In the Light of Suns

This started out as a sketch of a head. I was trying to see what I could do without any photo references, but I did end up using a reference for the shoulder, and the eye. I'm amazed at how much I've forgotten about art, and find I'm having to relearn a lot of stuff.

Outside The Den

So, here's my final entry for the Natives of the Lifeless Forest contest over at CGhub.com.

Tell me what you think!

P.S. In response to comments, here's a link where you can purchase a high quality print!

Spheres

This is obviously inspired by 3 Black, my minimalist painting, but this has a note of realism to it.

Of course this has a guy in a spacesuit, and who can argue with that?

The Hunt (final)

I finished this a day late for the CgHub Draw Jam, but I learned a lot by doing this.

The Hunt (Partial)

This is one part of a three panel drawing. This is my second digital painting with the Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet. I'll post the complete painting when I'm finished with it. I was rushing to enter this in a contest at CGHub.com and didn't have time to finish the other two parts.

New Digital Painting

This is a quick digital painting I did with my new Wacom tablet. Right now I'm still trying to get a feel for it, but I'm getting more comfortable all the time.

I always get stuck on names. Anyone have a suggestion for it?

Coraline the Movie

I thought everyone knew about the Coraline Movie coming out February 6th, but then I mentioned it to my mom and she was like "What's Coraline?".

It's a movie based on Neil Gaiman's book of the same name. It's a "children's" book, but think of it more along the lines of children's/adult book, since adults will definitely get a kick out of it. A girl, Coraline, and her parents, move to a large house, and Coraline is left alone since her parents are very busy. She starts to wish that things were different, and gets more than she wants.

So for all of those who don't know here's a trailer for it.

Drawing of Ezee Part 2

I rephotographed the drawing of Ezee, the main character from my new book. It looks better than the previous post, but it's still not as good as the original.

One of these days I will master the art of photographing art.

Drawing of Main Character For My New Book

I took a break from the rewrite of my last book and decided to do NaNoWriMo in February, where you try to write a novel in one month. That didn't turn out so well since the new book I started demanded that I do research and is more complicated than I first thought.

So, since then I've been trying to figure out the new book, which has a working title of Mule, and I got the urge to draw Ezee, the main character. So here's a photo of the drawing.

P.S. The drawing looks Way better in real life. I need a new camera and the manner in which pencil is rendered digitally is not the best.

New Orleans Trip

I'm Posting this a few days late, but over the last weekend I went to New Orleans to visit my brother and his family. We visited some cemeteries looking for Marie Laveau's resting place, and toured Bourbon street, and then went to Gulf Port Mississippi, to see the Gulf of Mexico.

We saw some Voodoo graves where people had made offerings and performed a ritual that included drawing three X's on the crypt.

We also visited a cigar shop where they rolled their own.

On Bourbon street we saw all sorts of street performers, and clubs, and shops, and I even got a picture of a vampire. The bald guy dresses as a vampire and gives tours, but this was his down time. And yes I know that one photo is blurry. I like it anyway.

And I also like to get regular street shots, since all anyone ever sees are the tourist areas, and I like to show people what the real city looks like.

These are just some of the photos I took. I might post more later.

Chasm City

Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds is a book set in a future where humanity has already moved to the stars. Tanner Mirabel, is an ex-soldier and now security specialist for a notorious crime boss on a planet called Sky's edge.

But as the book starts off, the boss is dead and Tanner is following the person who did it to get revenge. But the person he is following is leaving Sky's Edge to another system called Yellowstone, and Tanner intends to follow. Along the way Tanner gets infected with a cultist virus that makes him have visions of the long dead infamous founder of Sky's Edge and now pseudo religious figure.

The virus is something that he thinks he can deal with, and can be ignored, but soon it's interfering with his plans, both short term and long.

This was a cool book. I've read the other ones set in this universe and I wasn't planning on reading this, since it is a stand alone story, and not part of the larger Revelation Space trilogy. But I'm glad I gave it a try.

It has some twists in it that sneak up on you, and make you question your loyalty to the main character.

I would definitely recommend it.

And if you haven't read the Revelation Space Trilogy, stop what you're doing and go by all three, it's awesome. (Cautionary note, the first 80 pages of Revelation Space drag, but once you get past them, you will fall in love with the book. And the last book in the series has some weirdness that you really don't want to miss!)

Bamboo Fun + Drawing

For Christmas I got a Bamboo Fun pen tablet by Wacom. I've been holding off on using it because I'm trying to finish a traditional pencil drawing of the main character from my new book. (Which I will start writing as soon as I finish the rewrite on my last book. Let's cross our fingers for the end of February.)

But also, because I'm not sure about it. I'm so used to traditional techniques, and the ability to draw on paper, that drawing in one place and have the image form on screen in another is is a little bit of a mental hurdle to overcome.

So, I was about to shut down for the night and I thought that I would do a quick sketch, just to get a feel for it. I thought that I would just try to draw a simple eye. And that's how it started. But then I kept going and ended up drawing a whole face.

I learned a couple things. Pen tablets are not magic. They won't make you draw better than you already do, and in many respects, make you draw worse.

It's almost like learning to draw again. You have to train your hand and brain to work spatially separate, but mentally together.

Keep at it. Since I've played with it a little I'm getting more comfortable, and things are looking more like I want them.

So here's the first drawing I did with the Bamboo Fun. I know what I think, so tell me what you think!

The Drawing of the Three

After being urged for years by my brother to read the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, I finally read the gunslinger about 6 months ago. And now I just read the second book in the series, The Drawing of the Three.

I can't say I'm a big fan of Stephen King, but I have read a few of his books and stories, and of course, seen the movies. Certain things about the way he writes bug me, and certain things he puts in his stories bother me, but I have to admit he's a good story teller, and The Drawing of the Three is no exception.

It is the continuation of the Gunslinger's quest to find the Dark Tower and somehow save his land and people. And the path takes him into our world to gather the people and things he needs. Along with the loss of body parts, sea creatures, and plenty of shooting, just to keep things interesting.

I would recommend the series so far, with the warning that it is Stephen King writing, and the books include all that that implies.

The Ghost Brigades

This is the second book in a trilogy by John Scalzi. He one of those writers that doesn't let his personal views in the real world overtake the story. The story is number one.

And this leads to books that are entertaining, and fun!

This book isn't a typical sequel, as the main character doesn't appear in Old Man's War, but don't let that stop you. Think of this more along the lines of a continuation of an overall plot for this universe and not a continuation of the main character's story from the first book.

Helix - Avoided

I just bought Helix by Eric Brown, today based on the description on the back of the book.

This was going to be about travel through space, and a way to survive a ship malfunction in the middle of nowhere, near a strange spiral formation of planets, with some alien encounters along the way.

Or so it led me to believe.

On the book it talks about how "great" Eric Brown is, and I went against my feelings that that was a bad sign. Also, I didn't recognize the names of the authors who blurbed the book, which I should have taken as another warning but didn't.

In the first few pages I start running across writer cliches, but I still read on since even good writers fall into the trap now and then. Then I find that he has no sense of letting a reader figure things out for themselves, which is really annoying, and smacks of an amateur who never learned to show and not tell. And then I encountered his dialogue that is so contrived, it makes George Lucas look like Shakespeare.

And now 90 pages into the book the only thing about the story I was interested in, has been effectively dashed. And apparently we are going to be subjected to some aliens who act and think and have a society exactly like a parody of the middle ages mixed with the 1930's, except that they are furry and blue, and if I keep saying they are furry and blue, that's all you need to make an alien, right?

I feel cheated and betrayed.

This leads me to ask myself why I would spend the next 500 pages or so reading an author who needs to learn writing basics, when there are a lot better writers out there? And the answer is, I would rather be bored than have to slog my way through this awkward and clumsy book by a writer who I can't believe is actually published.

So, this is the first, and (thanks to all that is good) the last book I will ever read, or partially read, by Eric Brown.

I just hope the book store will take it back and refund my money. I would destroy the book to rid the world of an abomination, but that would mean Mr. Brown would get a royalty for my purchase, and I don't want to encourage him to keep on writing.

Anansi Boys

I read this like 2 weeks ago, maybe finished it about the 3rd or 4th. Anyway it's a really good book. Go read it.

NaNoWriMo

This year I've decided to do NaNoWriMo. You might ask what that is, and technically it stands for National Novel Writing Month, but the real definition is How To Drive Yourself Crazy For 30 Days.

The goal is to write 50,000 words in one month. That breaks down to about 1600 words a day. So far this is day two and I've barely written over a thousand.

Yes, I'm behind.

No, I'm not going to just write crap to fill a quota.

So why did I sign up to do something that I might not even finish?

I've been rewriting my other novel for about a year now and am almost to the end. I have about 75 pages to go. But I'm also burning out on it, and need a break.

I need to get my brain thinking new ideas and images. With a rewrite, you don't change much of what actually happens in a book, just make it clearer, and sound better to read.

And, I want to see if I can write 50,000 meaningful coherent words in one month.

And I'm crazy.

If you want to be crazy too, feel free to join!

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Now playing: Tom Waits - Make It Rain
via FoxyTunes

The Dispossessed

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. La Guin is a book with a political agenda straight out of the era it was conceived in, but she does manage to weave her ideas into the framework of a story, so that in the end you can forgive her, or at least appreciate her position, despite a naivete that seems to have originated inside a 1960's commune.

Her version of an anarchist society, if it were a character, would be classified as a Mary Sue. It has the rose colored glasses feel that seem to stem from someone who has not been oppressed, or been an outsider, to the extent that even someone who was your friend yesterday, is secretly against you today, but with just enough of a forgivable fault so that, to the cursory examination, it appears to be well rounded.

It seems to be based on a popular fallacy that people, in general, are naturally good, self sacrificing, and humanitarian. But if you ask any child on a school ground who has been bullied, you soon realize that it is a delusion that the well off and relatively untroubled like to believe is the natural state of affairs. Similar to the tabula rasa movement of the turn of the twentieth century, and earlier, where the natural man was conceived and held up as return to serenity, peace, and cooperation with nature, the era that spawned this book seems to believe that an overriding set of rules will somehow defeat and fundamentally change human nature.

While Mrs. La Guin is an excellent writer, the book is showing its age, except for those who are still living in the mental glory days of their adolescence.

I think I think too much 2

Blanket statements are usually as stupid as the person who makes them.

Stupidity is a specific and varied quality.

Intelligence in one area does not equate to intelligence in all areas.

Guerrilla Marketing for the Internet

Finished a couple days ago.