Cover Art

Okay, here they are:
Jethro 2 First to Fight

This image has a mix of canned and my constructed models in it. Some you might recognize. Some of my models are based on designs from Chronicles of Man or STNG. The Destroyer in the background you may recognize from Renderosity. Jethro's armor is a redressed BKEO2K10 Version 2.0. The weapon is from the Mechgirl pack. Jetpack is from Cowboy Gumdrop. He had wings but well, they hurt the image so, I nixed them. :)

And, 13 Degrees of Separation:

Here is not only your first look at Trinity, but also some of the characters from the stories and books. You can see them better in the previous post.
Proteus was dead easy, after all, he/it is a mercury blob. But Defender and Sprite were a lot more challenging to do. I went through several mental iterations of them, and feedback from the Greek chorus saved me some headaches when I was set to buy Defender's armor. (it was going to be 2 or 3 others at different times, and even pieced together from all 3 at one point) Consider this their 1.0 appearance. Like Cortana, Fess, and other notable AI of Sci-fi, their image will evolve over time. (hopefully)

I had hoped to release Jethro 2 this month, but no dice. Maybe sometime soon. 13 Degrees will come out a month or so after. (even though it's been edited a lot more than Jethro 2...the reason is simple, it has spoilers)

In other news: I've dived back into PB and added 16 pages to it since Friday afternoon. (almost 1/2 again it's previous size) I've got some things to work out, but it's on track, even if I'm behind schedule. The great thing about being your own boss, you only have yourself behind if you fall behind in self imposed deadlines. :)
I don't know how much I will get done today, it's family day so... you know. Distractions... sigh. :) We'll see. I want to take my time with some parts, there are a lot of things going on, and some stuff coming to light is... oh boy! This is... no, can't telegraph it. GRR. Well, you'll just have to wait and see wont you? >:D

I also rendered (again) some pieces of Beachhead. But I did it uncompressed, so they are just a weee bit too big to upload. (try 1.93 gigs each) So, I'm going to play with converting them later.
Oh, and for anyone looking for that spinner on my youtube channel, I've got 3... or should I say HAD. Youtube deleted the one with it in it so I need to re-up it sometime in the future. Sorry about that.

Cover art done!

Well, I hope they are done anyway. I'm waiting on feedback on Jethro 2's cover.
In the meantime, how about I show you some of the images that went into the cover of 13 Degrees of Separation?
Each image represents elements or a scene of one of the stories. There are 13 in all (dur) and then the final image. Some have characters from the story. Some characters you've seen in the books.
Many used canned art from Daz3D and Renderosity. Credit goes to the creators of the meshes and art.
Let's start with something half way decent here:

The Last Round up:

Salvage:

Barkeep:

Cali and the wolves:

A matter of breeding:

Eternia:

Hauling Freight:

From the log of the Io 11:

Leonardo:

Message in a bottle:

Nohar Private Detective:

Special Delivery:

And finally, my personal favorite (and my new desktop!) Yard Dogs:

On the next post I'll give you a first look at Trinity 1.0, the covers of 13 Degrees and Jethro 2 (maybe) and hopefully more news.

In news:
Gord passed me 13 back, I passed it on to Jacob who passed it back this morning. I need to go over what he said in the notes, make some adjustments, then pass it on.
Brandon is plugging away, so is Jim or Jory. (sorry fellas, I don't remember who has what right this second)
Mechmaster is wrapping up his Dalek comic, for those of you reading it (and watching the videos on youtube) it should be epic. I dunno when he'll post it, (he has no set timetable) but it should be wild. :)

The weather is nice, so if everything plays out okay I'll do some catch up on chores and things and then either do a side project (maybe a quicky movie?) or I'll dive back into a book... either PB or Alive... though I've been urged to get into the Bootstrap sequel... lol

 

 

For Adam.... And those interested in Bootstrap refrence material

Okay, I've been up to my neck in various things, drama in the neighborhood, family, all the while trying to get the covers of Jethro 2 and 13 Degrees of Separation done. (more on that in another post)

But, I finally remembered that promise to Adam, so with a little free time, I dug through my archive and pulled the better ones out. They are crude, but you hopefully get the idea. Maybe someday I'll do some in 3D. :)
Here is the main base overview:

And now the close up of level 1 (ground)

Level 2:

Level 3:

An overview of the entire region:

I have other maps about the drone crash (on the other side of the river north west of copper town) plus the path of the Leviathan, but they are just basic remakes of the above map)

I also did images of the shark hound:

Plus some of the hardware for the cover. The Ed robot:

He is made up of bits from other projects. You can see the biceps and legs are bits from a Zoid Hellcat, the torso and head are from a tabled RTS robot character. You can see a spinner of this guy in my demo reel on my youtube channel.

Also:

I had a Hummer in my files. I ended up remaking it since it was extremely poly heavy. I think only the doors and hood hinges are from the original model. Everything else I redid.

That's it for now. Maybe someday I'll do an art book like Anne McCaffrey did. You know, toss stuff from this, PRI, the Federation, AD, Alive, all that into a book or 2. Maybe. Maybe someday. Maybe. :)

Princess Rescue Inc!

I received PRI, Princess Rescue Inc from Mechmaster a bit over an hour ago. I've made the corrections he suggested, caught a couple bugs, and I've added the scene and page breaks.
In other words, trucking along, full steam ahead!
You may see me publishing this book by tomorrow.

Look for that cover this weekend. (It takes a day for Amazon and B&N to process the manuscript before publishing it)

Write up:

   Eugene Ryans had it all. Money, fame, power. He had created a multibillion dollar company from almost nothing and turned Ryan's Future technology inc into one of the forefronts of technological innovation.
   He had it all, yet he gambled it all on a crackpot idea that Earth had it's own wormhole.
   He'd proven it too, and now he was in for the adventure of his life. No, he wasn't going to sit back and let others go in his stead, he was going to be on the forefront of this grand adventure.
    To move mankind one step further closer to the stars.
    He'd found adventure all right, all that and more as he found his team cut off, trapped in the middle of an invasion.
     Princess Deidra and her younger Sister Zara were having a series of bad days. When the neighboring kingdom of Duluth suddenly invaded they found themselves on the front lines and swiftly in danger. But will the dashing Gaijin save them? Save them from the wilds of their world, the invaders, and more importantly, themselves?
                        Princess Deidra isn't so sure she wants to be saved!


This book was written around the time of New Dawn and the others. I sat on it, then did a rewrite early last year. Gord, Jacob, and Mechmaster each had a go at it, so hopefully the editing isn't going to bother the haters too much. (wishful thinking I know)

This, btw is NOT a sequel to Bootstrap Colony. That is coming later. (Way later) This is a stand alone book... for now. Though I did leave some threads in it for future sequels and prequels. :)
Think of it as a reboot of the basic Bootstrap adventure concept. I wrote it as 1 part what if, and 1 part dream scene I needed to get out of my head. lol

Oh, and for Adam:

This is the map I created for the book. :) I was going to improve it, but I thought I'd leave it for now. It's mostly legible.

-And I just checked, yes I created a bunch of simple maps for Bootstrap Colony years ago. Very simple maps. No I didn't create any for First Steps, though I did create the 3D model of the scene for the cover art. :) I'll look into posting both sometime... unless I forget. (feel free to nag me if I do forget)

Edit 9-6-2013: and it's live on Amazon! B&N to follow soon. (Out of my hands)