K.M. Carroll's Blog, page 14

Superhero commission progress pics

I’ve been working on a book cover commission for the last two weeks. Today was the final push to really get it finished. The author has been showing it off, so here’s my heavily-watermarked version.

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This is for Reformed: The Supervillain Rehabilitation Project by H.L. Burke. As of this blog post, it’s not out yet, but give it another month or two.

Here’s the progress pic:

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You can see some of my initial sketches, figuring out layouts and poses and such. Then the refined sketches where I was changing angles and positions and things. There were quite a few more of those, but I didn’t want to bore viewers. Then I moved to inking, then color roughs to figure out the mood. Heidi wanted an overall blue color scheme, so we went with a nice rich dark blue.

I personally can’t wait for the book to come out so I can read it.

Science fiction artworks

Most of the week has been taken up with a book cover commission, so I don’t have a lot of art. But I do have a few rough things to show off.

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I was trying to do a big spaceship with a nebula in the background … and maybe a ship or something in the foreground … but I couldn’t decide what to put in. Then I got distracted and forgot about it. So here is a half-finished background for something.

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This is the hero of my sci-fi I’ve been writing. He can create a magnetosphere around himself like a shield to repel plasma beams and any energy weapons. Bullets, however, go straight through, so his shield has limits. I based his suit on some spiffy suit concept art from NASA. This pic is kind of quick and dirty because I was just trying to create a visual for this magnetosphere thing. His hands become the north and south poles, and magnetospheres behave in really, really weird ways.

I can’t share the commission yet, because it’s still mostly secret. But next week, hopefully it’ll be done and I can show off progress pics.

This week’s art: fake oil paintings

I’ve been in a bit of an art slump these past few weeks, so I decided to try something completely, totally different. How about a tutorial about digital oil painting? Oh yeah!

My first attempt, I couldn’t really get it to work right. Especially since I didn’t really know what I was doing.

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Defaulting to my Destiny characters, as usual.

My second attempt, I hunted down Chris Saper and studied how she does portraits, because her portraits are sooooo gorgeous. And, you know, she’s still alive and stuff to give tips. (John Singer Sargent? I love you, man, but you’ve been dead a long time.)

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Not sure about the expression on this one, but I was working with fewer brush strokes this time. Kind of hard to control. I’ll get better!

So then, I took what I’d learned and did this one.

[image error]Uldren the space pirate

Hey look I made a real art! Again, trying to keep my brush strokes minimal and not over blend. This whole pic was just a black silhouette with highlights painted onto it. And the planet in the background was just derped together with spraypaint brushes. But the overall effect is very nice, and you can’t tell how long I didn’t spend on it. *shifty eyes*

This pic gave me the bug to try to do some spaceships, so I did this one as practice.

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I just grabbed some renders of Destiny ships off a model viewer and shaded them up, trying to figure out how people do this nonsense. NASA kindly provided a nice view of Earth to mess with. This whole pic was nothing but ghetto shortcuts, but I was practicing. I’ve never been good at mechanical things, but I have people asking if I can do science fiction book covers. So I need to get good at this kind of art.

So that’s been what I’ve cobbled together this week.

This week's art: fake oil paintings

I’ve been in a bit of an art slump these past few weeks, so I decided to try something completely, totally different. How about a tutorial about digital oil painting? Oh yeah!

My first attempt, I couldn’t really get it to work right. Especially since I didn’t really know what I was doing.

[image error]

Defaulting to my Destiny characters, as usual.

My second attempt, I hunted down Chris Saper and studied how she does portraits, because her portraits are sooooo gorgeous. And, you know, she’s still alive and stuff to give tips. (John Singer Sargent? I love you, man, but you’ve been dead a long time.)

[image error]

Not sure about the expression on this one, but I was working with fewer brush strokes this time. Kind of hard to control. I’ll get better!

So then, I took what I’d learned and did this one.

[image error]Uldren the space pirate

Hey look I made a real art! Again, trying to keep my brush strokes minimal and not over blend. This whole pic was just a black silhouette with highlights painted onto it. And the planet in the background was just derped together with spraypaint brushes. But the overall effect is very nice, and you can’t tell how long I didn’t spend on it. *shifty eyes*

This pic gave me the bug to try to do some spaceships, so I did this one as practice.

[image error]

I just grabbed some renders of Destiny ships off a model viewer and shaded them up, trying to figure out how people do this nonsense. NASA kindly provided a nice view of Earth to mess with. This whole pic was nothing but ghetto shortcuts, but I was practicing. I’ve never been good at mechanical things, but I have people asking if I can do science fiction book covers. So I need to get good at this kind of art.

So that’s been what I’ve cobbled together this week.

Guardian’s Wager launch

Today, the third book in the After Atlantis trilogy is live! These books have been a long time coming, and I’m so excited to have the whole trilogy finally out there.

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All’s quiet on Mercury Island after the events of GUARDIAN’S VOW, but Tane has not forgotten Gladiolus, her curse, or his role in breaking it.

But an old threat has arisen–the scientists responsible for the alterations done to Cirrus and Maria have returned. They are eager to recapture their old experiments … and their descendants. They promise Gladiolus a breakthrough treatment for her blind eye, circumventing the curse. Accepting this treatment means Gladiolus must leave her old life behind, including Tane and the Atlantean Islands.

But the monster who laid the curse cannot be thwarted so easily, and accelerates Gladiolus’s sickness in revenge for her choice. Now Tane must rescue Gladiolus from the curse, and his friends from the clutches of the scientists, and he’ll need the full might of Mercury Island’s superweapon to do it. Available on most retailers here!

Book 1 is available here and book 2 is available here, in case you’d like to start from the beginning.

These books have been languishing on my hard drive for two years, awaiting edits and nice covers. Thanks to my husband (a ferocious editor who holds my feet to the fire) and my friend Sherri who is an eagle-eyed copyeditor, I’m confident that these books are ready for primetime.

They also represent my writing struggle of two years ago. Two years ago, I was burned out on writing and publishing. I’d trained myself to outline a book before writing it, and only churned out sub-par stories. The fun was somehow gone. I couldn’t seem to achieve the depth and fun I’d had while writing fanfics as a teen. As a teen, I’d written without an outline, just chasing the characters and plot through all the logical twists and turns of their choices and actions. And I’d written some glorious stuff. What had happened? Was I losing my ability?

Turns out, my brain works best with no outline and a sandbox to play in. I wrote these three books as one long story, just re-learning how to write in a way that gave me joy. These books do have some rough edges that I chose not to remove, because they’re artifacts of my learning process as I was rediscovering my joy.

And the whole trilogy is basically an inverted Beauty and the Beast story, only with superpowers and hecking big lasers. I described book 2 as “Beauty and the Beast with Serenity’s ending.” You know that scene at the end of Serenity when the doors open and River is standing on a pile of bodies with two dripping weapons in her hands? Yeah, that, only with less blood.

So now, this trilogy is finished. And it’s time to shift over to Vid:ilantes, another series in the same world that will dovetail into the After Atlantis books. I’m looking forward to writing a crossover, when my American superheroes and my Atlantean heroes inevitably meet and clash. It will be glorious.

Guardian's Wager launch

Today, the third book in the After Atlantis trilogy is live! These books have been a long time coming, and I’m so excited to have the whole trilogy finally out there.

[image error]

All’s quiet on Mercury Island after the events of GUARDIAN’S VOW, but Tane has not forgotten Gladiolus, her curse, or his role in breaking it.

But an old threat has arisen–the scientists responsible for the alterations done to Cirrus and Maria have returned. They are eager to recapture their old experiments … and their descendants. They promise Gladiolus a breakthrough treatment for her blind eye, circumventing the curse. Accepting this treatment means Gladiolus must leave her old life behind, including Tane and the Atlantean Islands.

But the monster who laid the curse cannot be thwarted so easily, and accelerates Gladiolus’s sickness in revenge for her choice. Now Tane must rescue Gladiolus from the curse, and his friends from the clutches of the scientists, and he’ll need the full might of Mercury Island’s superweapon to do it. Available on most retailers here!

Book 1 is available here and book 2 is available here, in case you’d like to start from the beginning.

These books have been languishing on my hard drive for two years, awaiting edits and nice covers. Thanks to my husband (a ferocious editor who holds my feet to the fire) and my friend Sherri who is an eagle-eyed copyeditor, I’m confident that these books are ready for primetime.

They also represent my writing struggle of two years ago. Two years ago, I was burned out on writing and publishing. I’d trained myself to outline a book before writing it, and only churned out sub-par stories. The fun was somehow gone. I couldn’t seem to achieve the depth and fun I’d had while writing fanfics as a teen. As a teen, I’d written without an outline, just chasing the characters and plot through all the logical twists and turns of their choices and actions. And I’d written some glorious stuff. What had happened? Was I losing my ability?

Turns out, my brain works best with no outline and a sandbox to play in. I wrote these three books as one long story, just re-learning how to write in a way that gave me joy. These books do have some rough edges that I chose not to remove, because they’re artifacts of my learning process as I was rediscovering my joy.

And the whole trilogy is basically an inverted Beauty and the Beast story, only with superpowers and hecking big lasers. I described book 2 as “Beauty and the Beast with Serenity’s ending.” You know that scene at the end of Serenity when the doors open and River is standing on a pile of bodies with two dripping weapons in her hands? Yeah, that, only with less blood.

So now, this trilogy is finished. And it’s time to shift over to Vid:ilantes, another series in the same world that will dovetail into the After Atlantis books. I’m looking forward to writing a crossover, when my American superheroes and my Atlantean heroes inevitably meet and clash. It will be glorious.

Only a little art this week

I feel like I’ve been off my game all week, and I haven’t been satisfied with my art. I’ve been pushing to get edits done on Guardian’s Wager, and that’s all done, finally. But I think my brain is tired and needs a break.

Here’s what I managed to draw this week:

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A sparkly outfit from Monster Hunter World (the Astral set), and I drew it mostly so I could draw sparkles. I’m not really satisfied with it, but I ran out of time, so here it is.

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Tane and Glad from my After Atlantis books. For some reason, Glad turned out looking like she’s not wearing anything BUT SHE IS, DANGIT. Not super happy with this one, either. That’s why I shouldn’t draw when I’m tired.

I was trying to make a sweet new book cover to show off today, but it’s nowhere near being ready to share yet. Hopefully next week, when the book launches.

So that’s this week. Brain-dead. Tired. Artistically underachieving.

Art this week: concepts and comics

This week was battling against my own fatigue and lack of inspiration to make art. Surprisingly, once I sat down and started poking around, I was able to come up with this and that. So here’s what I made.

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A pic from the end of my last fanfic, where Sorrel is pretty messed up.

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Giftart for a friend who needed concept art of his steampunk characters. I haven’t done any steampunk before, and it was fun to mess with it.

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In Destiny 2, there was this quest where you could travel through time and find your own grave. I had to make a comic about it.

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Concept art for a character I’ve been thinking about. He’s basically a Mad Max vigilante with his Ghost worked into an energy shield usually carried by enemy aliens.

Pretty landscape and sketches

It’s Friday, which means … time to show off artwork!

I’ve been playing with this landscape on and off for a couple of weeks. I figured it was time to buckle down and finish it.

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This was based on a screenshot from Destiny 2.

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It’s a pretty area in game, but as you can see, there’s always room for improvement.

And now, for some sketches and things!

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Character concept from a not-Destiny sci-fi. Just trying to nail down what the characters look like. The robots still look too Ghost-like, so I’ll be doing more concept sketches here in the next few weeks.

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Since I’m redoing some Sonic fanfics as Real People Books, I get to reimagine these characters as humans. And they make awfully cute humans. This pic was just traced over a base and done anime because it’s fast and easy. I’d credit the artist who did the base, but I can’t track them down. It’s all over Pinterest, though.

[image error]“We’re waiting for your daughter?”
“Supposedly.”

Concept for the absentee father of the heroine of my last Destiny fanfic. I have this thing for forbidding, grumpy dads who are soft, sweet marshmallows on the inside.

And that’s all the art for this week. I’ve been grinding away at revisions on Guardian’s Wager, the third After Atlantis book, in every spare moment. And in every other spare moment, I’m writing this not-Destiny story that amuses me massively. You should have heard me boring my husband to sleep, explaining about the orbits of Jupiter’s moons and why Callisto makes the perfect hideout.

I loved these books (and will not be reading more)

Seems counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? To love books in a series and yet quit on the series two books in. Well, let me explain. (The following is MY OPINION. If you are the author, for heaven’s sake, click away now.)

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I picked up Starship’s Mage by Glynn Stewart on the recommendation of a friend. Great book, set in a future where magic has been discovered as a kind of new kind of science. Mages can interact with specially-designed spaceships to jump them lightyears through space, bypassing the need for hyperspace entirely. Magic works by sending energy through engraved runes, making it all work like a computer language or a circuit board.

The first book follows a space freighter and its captain who have been marked for death by space pirates. They pick up a young mage who can’t land a job owing to his lack of social connections. However, this mage, Damian Montgomery, has the ability to actually see the energy flow in magic runes. He hacks the ship and turns it into a giant magic amplifier, i.e. a freaking magic wand made for blowing up ships. This is hella-illegal. Now the pirates are after them, and the government is after them, and a Hand of the Mage-King is after them, too.

What made the first book great was the way the characters pulled together as a team. The captain protected his crew and especially his mage. His mage constantly pushed his own limits to save the captain and crew, driven by guilt that all this is his fault, anyway. Such a screaming good read.

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Then I picked up book 2, The Hand of Mars. No more team. Damian is now Uber Leet Trained Mage who is solving massive planetary political problems all on his lonesome. The crew from the first book are off doing their own thing. Damian is kind of the underdog for a while, until suddenly he’s leading the rebels in retaking their planet from a corrupt governor. It was fun and suspenseful, but … I don’t know, without the team all pulling for each other, and Damian being both target and underdog, it felt more like a superhero book. Watch one guy save the day by being awesome.

Slightly disappointed, I checked out the next few books. Again, same thing. Damian single-handedly saving the day. No team. Cheap sex hookups that don’t last and don’t mean anything. No lasting relationships or character development.

Sadly, I decided not to read any more. I don’t have time to read the same book over and over. You can see the series ending coming miles away that Damian is going to wind up as the next Mage-King, so it’s not like it’s even any big surprise. The team dynamic is what sold me on the first book–the team constantly doing the right thing to save their people, and it biting them in the butt hardcore. If the series had continued with Damian still with his team, just facing bigger and badder threats, I’d have probably read every single book and clamored for more. But I don’t have the patience for a James Bond in Space kind of story. I know lots and lots of people love that kind of thing, and if that’s your thing, check out these books! But it’s just not for me. And I’m sad to say it, because that first book was amazing.