After months of delays due to technical difficulties, my book, Spiral War: On Dagger's Wings is ready.
Peace is a fleeting state. The last written words of Blazer Vaughnt’s father echo through his mind when he joins the UCSB Space Forces Academy. His hope, to bring an end to centuries old conflict with the Galactic Federation.
He does not go it alone, joined by his three comrades from the Navigator’s Guild they find themselves at the hidden training facility. There they will join the Blade Force and meet the alluring Marda Sciminder, driving a wedge between Blazer and his closest friend. His time at the academy will test him in more ways than he can imagine.
Conflicts that arise from within and without will test his loyalty to his friends, his faith in himself and make him question his future. Death and loss will plague his quest to gain his wings forcing him to make the toughest decisions of his young life. On Dagger’s Wings combines heart racing space combat, realistic military action, in a unique and genuine science fiction universe.
Spiral War: On Dagger's Wings, ISBN: 9781483530512 is now available at the following ebook retailers: Amazon Good Reads
Gardner's Books Kobo Books
and Copia.
Coming soon to the iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, and other fine book sellers.
Go out and get your copy today, please review and recommend to your friends.
No where near complete, but this is my first mockup of the cover for book 2. I still need to render the fighter formation and commissioin an/the artist to do the characters. But this gives the general idea of what I am thinking.
the cover layout is decent but the fighters will need MUCH brighter lighting when properly rendered and the skull would be better without so many clear alpha patches. i assume the white line across the upper edge of the troops/landscape will be cleared up later.
The whole thing is a stand in, this is just to figure out the layout. The skull be much more transparent, and the starfield more prominent in the final image, I chose that particular starfield because it most resembles a head of woman's hair.
I just put the finishing touches on my first youtube ad, not 100% satisfied with it, but any thoughts?
[video=youtube_share;P0_eFszrm00]
Also for anyone interested I plan to attend Macrossworld Con in October, but need to know how many folks, if any would like a signed hardcopy of On Dagger's Wings. Anyone in the LA Area that plans to attend and would like a copy, please leave a message here no later than 12 September so I have an estimate of how many copies to request.
First mockup of the book 2 cover. Will probably raise up the trio and enlarge them, and group the fighters closer together. Thoughts on the composition? I will be rerendering the fighters so will clean up lighting issues there, will also make at least one more pass on coloring the characters.
The characters look great. I'm not any good at coloring or shading, so I can't offer any advice, but it looks good to me. I agree with Schimpfy on the advice for the cover. The skull and nebula in the background on the cover are really sweet.
That's a nice composition. I would suggest slightly darkening the desert scenery and birhgtening up the fighters (maybe also have a really bright light source behind them to give a kind of outline effect). I might also consider lifting the characters and desert and fighters part of the image up the page , it would obscure the skull and nebula a bit more but i think it might improve the overall appearance. Your current arrangemnt of the characters is good, and the poses are effective. The angles from which the fighters are shown also work well. The only things i can fault is that parts of the image are too dark (but i guess they will be mich brighter by the final render so i can't really criticize that) and that putting the charcters, desert scenery and fighters so low in the image leaves a bit too much "empty" space below the titles. You could also raise the skull as you raise them so it won't be obscured too badly, let the text obscure the forehead rather the fighter obscuring the mouth.
I made some changes based on a few suggestions folks made ont he composition. Thoughts? I do plan to do another render and coloring pass on the various elements.
Latest update, shifted things about a little bit and recolored the characters, the are looking a little more tactical now. I may still go with the blue scheme, but the whole cover has a lot of blue at this point.
And the individual characters:
Good idea, moving and resizing the skull/nebula thing. It makes it more prominent and visible again. I like the new color scheme, but the dark gray almost blends in with the space background. One good thing about the sand color that you had previously is that it popped more.
Good idea, moving and resizing the skull/nebula thing. It makes it more prominent and visible again. I like the new color scheme, but the dark gray almost blends in with the space background. One good thing about the sand color that you had previously is that it popped more.
I agree again.:) I'm wondering how it would look if the characters' outfit color and the fighter color were both the same, too.
I am considering lightening Gokhead (the leftmost character's) fur, see if that helps. I am planning to rerender the fighters, I did them at a lower res before. I may reposition them and will put crew in as well. Debating arranging them with the lead (center) fighter coming straight on, left most pretty much the same and the right most in a slight dive, to give a view of the upper surface. Thoughts on that?
Re-rendering the fighters definitely sounds good. I can picture what you're talking about doing, but it's hard to say for certain how it would look without seeing it.
Experimenting with fighter arrangements and a combination of the two armor colors. *Will do some kind of outline around the fighters, but all of my early experiments look like crap, IMHO. *Will post those later.
What about only using one fighter? I think either the one that's either nose down or the one flying directly at the camera would look good coming in from above the title.
Posts
and the back
Peace is a fleeting state. The last written words of Blazer Vaughnt’s father echo through his mind when he joins the UCSB Space Forces Academy. His hope, to bring an end to centuries old conflict with the Galactic Federation.
He does not go it alone, joined by his three comrades from the Navigator’s Guild they find themselves at the hidden training facility. There they will join the Blade Force and meet the alluring Marda Sciminder, driving a wedge between Blazer and his closest friend. His time at the academy will test him in more ways than he can imagine.
Conflicts that arise from within and without will test his loyalty to his friends, his faith in himself and make him question his future. Death and loss will plague his quest to gain his wings forcing him to make the toughest decisions of his young life. On Dagger’s Wings combines heart racing space combat, realistic military action, in a unique and genuine science fiction universe.
Spiral War: On Dagger's Wings, ISBN: 9781483530512 is now available at the following ebook retailers:
Amazon
Good Reads
Gardner's Books
Kobo Books
and Copia.
Coming soon to the iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, and other fine book sellers.
Go out and get your copy today, please review and recommend to your friends.
[video=youtube_share;P0_eFszrm00]
Also for anyone interested I plan to attend Macrossworld Con in October, but need to know how many folks, if any would like a signed hardcopy of On Dagger's Wings. Anyone in the LA Area that plans to attend and would like a copy, please leave a message here no later than 12 September so I have an estimate of how many copies to request.
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Blazer gets the cover again:
10846287_848239021863580_3646298804084341217_n.jpg
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This time Chris gets some cover love, and is actually dressed:
10013594_848238998530249_4817676765152004687_n.jpg
*
And of course Gokhead, a Drashig with reverse hinged knees:
10806434_848239031863579_5079160557130492781_n.jpg
The trio together:
I agree with this.
Agreed.
And the individual characters:
I agree again.:) I'm wondering how it would look if the characters' outfit color and the fighter color were both the same, too.
Highlighted fighters and retuned character colors:
Single fighter V1
Single fighter v2
Thoughts?