Archive for the ‘art’ Tag
Greetings, all! Been awhile since I posted something that wasn’t a review of a book or movie, so time to change that. And I want to start with giving an update on the final book to The Heart of Light Trilogy, and an apology on the lengthy delay in releasing it. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 2 years since Crown of Ravens was published. In that time, I’ve furthered my career in graphic designing, and just this year started taking courses so I can move into web development and design. I never forgot about the series and writing in general, but it’s one of those things that starts to get put in the back seat when you’re dealing with life and trying to support yourself. It gets harder and harder to make time when so much is needed for the more pressing issues, and every day you’re racing to catch up and cram as much as you can into that short space so you don’t fall behind. And with the audience for my books not being large, it was easier to put off the third book for “later”.
I’ll be honest, I never did much with marketing my books. I take full blame on that one. 😛 When I first published the series, I had to make the art myself, and while I was confident in the story itself (my mom and I did double-time on the editing) I wasn’t as confident in the cover art. If there’s one thing I pride myself in, it’s knowing a good cover. And while I will never knock my old work (it was pretty advanced for what I knew back then) I am brutally honest. It had some serious flaws, and trying to market a book with a cover you know is not put together very well is scary.
Last year was when my skills with making graphic art got to a point that I knew I could finally, FINALLY, give these stories the spectacular artwork I had always coveted in other books, and that they deserved.
I was already in a competition where the contestants needed to choose one of their older works and redo them. I looked through some of my older artworks, and the one for Crown of Ravens caught my eye. Right there, I decided to go for it. And behold, what I got was the art I had always dreamed of seeing on one of my books. I was even able to make the crown itself, a feat all on its own that I was unable to do before. (And yes, I was kicking myself for writing it as black. Gold sure would have easier. 😛 )
So Crown of Ravens was taken care of. It had a gorgeous cover, but now we come to The Dark Wolf. That book will always be my baby because it was my first, and from the start, I was never happy with the cover it got. Don’t get me wrong, I take pride in what I was able to make back then. I had ZERO experience making that stuff, and at the time, I had only a couple tutorials on Youtube to get me going. So it was big thing for me to even make a cover on my own. But again, I knew it had flaws, and it wasn’t the best work to represent the story. The first cover for Crown of Ravens had its own problems, but even that looked visually more appealing. As the years went by and I continued learning graphic art and design, The Dark Wolf went through 4 different cover variations as my skills gradually increased (I feel so sorry for putting it through that 😦 ). Last year was when the cover switching finally ended with the creation of the fifth and final work with a brand new piece of art.
Before
After
Before
After
I got both covers prepped and put together, then uploaded them to Amazon. Honestly, I did get a little thrill when the covers appeared on Amazon. 🙂 It was the art I had always dreamed of having for a story of mine. And at last, I finally had it. I did try to market it, but again I got sidetracked, and that was put on the back shelf. My workload was growing, and when I decided to take the leap into web development, that just added to my already full plate.
It was actually one of my friends who recently read my books that gave me the shot of encouragement and motivation I needed. And I realized I had to go back. I needed to finish what I started, not just for the dear readers out there, but also for myself and for the story that got me started on this journey through life. It was that first book, The Dark Wolf, that led me here. Now, I need to give it and the readers out there the ending they deserve.
Now you’re probably asking, “The update, man! Where are things with that third book (you dang slow author you)!”
Okay, enough suspense here. 😛 Currently, I’m still on the first draft but have managed to reach the halfway point on it. And I have already plotted out the remaining chapters, so no time will be wasted with wondering where the story should go. While a 2017 release is not likely at this point, 2018 is. I can’t give an exact date, but I’m looking at publishing the third book in either summer or fall of next year, depending on my schedule. Regardless, I want to let all of you know that the third book will be published, and the series resolved. And once again, I apologize for the LONG delay. The last chapter of The Heart of Light Trilogy is coming, folks. May have taken awhile, but it is coming, so hang in there.
Next post, I’ll be sharing some exciting news about what to expect for the third book. And I promise, I won’t do my usual and post a month later. 😉
(Disclaimer: Image and art used is my work and copyrighted)
And what do you know, another post without having to wait three or four months for it. Wonder if I’ll be able to do it again. 😉
But in the meantime, I wanted to share with all of you the remade covers for The Dark Wolf and Crown of Ravens. 😀
It’s amazing how far I’ve come as an artist, and I really do thank God for granting me the skill to do this stuff without having to hire someone for the job. Now The Heart of Light Trilogy is finally getting the covers it deserves. 🙂
Art below is mine and copyrighted. Full list of stock credits can be found here at my DeviantArt page: rreddvar.deviantart.com
Any who wish to buy the books, feel free to check them out on Amazon. 😉 http://myBook.to/TDW
Well, after another long hiatus, I thought I would finally get this blog back in running order. I won’t bore you all with lengthy descriptions of how busy I’ve been, but suffice it to say, I’ve organized my slate so I can start being active across all the social media platforms I’m on. For the past few months I’ve mainly been hanging out on DeviantArt and honing my skills as an artist. But I haven’t forgotten my writing, and I have been making progress on the third and final book in the Heart of Light trilogy. I’ve been working on updating the covers for the first two books, one of which is almost complete and the other which is in development stage. I figure since I got the skill, it’s time these books got the covers they deserve. And just because I’m still tickled about it, I thought I’d post a bit of news. I made a book cover and entered it in a cover redesign contest a little while back which, to my delight, not only won second place but was so well liked by the author of the original cover that she swapped hers for mine. *takes moment to do happy dance*
I know, I’ve been terrible with posting on here, and I apologize for that. Honestly, I don’t know how other people are able to handle multiple social networking sites and all with the rest of the business and manage to balance it all. One more thing for me to learn, I guess. I don’t have anything really profound to post on here right now, so I thought I would share a piece of art I made in GIMP for my gallery on Deviant Art. Hopefully, all of you will enjoy it. Credit for stocks used goes to the following:
You can see more of my art on my gallery here at Deviant Art: http://rreddvar.deviantart.com/gallery
Happy 2015, everyone. Hopefully all of you are having a splendid new year (or at least passible anyway). Resolutions are something I tend not to really both with, unless it’s something like trying to just post more often on my blogs, but this month I decided to make two big ones in the area of writing. As those of you who follow my blog know, I am the author of a fantasy book series, the second book of which I have been working on to get published. My goal originally was to have the story published last year, but I ended up blowing past that entirely due to both lack of time as well as waiting on my proofies to finish with the story. This year, I’ll confess that I haven’t done much writing. Actually, to be honest, I haven’t done any. I just joined Deviant Art, a site where you can post your works of art, and have been caught up with polishing up my digital art making capabilities. Due to God’s excellent tutelage, I’ve actually become fairly good at photo-manipulating and am creating a fancier piece of art for Crown of Raven’s cover.
I’ve missed my writing, though, and so I decided to create a couple goals which I’m praying to meet. The first is to finish the series I’m writing now, The Heart of Light Trilogy. The second book is practically all set to go except for fixing the places in the story where the proofies thought needed work, a few tweaks to the cover’s art, and we’re all set. Then I can concentrate on going full speed ahead with the third book and getting that done. My second goal is to get work started on a new series which I hope to have done in time to publish for next year. It’s a tad ambitious, given my schedule and the fact that I usually like to work on one story at a time, but I figure why not? God gave me the talent and brains for the job, so let’s use them and see how far I can go. One other thing which I’m looking to do, which is not a resolution but something I’d be interested in doing, and that is making book covers for folks. In making my own covers and those for my sister, I’ve ended up creating five with a sixth on the way, and they have turned out pretty good. What’s more, due to surfing Deviant Art, I’ve come across a treasure trove of unrestricted stock photos that allow me greater freedom to make art that I before did not have the ability to create. And have I made some sweet art.
Anyway, there are my goals for the year, and I wish you God’s help (not luck since I don’t believe in that anymore than I believe in leprechauns) in whatever goals that you folks are looking to achieve this year.
Well, I was looking for something to post on here to hold to my promise of a second post this month, and I thought I might as well show all of you the official cover for my upcoming book, Crown of Ravens. All the art was made by me with a LOT of help by the good Lord above, with the exception of the water, which is a brush by obsidian dawn: obsidiandawn.com
If the image looks a little strange, it’s because I was trying to get it to match up with a scene in the book, which I think I nailed just about right. So anyway, feast your eyes and enjoy!
I’ve been meaning to change the cover for The Dark Wolf for awhile, but I kept putting it off. With my second book almost done, though, I figured I had better not delay with it any longer. So anyway, here it is, the official new published cover for The Dark Wolf. And I think it came out pretty good, if I do say so myself. 🙂 Below the new version, you’ll see the old one to compare with it. As you can see, there is a vast difference between the two. Still, it was my first cover and I’ll always have a soft spot for it. 🙂 Please feel free to leave any comments below.
Heart of Light 
