I'm Totally Famous Now

I don’t want to brag, but my story, A Nightmare Named Ricky, can no longer be had for free on this blog. Yes, it's true. You now have to purchase it as part of Andrew Leon’s Shadow Spinner: Collection #3.

The new version is of my story is subtly revised from the one that appeared on this site for the past year. Hopefully, this version is nominally better.

Knowing what stories have been included in the previous two installments of Andrew's tale has me… well, nervous. The strength of Andrew’s story, along with the phenomenal short stories included in the first two installments mean I’m batting above my average here, or maybe I’m punching outside my weight class… wait. Maybe I’ve outkicked my coverage. Dammit sports. I can’t properly apply my writing skills to your metaphors. Anyway, I’m just saying, one is doing themselves a disservice by not reading these things. They’re quite good (my own story not withstanding).

What isn’t lacking in quality is Andrew’s writing. That he’s asked me to put one of my stories up is a huge honor (granted, it was written to fit inside his House on the Corner universe, so it makes sense that he’d want to have it there. But still, he could very well have said ‘never mind,’ or, ‘I’m sorry, but I have to put up an afterward about growing up in Louisiana, or something about Legos’). I’m quite proud to have something of mine in the company of some excellent storytelling.

So I’m glad he didn’t decide he’d rather talk about his favorite childhood breakfast cereal, or his love of mini figurines. No, he wanted me to put my story there instead. Yes, he wanted my story. Mine! So there it is. Ready for the world to read, please go buy it.

Make him know that it's the power of your pity for me that drove you to it.

Wait, that didn’t come out right. Don't do that.

I’m posting again tomorrow… for my NaNoWriMo wrap-up/IWSG super mash-up spectacular!

Z is for... Zoinks! I'm Done!

The very last of the A-Z Challenge posts for 2013. What a journey.

This month took me from concept to completion of a cover for Andrew Leon's upcoming, soon to be mega-hit, Shadow Spinner. A novel he's been releasing in serial format for many months, but will soon see itself all in one novel length edition... hopefully with a cover much like what you'll see below.

In case you don't recall, here is what we saw on day one:

I spent two weeks trying all sorts of different things before I finally came back around to that concept and eventually produced this:

And for those of you that might be interested in what the front cover alone might look like:

Thank you one and all for stopping by throughout the month. Everyone's input has been a huge help!

Y is for... Yikes! It's Almost Over!

A to Z challenge day 26 (and post 25 - the last one will go up later today).

Okay, my penultimate post. This one, good people, is my final image (at least for the blogfest), for Andrew Leon's upcoming novel release, Shadow Spinner.

That damned shadow coming from the tunnel kept me up late almost every night for a week. I have never had something so seemingly minor totally derail me like this thing has. I'm still not happy with it.

But, I do like the streetlights I painted in.

The Z post will have the typeface, which is a shame, because it is possibly just as important as the image itself, and I'm only doing one post on that. It usually takes me just as much work to get that part right as anything. But, I'm not doing 26 more posts in May for the typeface.

Stay tuned...

V is for... Very Subtle

We're nearing the end of the A to Z Challenge and I'm a day behind.

In case you're popping in at the very end and have no idea what I'm doing this month - I've been attempting to go from concept to completion of a book cover for Andrew Leon's, Shadow Spinner.

Had very limited time to work on this since the last post. But I still managed to waste most of the time I had in a desperate attempt to save the pallets. I know it's weird that I grew so attached, but I did. So I painted this big rock behind them for them to lean on. I have to admit, it was a damned good looking rock.

What a great rock!

As proud as I was about it, and I even painted graffiti all over it, it just looked pretty bad within the overall picture. So it was taken out (I'm sure a comparison to writing can be made there too).

Without the pallets, which I knew were a problem from the beginning, I think it makes the tunnel look more ominous in a way I wasn't expecting.

On a side note, very observant viewers may notice a subtle change to Tib, nothing major, just taking out a touch of that green, and of course the shadow is now gone. I actually spent about an hour and a half trying to get the shadow to come out of the tunnel and reaching out towards Tib and I couldn't quite make it work.

We'll try again tomorrow.

U is for... Undeniably Nervous

We're entering the home stretch regarding this year's A to Z Challenge. It's been a bit of a trial for me. Not enough preparation going in and then falling desperately behind.

But for first time viewers, I'm spending my month trying to create a cover for Andrew Leon's Shadow Spinner, which will soon be out in novel form. I'm still, even this late in the game, trying to get the basic composition of the image down.

I mentioned somewhere that getting Tib into the image was going to make or break it. To this point, all the covers I've done before have been paintings, this one, at least so far, has been about 80% photos and 20% painting. To leave it at that ratio meant Tib might have to be a photo too... or it could be the most detailed painting I've ever done. But either way, that cartoony look probably wouldn't work so well with the image so far.

So I took my son outside last night and forced him to stand in the rain while I took photos of him. For his trouble I promised him 25% of my commission of this piece. Heh, sucker.

Anyway, I ended up liking his photo so much that I thought I like it better than anything I would have painted.

I did some heavy manipulating to my kid's photo. I made his arms and shoulders much smaller, and made his head way bigger - he's nearly 17 now and does not look like a kid, but I think I've managed to de-age him pretty well here. I also did a lot of painting over the image to make it match the existing environment better. I ran a filter over him and did some color changes, added highlights and dropped some stuff off into deep shadow. 

In addition, I did several smaller tweaks to the overall picture, but nothing too noteworthy of mentioning. 

And fair warning, no matter what Andrew says in the comments, I might not get a post up at all tomorrow regardless. I'll try though.

S is for... Steady as She Goes

Post number four in my one day quest to get back on track in this A to Z challenge.

For anyone just stopping by for the first time... this month is all about me going from concept to completion for the cover of Shadow Spinner, Andrew Leon's upcoming novel.

I left everyone with a bit of a cliffhanger last time. But I'm now ready to put the photos together into a single image. Like below:

I did paint back some tree type things, I copied the one pole from the original pic and duplicated it, I'm thinking of using them as streetlights for the interstate that is above the tunnel. 

There is still tons of things to do, lots of little things, but at least one HUGE one, namely, where to put Tib into the image... .

R is for... Ridiculous Work Ethic!

Whaaaa??? Is this the third post of the day for me? Why yes, yes it is. That still leaves me a few days behind in the A to Z Challenge, but I'm close enough to see hope on the horizon.

Still plugging away at Andrew Leon's cover for his upcoming novel, Shadow Spinner.

Recall from an earlier post that I'm comping together more than one photo. To help blend the two I need to work on this one some more:

So, I've gone into blending mode, and have made this:

Which, quite honestly, looks so awesome by itself that I'd be totally cool if Andrew wanted to use that. Regardless, I'm going to combine it with the background I made previously. You can see I continued to tweak things as well... I've gotten rid of most of the graffiti - on the tunnel walls and the pallets. I've highlighed some of the edges of the walls for clarity, and did some other minor things. 

P is for.... Possibilities

I'm way behind in the A-Z challenge. But I hope to catch up this week. Maybe even put up another post or two today. No pressure on anyone dreading the idea of me expecting multiple visits from them per day. I'm just posting my progress.

And what is that progress? If you recall, I'm trying to go from concept to completion for a book cover for Andrew Leon's upcoming novel, Shadow Spinner. I originally planned on spending the first week getting the concept down, and the final three weeks of the month executing the concept. That wasn't to be though, I'm still mired in the concept phase. But I think I've all but decided to go with the tunnel as central theme for the cover, so I went around yesterday evening looking for tunnels.

I found this one:

I came home and spent 45 seconds in photoshop to change the most obvious issues.

There, made the tunnel darker (and I suppose, longer) and disappeared the rear view mirror.

It's a start.

G is for... Great Caesar's Ghost!

Because I've actually done three sketches for today. I figure I need to get some stuff started if I'm going to get anything done... the month will be halfway over in a few days. So, here is what I have that I've... oh wait, I almost forgot...

It's the A To Z challenge this month. Click to learn about and visit all the others participating. My challenge for the month is to go from concept to completion of Andrew Leon's cover for his novel, Shadow Spinner.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, I was mentioning that I will be throwing up concepts all month if I don't get something I can commit to. So I've done a few concept type sketches - enough to at least get the idea down I wanted to.

The idea here is to put the central characters in a scene that gives on a feel for what the book is about.

This one is just supposed to be creepy and clearly give the viewer the title

And finally, the old 'my shadow is a giant spider' trick. One of my favorites.

A all that blank space to the left is for the back side of the book, so the focus of any of these images would be on the right half of the image... and of course, once we settle in on a concept, I can get to work making it actually look good.

E is for... Epic Fail

It's A to Z time. Read all about the exploits of others.... here.

For myself, this month is an attempt to go from concept to completion for a cover for Andrew Leon's Shadow Spinner novel. It's a chance to see at all the crap I have to throw up before I come up with something I can live with.

When we last left off, I lamented my failure to save files often enough and I lost a day's worth of work. Then, I got the idea to do a rendered fellow instead of a painted one. In all, I think I've decided that I don't like my rendered guy very much. But I would post what I did anyway... this is the sort of thing I would normally delete and never mention, but perhaps Andrew will see something in this and say, "ooh, that's interesting... do blah blah blah."

Anywho, I'll try to whip up a sketch, or maybe two, for tomorrow, then see if Andrew has a clear direction he wants me to go.

By the way, I appreciate the comments. Thanks everyone.

B is for... Beginning!

Day 2 of the A-Z thing. Many people are involved this time around, click here to see what's up and visit some of the thousands that have signed up.

Ok, I may have halfway explained my theme yesterday, but I was in a rush and probably did it really poorly. Here is another attempt: During the month of April I will try to do a full cover for Andrew Leon's Shadow Spinner novel from concept to completion in what is, more or less, real time. Meaning that I'm planning on making adjustments on the fly as Andrew (or others) advise.

God, what a horrible idea.

Anyway, I had a blank page yesterday. Today I have this:

Kid. Tunnel. What could possibly go wrong?

I have thoughts. One, this is the front AND back cover, so slinking towards the tunnel will look odd if you only see the front. The composition is all wonky. If I added the man with no eyes and perhaps Michael battling in the middle ground it might work better, but it proved to be tricky during quick sketches to get that to work so I'm stuck with something I kinda like, but don't love. I need to nail something down soon though, I'll try another concept tomorrow and see where it takes me.

I'm Still Me, But Then Again...

JUST A QUICK word of thanks to everyone that chimed in from my previous post regarding pen names. I made some edits to A Dead God's Wrath that I've been meaning get to for the last 11 months and finally took care of some typos and grammatical oopsies that have been nagging at me. While I was at it I went ahead and changed the name on the cover. I'm now Rusty Carl.

Of course, that meant I had to go to the other outlets, B&N and Smashwords specifically, and change those too. I have not been able to change my author page on Amazon though, not sure how to go about that. I'll figure it out at some point. Count me as an author is transition.

ALSO. CINDY AT Dreamer's Perch is having her great summer giveaway today. You can visit, comment, and possibly come away with a free book. Sounds like a no miss win for everyone.

WRITING UPDATE: After a year's worth of fits and starts. I counted my very long novella as finished... er, well, you might say I just gave up on trying to fix it. Either way, I sent it off for editorial feedback over the weekend. It's a good feeling to have that part done at least.

AND FINALLY, ANDREW Leon has e-released Shadow Spinner part 1 on the Kindle. He's serializing the story, much like he did on his blog, and releasing them as Kindle reads. It's listed as free today, but it won't be that way for long, so rush out and pick up your copy.

I also did the cover for it. Learn more about the release and his request from you, the reader, for some additional help on his post from today.

Otherwise, happy Monday.