J.B. Norman's Blog, page 352

J.B. Norman and the Monochromatic Image

So, basically, here’s a better, though not necessarily finalised version, of the, uh, version of my logo that uses a dragon as the R.

This one is black and white out of pragmatism; it costs a whole lot more to print my books in colour and it’s not worth the expense if the only image is going to be my logo (well, it’s not really worth the expense at all).

Hence, I made a black and white version to get a sense of what it would look like on the page and made it black and white to begin with so I don’t have to worry about the colours getting messed up while converting it to black and white.

Not a whole lot more than that to say.

J.B. Norman and the Logo Dragon

The quest for a new logo continues.

Following up from yesterday’s hastily-taken, poorly composed, lo-res photo, here’s the same dragon from that version of the logo, but better and in colour.

For reference, the dragon is supposed to be an R.

I’m still working on the rest of this version of the logo, and the final version probably isn’t going to be in full colour, but I did want to show off a full-colour version.

Also, I changed my blog settings to spellcheck in the Queen’s English, so it’s no longer getting mad at me for spelling “colour” properly.

Also also, if the text on this post ends up looking weird, it’s because WordPress has done something that I don’t quite understand or know how to fix…

J.B. Norman and the Creative Problem Solving

That is my latest attempt at a new logo.

You’ll note, of course, that that is a photo, not a digital image. That would be because our scanner is currently spoken for, so I couldn’t scan the hard copy to edit digitally. Hence, creative solution.

Better, clearer version to follow soon. I promise.

Also, man, my forehead is huge. Like, that’s only the top fifth and you could still land a zeppelin on it…

J.B. Norman and the “I Think I’m Getting the Hang of This.”

The quest for a new Realmgard logo continues.

Long story short, here’s a better version of that last version, which was itself a better version of my current logo:

J.B. Norman and the Valiant First Effort

As stated previously (several times now), I’m looking to do a new logo.

How is started…

Much work later, here’s a preliminary first draft.

… How it’s going.

This is almost certainly not going to be what I end up going with.

But on the plus side, it’s superior to my previous logo by every possible metric.

Keeping up with the (Realm)Joneses

Photo by Abstrakt Xxcellence Studios on Pexels.com

You may or may not have noticed that I’ve added a new page to the Realmgard website.

It’s a page that contains a sign-up form for my e-mail newsletter. I’d appreciate if you would consider signing up for that newsletter and keep apprised of the latest Realmgard happenings. You can find the Subscribe page here.

Or you could just follow my blog directly. There should be a form to do that popping up at the bottom of the page.

J.B. Norman and the Vain Repetition

The adventure continues!

Since deciding I need a new logo, I’ve been hard at work sketching some out. Here’s about half of them so far.

And an unrelated pie.

J.B. Norman and the Hunt for a New Logo

Now, much like 1980s Adult Contemporary music powerhouse Huey Lewis (and the News) I, too, want a new thing:

Though where Mr. Lewis (and the News) wants a new drug — the drug, of course, being a metaphor for love — I want a new logo.

Well, technically, I want a new wordmark.

I already have a logo in the form of the Porthaven flag. And, given my well-attested difficulties with drawing dolphins —

Yeah. Those ones.

— I’m not really in a hurry to change that.

For reference, this is what dolphins are supposed to look like…
Photo by Daniel Torobekov on Pexels.com

But I am in a hurry to change this:

That’s my current logo.

And I’m really starting to hate it.

So, now that I’m a better, or at least less-bad artist/graphic designer, I’m gonna give it another (lo)go.

So far, I have this:

Yeah. Just an R. On the plus side, the R is the most important part. And this is a pretty good R, yeah?

I’m getting REAL sick of your sass, man.
Photo by Robert Nagy on Pexels.com

Hopefully, I’ll have something more than just a letter to show off soon.

But, full disclosure, this post was really just an elaborate plot to post a link to a Huey Lewis song.

Detail of a RealmgART: Column of Parthene

As previously established, Parthene is the main Amazon goddess, and this is how her sanctuary is represented on the depiction of the Amazon Decapolis.

The name Parthene is derived from Parthenos — a word you’ll probably recognise as the namesake of probably the most famous ancient temple in the world, the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens.

Parthenos means “virgin”, basically the equivalent of the English “maiden.” It’s one of the titles of Athena, one of the three most significant virgin goddesses of the Greek pantheon along with Artemis and Hestia. “Parthene” seemed like a good name for a goddess who’s basically equal parts Athena and Artemis.

Except she’s an Elf…

She’s dressed in armour to represent her military, Athena-esque attributes and to represent her as the ideal Amazon. Amazons strive to be warriors, so, naturally, their goddess is going to be the best warrior.

The wreath is a traditional symbol of victory (which I’ve explained before) and the general appearance of the statue of Parthene on top of the column is modelled after any number of real-life victory columns depicting a goddess of Victory (there’s a lot; take your pick).

The column itself is supposed to be a Corinthian column — though given that there’s no Corinth in Realmgard, it’d probably be called something else.

Compared to the other two ancient orders of columns, Doric and Ionic, Corinthian columns are the most elaborate. And, honestly, trying to do a Corinthian column was a bad choice.

Those leaves were a real pain to draw.

They’re supposed to be acanthus leaves, but they didn’t really end up looking like either real acanthus leaves or the leaf sculptures that real Corinthian columns have. On the other hand, I like how the fluting on the column turned out. So least part of the column turned out well.

Funny story, by the way. I gave myself a brief moment of panic after I initially posted the image, because I couldn’t remember whether or not I had drawn Parthene with Elf ears.

Basically, it’s the Greatest Living Author’s (and Most Adequate Living Visual Artist) equivalent of going “Oh no! Did I leave the stove on?”.

RealmgART: Dolphins are Still Hard to Draw

Based on the troubles I’ve been having with my last couple pieces of art, I’ve started looking for a new art program to use.

This is my attempt at recreating the flag of Porthaven with a program called Inkscape.

The short version is that it was great for drawing everything but that darn (that’s not the word I want to use — but, you know, family-friendly website, and all) dolphin.

Seriously, about seven different versions of the flag has made me drawing dolphins. I guess the good news is that I can already tell Inkscape is probably a really good program (with a UI that looks straight out of 1998, but I can work around that).

I just have no idea what I’m doing with it.

Basically, this is me booting up Inkscape for the first time.
Photo by Robert Nagy on Pexels.com