Hokum Attack Helicopter

Hokum attack helicopter created for Wild Pockets' upcoming game I-Copter. It is another low poly model at 4132 tris. This model is to serve as the craft for the player, so the higher poly count (compared to the regular enemy craft) is essential for closer views in the store and during any potential cinematics.
Made in 3DS Max and hand painted textures in photoshop (1024 - Diffuse/Specular/hastily done Bump map - no time for a nice Normal map).

Gabbie's Garden Illustration

A while back I began an illustration project for Gabbie's Garden™ LLC, an organic food line for children (www.gabbiesgarden.com). It has been a little while in coming, while they have worked out some details, but they now have a teaser website up for the upcoming product with my illustration at the top. I'm not sure yet when the final product will be available in stores, but hopefully soon.

The square object on a plate at the bottom is a placeholder for where a picture of the food itself is planned to be shown. Painted in Photoshop with sketches in pencil, we worked on this off and on for a number of months. What do you think? Would your toddler like it?

Marketing via Twitter and other

So I'm trying to build up a presence for a variety of reasons: To share what I'm up to in my writing and art, and to help those pursuits along with more exposure to my work as an artist and writer. My art portfolio http://www.crusadingthought.com/ will remain committed to showing myself artistically for now, but my blog I'm looking to turn into a bit more of a marketing machine - hopefully for the good of mankind (I do hope that I don't become a soulless spambot in the process).

Naturally as an artist I want people to see my work, and know what I can do in case they have work for me. As a writer I have a need to write creatively, and am interested in sharing my thoughts with people in general. Add to all of that an article I read recently by a higher-up at TOR, if I recall correctly, that noted with beginning authors only selling between (on average) 10k-15k books, having even a decent web following can help to decide whether they take on a new author. All that leaves me wanting to spread my presence and following, which is where this blog post comes from.

I'm certainly not an expert on marketing, and am looking for advice from those that know better. I'm not looking (at this time) to make money off of this blog, it is just a vehicle for my pursuits. What can you share with me that has worked or have you heard that works? You could perhaps share how you market yourself on Twitter, Facebook, via your Blog, or just in general. Particularly in reference to being an aspiring author, and digital artist.

The few things I have done lately is:

Twitter
-talk about what I'm up to
-search for other like-minded individuals - the nice side benefit is meeting some great new people I wouldn't have otherwise
-created a specific promotional twitter account to send out information about myself to potential network contacts - this is to keep from cluttering my main account with spam, no one will want to read/wade through (aren't I considerate :) ).

Facebook
-connected my twitter feed
-connected my blog feed to send updates with each new blog
-network with other like-minded individuals

Blog
-update on interests

Linked In
-connected blog feed, linked to blog and art portfolio, do some networking, etc. Not very active on Linked In lately.

Thanks for your feedback! Er..if there is any.

Photoshop Magic

A co-worker of mine is getting married soon and moving to Washington. As part of an engagement present (or Wedding present I guess), I fixed up a photo of him and his bride-to-be using the trusty old Photoshop Magic Filter. What? You don't know of the Magic Filter? It's fantastic, you choose it and it does whatever you need - automatically. You wonder where this fantastic feature resides within Photoshop, well I can't tell you as I would be violating the Artist Code.
Can you spot the fixes?

I-Copter Comp

I finally got a little time and put together a comp of all the aircraft I modeled for the I-Copter game. I left off the textures so you can better see their forms. More hopefully coming soon.
We are keeping a pretty low poly count since it is a browser-based game. The boss character is meant to be heavier and the Hokum model is to be used as the I-Copter itself, though there were plans to make an upgraded version of the I-Copter to be potentially available later. These are all modeled after real world craft.

Tastes differ

A recent post by fellow aspiring author Patrick Hester has some good words and thoughts to remember about your writing. Read and remember in your own pursuit: http://www.atfmb.com/2009/08/31/not-everyone-is-gonna-like-your-writing.

And of course here are some of my thoughts on his post:

This is of course very true and wise-words for any writer to keep in mind. Just look at such books as Twilight, that while generally decent, are lamented as horrible by many and yet they have been extremely commercially successful. Then there is Harry Potter; again extremely successful, but there are still many that think it is teaching Wicca and abhor it.

I have only just sent out my first submission to a fantasy magazine for a short story so I am sure I will only begin to realize the fullness of this point very soon. I can hope that my sub will be accepted, but F&SF is very picky and they have the ability to be with their large following.

On the other side of the coin, there will be some aspiring authors that write poorly with ill-conceived derivative plots that will also (given some persistence and luck) find someone to publish their work. Granted that there will be very few (hopefully) that can maintain this charade, it will and does happen. Just look at Hollywood and some absolutely horrible movies where millions were spent on pieces that were hardly worthy the cost of their celluloid.

In regards to your story, perhaps your teacher was greatly distasteful of genre fiction and felt you had potential and were wasting it on "drivel". Perhaps it was his strange attempt at caring and supporting you in your writing.

Who knows...

In closing, tastes differ. If you really want to be a writer, then write what you want, make it the best it can be (que the Army music), and keep seeking your break. Just make sure you can pay the bills in the meantime.

Wild Pockets internship art

Been a little busy, but here is a model of a B-52 Bomber I created for our game in development with Wild Pockets. Go ahead and click on it, it gets bigger.

The model was made in 3DS Max with around 2-3k tris (I forget and will check later), textures painted in Photoshop (1024 - Diffuse/Specular/hastily done Bump map - no time for a nice Normal map) with the pirate flag by Brando (need his last name) with Sim Ops Studios (owner of Wild Pockets). Composited in Photoshop with painted smoke, fire and a cloudy background.

It is to be used in what could be a really cool boss-battle in the game. Several more to come as soon as I can get to them.

What do you think?

Free e-Books = More Sales

I just read a synopsis for an intriguing book by Cory Doctorow called "Little Brother" with an even more fascinating opinion piece dissecting why offering a book for free online will help with physical book sales. Read the piece here: http://craphound.com/littlebrother/about/#comment-10831 . Below is my posted reply.

"Fascinating rationale with many valid points. One thing I would note though is that I presume your intent is not to encourage people to copy and pass the work off as their own. It is not mentioned, but probably should be as some people out of ignorance do not understand that despite having the ability to copy and then sell something does not make it appropriate or legal. Some recent examples I have seen were centered on art being taken from a website and then uploaded to one of those sites that sell t-shirts, coffee mugs, posters, etc. created from your uploads. This was done for profit and was thankfully caught by an observant fan of the artist's. The individual subsequently pulled it down.

In my travels to hopefully becoming a published author and trying to increase my visual art presence I certainly don't want to have to deal with something so low and underhanded as this.

Granted that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I would still not be flattered if someone outright stole my work. If they were a fan and loved it so much they made their own work after being inspired by mine that is entirely different and absolutely acceptable.

I certainly found this article intriguing and will ponder it for my own journey."

What are your thoughts on the piece? Too risky or is this the future?