Johanna and Woodcarver

In honor of Vernor Vinge's latest sequel release, Children of the Sky, here's some artwork from the original novel, A Fire Upon the Deep. I sketched this a few years ago and decided to color it now.

This picture is of Johanna Olsndot and her Tinish friend, Woodcarver. Friend, not friends... Woodcarver's race are hive-minds; they are only sentient in groups of four to eight. In the picture Johanna and Woodcarver are going over plans on Dataset, a futuristic iPad-like device in the form of a toy elephant. (I realize this will probably only make sense to those of you who have read the book. If you like sci-fi I'd encourage you to give it a chance, it's fantastic.)