Concept art is a great way to feel your way into a story. I’ve been experimenting with different styles recently, mainly as a way of growing into the skin of some tales in the Echoes series, featuring Hunter and Bain. In Gallery of Undead the main characters find their way into a listing hulk and encounter a ghoulish gallery of …
Writer’s Journal: Character Sketches 01
There are many different ways into a new story. This time I decided to draw the main characters and some of their items for a fantastic new tale. Hunter and Bain feature in a number of stories, but this one is the end of a linear time sequence, so I’m trying to keep the exposition down to a bare minimum which …
Writer’s Journal: Success and the Self-Publisher
Indie Publishing, or self-publishing, is slowly assuming a skin of respectability. It’s a thin skin, subject to the puncture of snobbery, self-doubt and, ultimately, the bruising engagement with readers, but self-publishing is a democratising force for thousands of people who don’t have the contacts or the desire to submit to the withering forces of traditional publishing. However, anyone serious about …
Writer’s Journal: The Quality vs Time Equation.
Writing brings joy and pain. Any creative effort is a conflict between these two elements. Sometimes you can work all night but end up with ashes in your hands. Lawyers bill their time but a writer / artist / musician can spend hours getting absolutely nowhere. Obviously there are strategies to narrow in on this, routines that can be developed, but …