I love talking about Dune, and I'm sure people on this forum are way better at remembering character descriptions than I am... I could really use your help! Thanks.

hihihi and welcome to the man that made this.

Pull up a spike and make yourself at home, and nice GEoD.

Welcome Home! We have indeed encountered your art before and personally I like it a lot. The God Emperor painting I like a lot!

Hey there, Devon. I'm the fellow who stopped by your livestream to discuss the novels. Glad to see you finally decided to join and share your work.

Love that tidbit about meeting Brian. Concern over fanworks is totally how the HLP approaches the "franchise." You probably know well enough that you could legally sell prints if you so chose.

Anyways, looking forward to seeing more from you.

Redstar wrote:Hey there, Devon. I'm the fellow who stopped by your livestream to discuss the novels. Glad to see you finally decided to join and share your work.

Well played!

That stuff is really good indeed, but you had me there :

Gorrem wrote:I've only read and made art for the first 6 books, which I consider to be the canon.

Gorrem wrote:I've shown Brian Herbert my work. it did not go well considering he was very concerned about me selling it,

I guess the only thing to say here is : typical.

Fantastic work!

Welcome!

Been going through the blog/DA folders, I must say I'm a fan!

Weclome aboard. Sorry that Brian was not as receptive as he should have been. Lots of us have felt that way over the years.

I really enjoyed looking at your stuff. FAbulous detail.

Thanks for the warm welcome guys! Yes it's unfortunate Brian was not receptive, he may have just been repeating what his lawyers told him to say... who knows. He wasn't even sure I was allowed to publish it on the internet, lol. It does make me wonder why Dune hasn't had enough traction to get exposure in other media. I don't quite know what the laws are about doing artwork inspired by literature, although I think I'm alright as long as I don't actually use any terms from the book, or something. Other artists publish whole books based on that sort of stuff like Donato's tribute to LOTR, but he might have gotten permission.

Gorrem wrote:Thanks for the warm welcome guys! Yes it's unfortunate Brian was not receptive, he may have just been repeating what his lawyers told him to say... who knows. He wasn't even sure I was allowed to publish it on the internet, lol. It does make me wonder why Dune hasn't had enough traction to get exposure in other media. I don't quite know what the laws are about doing artwork inspired by literature, although I think I'm alright as long as I don't actually use any terms from the book, or something. Other artists publish whole books based on that sort of stuff like Donato's tribute to LOTR, but he might have gotten permission.

Trademark law is nasty. Trademark owners are required to sue (or at least let their lawyer send you a threatening letter) the moment they become aware of infringement. If they don't do so, they will lose their rights to the trademark.

They have to do this even if they don't want to, when they're absolutely fine with someone using their trademark. Big media corporations(*) especially don't want to sue small artists. That's a publicity nightmare.

Trademark owners around the world solve this 'problem' by pretending to be unaware of fan art, fan fiction etc, as long as it doesn't draw attention to itself. Yes, they know it exists, but as long as nobody can legally prove they know it's out there, they're not required to do anything.

So basically, Brian Herbert likes your stuff, but he's worried that you may force him into an uncomfortable situation.

(*) Which Brian Herbert's company isn't, but the same principle applies.

#1) Brian Herbert has only the most rudimentary understanding of "the Internet".
("It's like a connected series of tubes, right? That you pass messages thru?")

#2) Brian was most likely so drunk, he thought you were Steven Youll trying to
show him the latest McDune cover; Keith makes all the decisions on that front.

Gorrem,

Holy shit, your artwork is redonk!! Love it!

Hello there,
Excellent art!

OMG!
i'm your fan!

Kane wrote:Gorrem,

Holy shit, your artwork is redonk!! Love it!

I mean that in the best way possible, of course!