Fan Art Friday

I'm extending the due date on the competition by another week. The last two weeks have been really busy and irritating and difficult for me. But I'm here to do a little bit of positive at the end of the week, and hopefully bring you a little bit of sunshine to carry you through the weekend.

Welp, it's Fan Art Friday, and once again I am short on fan art... However! Never let it say that I shall be deterred!

I've had some requests on reference photos for a couple that I absolutely love: Josh and Gabe. I revealed them briefly about a year ago, thinking at the time that the very next book I would be writing would be Shifter Centric... come to find out, I have a lot of work to do before I can start writing SC - which is intended to be to HBL what the Ender's Shadow series is to the Ender's Game series. So! For your entertainment, and reference, here is more of Josh and Gabe.

Josh

Gabe

My original version of Josh and Gabe

Andrea Hatch's version of Josh and Gabe

I hope you love them as much as I love them. ;) You get to meet them in the last parts of Hard Bank Left.

The Busy Week of Busy-ness!

As some of you may have noticed, I didn't blog on Monday or Wednesday. What some of you may not have noticed (and I mean, really, how could you notice unless you've been spying on me?! *gasp*) that I've been editing a lot of Hard Bank Left lately! I've come to several realizations, not the least of which being who the bad guys are/bad guy motivation. (I refer you to this last Friday's blog.)

I've also been thinking a lot about Krys's family relations, and her discontentment at home and I realized - though I really have no idea how - that Krys is the middle child of three. This has put a number of plot twists in my head that I really can't wait to share with you... but you're going to have to wait until the middle of Tailslide to hear about them! Muahahahaha! xD But seriously, it's killing me not telling you right now!

In other news! The first two chapters of HBL will be available for public reading in the up and coming magazine Book-it! from Chapter One. I'm so stoked. I've been working with the editor to get an exclusive look to the story, including but not limited to pictures. It's been really fun and I hope you enjoy the effort. If you don't live in Utah and are looking for a copy of my story in the magazine, you can pre-order your copy of the first issue here, subscriptions are available.

Also! super awesome bonus material alert I am holding a competition for best Steam Punk! If you are into cosplay, are an artist, or you have friends who are, this is for you. 

In Hard Bank Left, Target Lost, and Tailslide there are a ton of fight scenes. In these there are characters the have special physic abilities. The winner of this competition will get the opportunity to be written into one of these three stories as either a good guy or a bad guy with one of these abilities. Here is your chance to be immortalized in fiction!

THE COMPETITION:
To enter into this competition, you must submit a picture or drawing of you or one of your original characters/alter-egos to aletheraia@gmail.com no later than August 15th. The winner will be announced the next day in my usual Fan Art Friday post.

SUBMISSION RULES:

• The character must a specific mental ability. For a list of powers, check out my wiki page. This doesn't have to be demonstrated, just let me know in the email.

• The character must demonstrate that they are in the Shadow Cast world by having one or more of the following objects: 
• has objects that glow cyan
• has an elaborately decorated key
• has a mix of steampunk and cyberpunk tech (ie a musket and a flexi)

•  If a bad guy, the character must demonstrate some sort of military insignia
• If a good guy, the character must stand out as being eccentric in some way (ex. they're crazy, have no sense of style, or are a gypsy)
• optional bonus material (please note that bonus material doesn't count toward your actual score, but it sure makes your character fantastic)
• awesome Nerf  - glowey paint gets double bonuses!
• making jeans look steampunky
• dreadlocks
• eye patches
• kickawesome scars
• bizarre eye color
• curly orange hair

As a final note, keep it clean (we have young and/or impressionable audience members). I look forward to seeing what you have in store!

Fan Art Friday

Wow... is it Saturday??? Where did my week go? No seriously, my husband has a different work schedule on Saturday than he does the rest of the week, so I was freaking out when he got up at 8 and I thought it was 10... yeah, that was a bit of a shock.

So! Fan art Friday... again, I have little fan art to present, but I figured I might keep up with my theme of sharing what inspires me. (Seriously, I have a bunch, so I'll keep it coming.) So, it's bad guy day!

You've heard me make references to her, and seeing as how she's playing a bigger role in HBL, it's high time you guys see my inspiration for Ero Gleilien. This character, like many of my characters started off as something completely different in a completely different universe. Ero was originally a crazy Wild Elf in an RPG that had a major schtick with goblins. The best image I can give you of what she used to look like is this:

courtesy of Ashli Hara

But then I started writing a sci-fi novel and Ero became a care free pilot with an attitude that went a little something like this:

I still love this character, but I found in writing HBL I needed Ero and her partner Caprisha to fill a role, so she turned into more of a staunch bounty hunter working with a federal agent. Of course, all that would be a cover for her true self - a Commandant in the Shadow Cast's private military. (No worries my other characters got renamed, they have not gotten lost in the mix up!) So, now Ero looks a little something like this:

mixed with a little of this

 Yeah... I know, figure that one out. But I had a dream and somehow it worked! So, you'll just have to read on and see what I have in store.

Found a WindSong model

So, I've been looking around for good references for WindSong, especially with me making a paper mache version and all. Lookie what I've found!

Whudja think?

This is AWESOME!

I found the most awesome video. Yes, it's a commercial for alcohol, but the tech, the awesome clothing, even the event and music, it's all things that are very indicative of the Shadow Cast universe (my universe). So, if you were having a hard time imagining a Steampunk 1970's with high tech projections, here it is!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDboaDrHGbA&list=PLFFDAFEBFA6A068D8&index=45&feature=plpp_video