“I once had a face. I can still picture it, if I try. But that surface always felt alien, a blank canvas that anything could be projected upon. Except the eyes. Something haunted those slate mirrors, a terrible purpose that waited patiently to reveal itself. We are all just costumes that death wears for a season.”
Tales From When I Had A Face
Tales From When I Had A Face is a massive, sweeping project I’ve been working on since 2014. Tales is a densely illustrated, multi format epic book series written by James Curcio. The Kickstarter went live at the start of this month, and reached the first funding goal within 24 hours! At this moment, we’re less than $400 away from reaching the first stretch goal.
Nearly a decade of work has gone into this. I spent years dwelling in the world James Curcio created here, and part of me remains there… One of the projects that has been occupying me for the last few years, and will for a few years to come. Follow the progress and see the art Curcio-fied at
If we push beyond that goal but don’t reach $15k there may be some other interesting upgrade options, depending where we come. I’ll evaluate that when we get there… In the meantime… tell your friends.
On Ayta’s seventh birthday, there came a knock on the door, and her namesake stood before her. Gran Ayta. Once a thing of myth, descended from legends. Now she seemed just a stooped old woman, but appearances can be deceiving. Ayta’s lonely childhood was soon transformed by Gran’s fantastic stories of flight from one world to the next. From distant Siberia to the Second World, from there to the very Land of the Dead she had come, or so she claimed. And she had returned with secrets taken from that underworld, to teach her granddaughter. Seven years later, her Gran would be dead. Ayta had to come to terms with the legacy she had passed on to her, bearing these myths in a world which has no need for what it sees as childish things. A childish world that she knew was soon to end. Just when she thought she had finally left those tales in the past, she met Nyssa. A character straight out of Gran’s stories who was unknowingly bound by the same fate she was. Like all star-crossed lovers, their fate was written from the moment they crossed paths.
Tales “From When I Had A Face
Working on this project has been one of the best chapters of my creative life, and I think the experience has changed me in a number of ways. Some times have been hard during the process, and I know they would have been far more difficult to live through without this. Gives me the feeling I’ve been looking for this all my life.
Reading through each draft as they came along was a fresh joy each time, doing a lot to solidify the world for me. In a way, it’s like one of my fellow aliens on Terra went back home, leaving one less of our number. Before the work of illustration began, I drew hundreds of pieces of concept art. My own work had a hold on me and rode me hard. Making these places live and breathe is one of the most important parts of what I was doing. Exploring the spaces from various angles and distances in which the story unfolds in the preparation to begin illustrating made the later process very natural.
The prologue always struck a deep chord with me from my first read of an early draft, and the experience of reading the rest only brought me in deeper. The characters took on a life of their own, living ion their world, the illustrations themselves… The desert settings in which my visual work dwelled almost magically brought me to a landscape very much like the world I was helping create.
P. Emerson Williams 