Ann Leckie

Last, but hardly least, the Emanation of Existence and Non-existence:

Divisible into Existence:

And Non-existence:

I don’t know about you, but I’m seeing an opportunity for putting some little sparkly things into Existence. A small tube of E6000 goes a long way, and you can almost always find a package of little sparkly acrylic “gems” at the craft store. I love sparkle, myself.

Work these in beads, fiber, polymer clay, paper–whatever you like. Quickie print them up and use self-laminating adhesive sheets. Paint or draw them on things. Embroider–honestly, whatever seems fun to you!

Here’s an SVG file for you to play with:

VahnItr.svg

This is an SVG file with layers. Gimp will open it but it won’t see the layers. As I said the other day, I’m told the file (and the corresponding ones for the other Emanations) was made in Adobe Illustrator and will open in that application. Someone in comments yesterday suggested Inkscape.

Here’s a PSD file with layers:

VahnItrCMYK.psd

This uses the CMYK color scheme. I have no idea what that means, besides the fact that Gimp won’t open it. Presumably Photoshop will. Nicole has said she’ll convert these over to RGB when she gets a chance, at which point I’ll upload those and link them.

Nicole tells me she’s tried very hard to make these layers clear and easy for folks to work with, so y’all can manipulate these and play with them to your heart’s content. And I want to thank her again for doing such awesome work! If you make things with these, do try to credit her in some way.

And there you go! The four Emanations, for you to enjoy and play around with however you like!

The Emanation of Movement and Stillness:

Which breaks down into Movement:

And Stillness:

Reminding folks who don’t think they have drawing skills, the more elaborate elements of these doubtless have super-schematic versions. I’m betting there’s a version of this that looks like Stillness=heavy vertical line, Motion=asterisk kind of thing, Movement/Stillness=Dark heavy line with light asterisk behind it. Even I could draw that. And I bet that’s what the small IssaInu looked like that Syrix was wearing, in Ancillary Sword, now I think of it.

And of course–you can print things out and glue or sticker them to things. Check the EtrepaBo post for more specific suggestions, but really you can do almost anything with these.

Here’s an SVG file for you to play with:

IssaInu.svg

This is an SVG file with layers. Gimp will open it but it won’t see the layers. I’m told the file (and the corresponding ones for the other Emanations) was made in Adobe Illustrator and will open in that application.

Here’s a PSD file with layers:

IssaInuCMYK.psd

This uses the CMYK color scheme. Gimp won’t open it. Presumably Photoshop will. Nicole has said she’ll convert these over to RGB when she gets a chance, at which point I’ll upload those and link them.

Nicole tells me she’s tried very hard to make these layers clear and easy for folks to work with, so y’all can manipulate these and play with them to your heart’s content. And I want to thank her again for doing such awesome work! Please do try to credit her when you use these images, if you can.

Next up, the Emanation of Beginning and ending:

Easily breakable into Beginning:

And Ending:

These are pretty simple to start with, but I’ll remind everyone that any iconic symbols like this probably have super-simplified versions as well as very elaborated ones.

I’ll also remind folks that there are all kinds of ways, simple or elaborate, to produce these for yourself. Print them and use self laminating sheets or do some decoupage. Embroidery or bead embroidery. Polymer clay! That’s a good one. There’s even a way to transfer laser-printed images to unbaked polymer clay (you need to varnish the baked clay afterward or it could rub off). Or if you’ve got polymer clay skillz, you could probably do this up in different colored clays. Add pinbacks or jump rings (or ear wires, or whatever) and make any sort of jewelry you like. Or make other stuff. Enjoy!

Here’s an SVG file for you to play with:

EskVar.svg

This is an SVG file with layers. Gimp will open it but it won’t see the layers. As I said yesterday, I’m told the file (and the corresponding ones for the other Emanations) was made in Adobe Illustrator and will open in that application.

Here’s a PSD file with layers:

EskVarCMYK.psd

This uses the CMYK color scheme. I have no idea what that means, besides the fact that Gimp won’t open it. Presumably Photoshop will. Nicole has said she’ll convert these over to RGB when she gets a chance, at which point I’ll upload those and link them.

Nicole tells me she’s tried very hard to make these layers clear and easy for folks to work with, so y’all can manipulate these and play with them to your heart’s content. And I want to thank her again for doing such awesome work! If you make things with these, do try to credit her in some way.

This is the first of the Emanations, Light and Darkness.

Breakable of course into Light:

And Darkness:

So. A few notes. Like a lot of commonly-used iconic symbols, these are subject to elaboration as well as super-simplification. So I’m sure that EtrepaBo can as easily be recognizable by a half-light, half-dark triangle, for instance. Or with lots more fiddly stuff around the edges, or whatever. This will be the case with all the Emanations, so if you’re feeling your crafting or art skills aren’t up to the full thing, there are definitely ways to make them simpler but still the same thing. I’m betting a ship’s Etrepas wear something very simple, for instance–a light triangle in a dark circle, maybe, while the Bos would wear, oh, a dark triangle.

You can use these basically any way you like. Here are some specific techniques/ideas:

That blue and orange one is a sample of my brand-new and not-very-polished embroidery skillz. Regular embroidery floss, cheapie craft store felt. Stitch another piece of felt onto the back to hide your stitches, add a pinback (you can do that before you stitch on the second piece of felt, and cut a hole in the felt for the hardware to stick through for maximum neatness if you like). It’s a pin! Or sew it onto a thing, or add a jump ring and wear it as a necklace (though I find fabric jewelry like this a bit too lightweight to sit right, still, it’s a thing you could do.) You could do bead embroidery too, though that would be time-consuming. I am now imagining (and will likely never make) a wide bead embroidery collar of all four Emanations…

That black triangle? It’s a peyote-stitch triangle. Or, rather, two peyote stitch triangles zipped together back-to-back. The little black sparkly in the center is glued on, and circled with a strand of seed beads that’s tacked down onto the triangle in a technique that’s basically couching, but the couching stitches don’t show because they’re between the beads. It’s a nifty “false bezel” trick I learned from Diane Fitzgerald. Whose Shaped Beadwork I highly recommend.

If you want that flat circle to go with your triangle, I’ve found that flat circular square stitch gets you the best flat circles. You could do up a triangle and a circle and tack the triangle to the circle, pretty easily.

There are lots of instructions available online for basic peyote stitch, as well as peyote stitch triangles. You don’t have to use cylinder beads, cheapie seed beads are inconsistent in size but come in lots of bright colors and work just fine. Give it a go, if you haven’t! I’ve put together a youtube playlist of some basic beading info and tecnhiques, including peyote triangles and square stitch:

But there’s a lot more out there. Do some searches & dig around a bit.

Heading towards the much, much simpler, I printed out an EtrepaBo and decoupaged it to a little wooden circle I had around. All you need for this is paper, an object to stick your picture on, some glue–Modge Podge if you’re going high end, plain white glue (like Elmers) works just fine. A small paintbrush. Glue your pic to the surface, let it dry a bit. Use the paintbrush to brush a layer of glue over the surface, let it dry. Do this a few more times.

You could easily glue a bail to this, or drill a small hole and add a jump ring, for a necklace. Or earrings, ooh. And, of course, some E6000 and a pinback and you’ve got yourself a handsome pin. For this shape and size, I like the tie-tack kind of pinbacks, with the clutch thingies on the back, but you can use whatever works for you.

Last, but surely not least, get yourself some self-adhesive laminating sheets (basically clear sticker sheets) and sandwich a piece of paper between them. Trim as you like. Use a needle or awl to poke a hole for a jump ring (or ear wires!), or glue a clutch-back pin finding onto it. You can even poke holes in the clear border and attach beads or dangles or whatever seems good to you. And slapping sticker on two sides of paper, cutting to size, and gluing a pin finding? Super easy and requires pretty much no crafty skill at all.

Oh, and you could also do these out of polymer clay. For instance, there’s a fairly simple (if a bit labor intensive) technique for transferring laser-printed images onto unbaked polymer clay. (You’d then bake the clay and varnish it). The simple, clear lines and high contrast of the Emanations designs means they transfer really nicely:

(Yes, that’s more than EtrepaBo there.) I’ve glued pinbacks to these, but honestly you could add a bail and use them as a pendant, or make small ones for earrings, or whatever you’d like. If you don’t have a laser printer, you could use something like Gimp to make up a sheet of whatever you want to use, fill it right up, and take it somewhere like Kinkos.

Here’s a very short Polymer Clay playlist I made on YouTube. The transfer technique is included:

Beyond that, well, the sky’s the limit really. Make some awesome stuff!

Here’s an SVG file for you to play with:

EtrepaBo.svg

This is an SVG file with layers. Gimp will open it but it won’t see the layers. I’m told the file (and the corresponding ones for the other Emanations) was made in Adobe Illustrator and will open in that application.

Here’s a PSD file with layers:

EtrepaBoCMYK.psd

This uses the CMYK color scheme. I have no idea what that means, besides the fact that Gimp won’t open it. Presumably Photoshop will. Nicole has said she’ll convert these over to RGB when she gets a chance, at which point I’ll upload those and link them.

Nicole tells me she’s tried very hard to make these layers clear and easy for folks to work with, so y’all can manipulate these and play with them to your heart’s content. And I want to thank her again for doing such awesome work!