Thrax—The Scorpion’s Mate

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So, it’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, and I haven’t had much time to blog, since I’ve been working on the sequel to Into the Dead Fall. (the bonus book I added to The Scorpion’s Mate). I’ve made significant changes to the original story, and reworked a lot of scenes, but I’m happier with where it’s going now.

I have also been waiting to publish this particular blog.

Normally, I like for readers to be able to imagine my characters as they see them, rather than me giving them a canon image to hold in their mind while they read. This is because I often prefer to read this way myself, imagining the characters as I would see them, rather than what the author might have intended ;). This works great with human characters, but gets a little more complicated with aliens, since even the most detailed description can’t always capture what you are intending to convey like a simple image can.

I know I often struggle to picture alien characters when reading the work of other authors, so I’m not the least bit surprised that some of my readers have left feedback that they were having a difficult time picturing Thrax. How I would love to be able to feature him on the cover, but there are limitations to that, since covers are usually created using stock imagery. I could have commissioned a full-color illustration, but there was no telling how long that would take to complete, given how complex Thrax’s appearance is, so instead, I commissioned a character illustration from the artist, Mike Alvear, who has done previous work for me, including my avatar, which is an illustration of Balfor.

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Mike sketched the original concept art that I started from ages ago when I first decided to turn my monster into a romance hero. Thrax started off as an antagonist, and he went through many physical and mental changes before he ended up where he is at now.