Makraka Drawn...

Art by TL Jeffcoat

I've been writing my fingers off, but I squeezed in some art time by completing the Makraka, and made some more progress on the Hussite War Wagon. Here is the Makraka, check out the original post it's been attached to for more.

Next week, I'm planning to post a new Weapons & Warriors. When I'm not working on that, I'll be working on the new chapters for Devil Dog. Have a great 4th of July world.

Another picture update!

I completed the two pictures for this week. That's 3 down so far and 2 to go before March. Check out the post on the Katara if you haven't seen it before. It's one of my favorite weapons of all time. The Katara of the Rajput.

I didn't have much else to say this week because I'm still plugging away on the world building. Unfortunately I haven't directed much attention to Devil Dog, but that will change soon. I've almost got all the basic stuff into the World building book. Then it'll just be a bunch of fleshing out details of various things as they come to me. Once I've reached that point, my brain might release me from that world and let me get back to Devil Dog. Apparently my goal of creating impossible tasks has been an absolute success. I have failed part of it, but I've made more progress the last few weeks than I did all of last year. See you next week. For those of you who like the corporate holiday called Valentine's Day, I hope you have a great one.

Mortal Kombat's Kitana Drawing.

Today I’m just popping in for a short progress report. I have been squeezing in a few minutes here and there to draw a few lines, or erase and draw them differently. I tried modeling the picture after the picture I had originally posted for the Tessen, but my skills are lacking in a great way in comparison. I think I have all my lines drawn now, so looks like all I have left is some coloring and then I will attempt to do some shading to give it a more three dimensional look.

Once I finish this picture, I am pretty sure I'll be able to crank out a bunch of weapons pictures a lot faster. I'm really getting a hang of the software and this is so much better than my free hand drawings. I will have to go back and replace some of those ugly free hand pictures someday. Like the Hwacha. That is a horrible drawing that mixed my initial freehand sketch with some digital editing. I had no idea what I was doing with this software at that time and I know I can make that picture a hundred times better. I'm very excited that I am developing a new skill alongside my writing. I can't wait to start sketching my characters one of these days.
 
I posted my progress so far down below. It's not perfect, but it's a huge improvement over my last attempt at drawing people. I'll have to go back and tinker with the Terminator: Back to the Future Cover after I'm done with this.

Writer Ramblings: Impossible Goals

After a recent conversation on Facebook with the witty Anne-Mhairi Simpson about setting goals that can’t be achieved, I am going to jump on that challenge. She already began her impossible goals, so I am going to do something similar.

Photo from Kristin Nador on WANACommons

My first impossible goal is to finish the book of notes I’m currently writing. My first intention was to just gather all my two decades worth of notes into one location so that I can pick up my old fantasy series project again. I wanted to write both the Devil Dog series, which is not a fantasy series, alongside an epic high fantasy series. Since late November, I’ve been compiling notes, trying to uniform ideas, and basically make some sense of the chaos twenty plus years of daydreaming has created. I’ve been world building. This task in itself would normally be what I call my life’s work, but I have a lot of other series, like Devil Dog, that also needs to be written. So, I’ve decided to create a “guide” to the fantasy world which describes everything from religions, cultures, races, magic, creatures, maps, history, etc. I’m currently at 30,000 words, and I’m anticipating it to reach close to 150,000 words (approximately 500 pages). The easy part of this book is it is for my own personal use as a guide to this huge fantasy world. I won’t have to edit it for grammar or anything else. It’s just massive and full of pictures. I want to finish the entire thing by March. That’s my impossible goal. That’s a month and a half away.

Kickstarter’s Most-Funded Fiction Book of 2013 Bolstered by Marvel, DC and Image Artists

'Blake Northcott' - pencils, inks and colors by Jon 'Roc' Upchurch

I haven’t read comics in years, but I’m still a huge fan of the art. I’m also a big fan of superhero stories. I’ve even been slowly developing a series in my spare time which will start as novels and be converted into graphic novels someday. For now though, I wanted to share with you the new release from one of my favorite superhero writers: Blake Northcott! This looks like another awesome collaboration of artists who created spectacular art for Blake's novel. I’ve loved all her work so far, if you haven't heard of Blake Northcott, well then read on.

Meet Mr. Jones

A self Portrait of Steven DeVon Jones

I've talked about the guy who is making the covers for my novels and I am now going to showcase some of his concept sketches on the blog. I created a new page where I'll place various drawings that he's done and sent to me. He mentioned once that he'd love to be a comic book artist, and I really enjoy looking at his work. If he ever gets a gig drawing for comics, I'll be first in line to buy. It's been a while since I read one, but I was pretty picky about the art back when I did. Check out the new page on the toolbar above and leave a comment if you like. Also, you can check out the Weapons & Warriors page where Steven sketched some of the warriors that are listed there.