From Syntha: I don’t know, but his head is proportionally wrong compared to his torso.
Sarah: This is a real conundrum from Syntha – is that the model’s original head (minus the tusks, though I could be wrong about that).
Elyse: I’m going to say no. The jaw and neck are both too long.
Tara: TIL that orcs can be crossfitters, too.
Sneezy: I hate puke green. He is beetle green, and somehow I still feel like puking when I look at him. The veins, the way the hair is rendered, definitely have a lot to do with it. Probably the proportions too, but I can’t look at it for more than two seconds.
From Elizabeth: He is doing weird stuff to the tiny llama! And he’s a werewolf (I think?!?)
Sarah: STEP. AWAY. FROM. The Llama.
Or is that an alpaca?
Elyse: Omg is it…Llamageddon!?
Sarah: Nooooooooooo not Llamageddon!
Elyse: I actually do recommend the movie Llamageddon for peak silliness. And it contains Chekhov’s combine
As in the farm equipment not the verb
Sarah: Come for the combine, stay for the silly?
Elyse: Yes
Sneezy: LLAMA LLAMA DUCK! You’re welcome for the ear worm. 😀
From Pam: I hope you are staying warm. We are about to get slammed by icy meteorological drama. But I’ve recently tripped over some hot and cold running snark.
Although I have a sneaky affection for the pillars in the background, I can’t get past the guy in the middle with his great big pecs and his itty-bitty waist, the golden gimp he made at Camp Hades draped across his shoulders, and the nuclear blast out his ass(terion). Also, does he have pockets in his kidneys? Then there’s the hair. . . I’d look grumpy too.
Sarah: …how is his hair not on fire?
Sneezy: It’s a lesser known side effect of steroids. Along with hamster tongue.
Shana: It looks like his abs already got a little too close to the fire. Overcooking your meat is a rookie move.
Also from Pam: And then the cold:
For instant relief of coughs and cold, I give you Peen-o-tussin!
Instantly soothes sneezing, sniffling and snake handling.*
*Peen-o-tussin should only be used according to the manufacturer’s direction by adult fae only. Overuse of Peen-o-tussin could cause hair to go up in smoke and actual peen to to ignite and launch. . . .”
Sarah: This cover is so subtle.
Elyse: Aw his belly button ring glows.
Sneezy: For this year’s finals: “Is the winter king’s belly button ring endothermic or exothermic? What effect does Peen-o-tussin have on its properties?”
Shana: What is going on behind his head? Is that a ghostly apparition?
Winter Kings hands are tiny. It’s a no for me.
Orc’s belly button is a sentient thing: it sees all!
I have to feel a little bit sorry for the models who posed for the original images from which these covers derived. I’ve seen that Winter King guy (minus the white hair and various accoutrements) on numerous covers. I’m sure on the day he took that picture, he never dreamed it would end like this. What hath photoshop wrought?
I’ve read the Blain. Although it didn’t have that cover as it was part of an anthology. Lots of over the top silliness. The llama is grouchy and spits at everyone. The guy is a shifter, but not a wolf.
As for the other three…. their proportions all seem to shrink from the top down, which sort of implies that there’s not much there, there.
I remember about a decade or more ago there was a fad in advertising to take pictures from above so everyone had giant heads and tiny pig trotter feet. It was ugly and didn’t last long. Someone please tell these cover designers that the fad is long past.
The Greek letters on ASTERION are killing me. That’s a sigma and a theta, not an E and an O.
“Ths Cthurt Thf Ths Undsrwthld”
I have never seen 4 cover models questioning their choices like I do in this collection. Even the llama is over it all. They’re about to unionize and go on strike. (The models, not the llama.)
I read the Blain and it was enjoyable. And I think it’s supposed to be an alpaca, but that’s a minor quibble. Not to be confused with a tribble.
Poor llama, he should be on a farm, not in the city.
And those tusks, ouch.
@DDD now I can’t get “he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake..” out of my head because of the dang sentient belly button.
Why do I feel like these cover designers are Jason Momoa fans? (Except for the Robert Downey Jr fan with the llama.)
Winter King must be seriously cold resistant, otherwise he’s about five minutes away from hypothermia.
“ASTERION: The Court of the Underworld”?
More likely, “ASTERION: The Corset (Training) of the Underworld”.
Who ever said Orcs are proportional
The orc’s (badly photoshopped) tusks appear to be coming out of his upper lip rather than from his lower jaw, where all good orc tusks belong. And OMG the arm veins!! He looks like a plant, actually, like the veins in a leaf. And what actually *is* going on with his left arm? There doesn’t appear to be a wrist, or a tapered forearm, or a hand . . .
What…what is hamster tongue?
There is an alien face peering out of the Winter King’s chest, his left eye bulging. He may have ingested ET!
Is the Winter King supposed to be biting his hand, or did the cold make his lip stick to it like the frozen pole in A Christmas Story?
All I see in that orc is green Christopher Meloni!
@LovesOtters THANK YOU THAT WAS BUGGING ME.
Yay I’m SBTB famous now, but seriously the RJ Blain books are a hoot, I have them on preorder always
I adore the RJ Blain rom-com series. That llama is amazing