Shaded Whims

New website is up. Shadedwhims.com And I am exploring AI. I see big uses for it potentially.

New book: Assembly of Phantasms

Hazel Court digital portrait

This is the type of work that probably requires one being a fan of the subject--otherwise, I don't think one could stay focused on such a task when you aren't being paid. But, I don't think you could pay someone to do this sort of intense portrait challenge. These are digital doodles in a sense since the main purpose is the face expression and although I am satisfied with most of them---the scream needs more photo verification for me to be satisfied. It is hard to get the exact photos of the pose, a slight variation in jaw position or some lens distortion can affect the match-making. Eventually, I may get something of this printed but I would leave it for a time and then go back to it for more fine-tuning.

The new book cover

I mentioned several posts back I had put out an Arabian Nights novel several years ago and was planning to redo the cover. Well, I did it faster than I expected. I released the book in a new revised (and cheaper) edition as well as electronic versions. Will I sell any? I dont know but I do think the cover is a vast improvement over the original. Ironically I simply went back to the source models (although two are badly smashed up I still had photos of them) and used them as the main subjects in the cover and abandoned the painting style. The printed version has excellent sharpness-I was really impressed how well it looked in the proof. I hope to get a second book ready soon as it was rather satisfying working on this.

Book Art

When I wrote a novel some years ago I painted a cover for it. I was unsure about my painting abilities so I did things in an unorthodox way--I made sculptures of certain painting elements-photographed them-had them made into slides-and then painted over the projection onto cardboard. I think i could have just used photographs without needing to project them.
The painting ultimately was ok but kind of crude. I was looking to imitated 1970s movie posters but I didnt have the painting experience for it. However, with CGI I can come closer to that, or even make photorealistic elements. A case in point is this depiction shown-notice the claws matching the ones on the cover.. This was a self published book--it is now pretty much out of circulation and few copies exist. Trying to find a traditional publisher for it but Arabian Nights is a hard sell, at least among unagented channels.

I may eventually do a complete new cover with all cg elements.