Cover Creation: Hammer and the Trolls

Hammer and the Trolls was a little difficult to dream up a cover for. In the end, I went with a variation on the opening scene, which involved Hammer, the castle and the drop ship. Because the princess is pretty central to the plot, I also needed a princess, but she couldn't be just any princess. She had to be tough and a princess, so I headed on over the Dreamstime.com and began searching.

I ended up selecting four photographs:

Tomasz Tulik supplied my tough-girl princess:

© Photographer: Zoomteam | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Aleksminyaylo1 supplied the perfect Hammer:

© Photographer: Aleksminyaylo1 | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Junichi Shimazaki supplied Hammer's dropship:

© Photographer: Tsuneomp | Agency: Dreamstime.com

and

Igor Stramyk had the ideal castle:

© Photographer: Stramyk | Agency: Dreamstime.com

After that I took the following steps:

1.  Snipped the castle down to book cover size - which was a shame, because I wanted to show more of it;
2. Isolated Hammer;
3. Isolated the princess;
4. Reduced Hammer and the princess in size and arranged them on the cover.
5. Added the dropship.

The cover went through three design changes:

Hammer cover with ship in flight

Hammer cover with ship landed

Hammer cover without the ship

I decided I liked the ship on the ground, but that it needed a tiny little tweak:

Final cover for Hammer and the Trolls

Cover Completed for Hammer and the Trolls

Today, I completed the cover for C.M. Simpson's science fiction fantasy short story, Hammer and the Trolls.

In a world where trolls can invade a castle from the inside, an interstellar prince finds he’s not the only one who can fire a sun-cannon, and the princess discovers she isn’t the only one who needs rescuing.

Daily Photograph: August 7, 2015

After two months of putting out seed, I finally coaxed four of these to come visit my backyard - I was so excited! It's a king parrot.

Daily Drawing: August 4, 2015

Yesterday, there was a little time between class for a proper doodling. It's getting slowly better. Maybe in another ten years...

Daily Photograph: August 3, 2015

From yesterday. On the 2nd it was ducks, yesterday it was an obliging pigeon, who stayed in spite of its paranoid.

Daily Photograph: August 02, 2015

And one for the birds - it's amazing what you can find just outside your back door.

02 August 2014: A pair of wood ducks in Canberra's north.

These two were just as surprised to see me as I was to see them, but the food was too good, and I was too far away for them to worry about.

Daily Drawing: August 2, 2015

And just to keep the momentum going, here's a quick study from life, augmented a little by imagination:

02 August 2015: Drawn From Life #1

What Happened to July????

Well, two things: I decided to do a short story writing challenge... and the university semester began.

Of the two, the university semester was good news for the daily sketching, since I tend to sketch in tutorials and lectures so I don't irritate the lecturers by asking questions or making observations when they are very short on time. It also means I don't dominate a class space, which I tend to do unless I have something else to do.

The story writing... well, you should all know that almost everything comes secondary to the writing, but I won't blame you if you didn't, since I've really only just started working that out for myself.

Anyways, I did get a few more sketches done in July. I was going to pad out the blog with them, but I'll just post the snipped and tidied versions below. The final sketch for July is one I did during the 7-8 hours I was in the emergency waiting room waiting to see if my son had appendicitis - he didn't and he's home and well, but it was a bit stressful for a while.

So, without further ado, on with the sketches.

As you can see, I have a long way to go...

22 July 2015

21 July 2015

27 July 2015 - yes, these are people in my lecture

28 July 2015 - 1st sketch of the day

28 July 2015 - 2nd sketch of the day

28 July 2015 - 4th sketch of the day

28 July 2015 - 3rd sketch of the day

29 July 2015

30 July 2015

Daily Drawings - July 2015

July was a great month for daily drawings. I tried sketching in the morning, as opposed to last thing at night and this is what happened.

July 02, 2015

July 01, 2015

July 04, 2015

July 03, 2015

July 06, 2015

July 05, 2015

Daily Photographs - July 2015

This month I resumed photographing something... anything... every day. I usually take more than one photograph at a time, but the rule is I only get to choose one for the day. Here are the photos chosen for this month:

July 01, 2015

July 02, 2015

July 03, 2015

July 04, 2015

July 05, 2015

July06, 2015