The Fire Wraith (pass 3)

Another incremental improvement to a Godot 4.7 photomode render of the Fire Wraith scene out of The Half Elven Orphan. I like grounde settings so the tower is an amalgamation of historical ruins from the period 850-1050. Planet curvature, moonlight etc all derived from the moon and the star system also modelled in Godot. The Wraith herself is Makehuman and Blender, with a historical kirtle-and-chemise outfit. The sword-form pose is from the I.33 manuscript.

I’m doing this because I’m finding it’s very hard for an author to generate promotional material. Walls of text don’t draw people in to a post, pictures and video does. So, this is my solution. Get assets into Godot, make compositions and make stills or animations with them. I’ve used Claude Code to help me make the tools for this (I would never have had the time for it otherwise), but the creative input is my own or the artists I hire. Besides the widespread irrational hatred for generative AI, it’s also just very poor at making the image you want. I’ve experimented with it, but I’d say generating 10,000 images per usable one is about the hit rate. It’s a waste of time, quite aside from the fact that you never know how closely what it flops out is plagiarising someone’s work.

I have more ideas what I might want to do with these 3D assets in the longer term, but I’m a very long way from getting any of that done.

It does not matter…

…how slow you go, as long as you do not stop.

Attributed to Confucius. No idea if he actually said it, but it encapsulates things reasonably well.

I’m busy editing Dropship Down which is taking longer as real life work gets in the way. I’ve also made a little progress expanding the section of The Value of Nobility (Alagariel II) that I wasn’t completely happy with yet. I still have the ambition to get both books out this year and I’ve asked Daria to start thinking about the cover for Alagariel II.

Sales are still slow. There’s the occasional sale around the world, but it’s obviously nothing like what I want to see. I’m discovering that it’s essentially required to have some sort of visual media for a post to catch on and when you’re a writer that’s not something you have a huge supply of. Daria makes me some artwork to use alongside posts, but she deserves to be paid for her work and is doing art school and all, which puts a limit on that. AI is widely reviled, often beyond reason, and it seems many are more than happy to spew hate on any AI use, so I’m a little reticent there, even though it could add some atmosphere in those few cases when what is generated actually aligns with my vision.

What remains is making more of my own artwork, but I’m not much good and things would be more like technical drawings. For the sci-fi setting that’s fine, but it doesn’t work that well for the Tales of Vatan setting.

In any case, I will soft-launch Dropship Down on itch.io very soon now. That release will be updated as I do more editing, but in the unlikely event that there’s someone who can’t wait to get there hands on my first sci-fi book, stay tuned.

The Cover Art for Dropship Down
A Droopy in trouble (Cover Dropship Down)

The Half Elven Orphan itch.io release!

I just released The Half Elven Orphan on itch.io.

You can find it here.

I decided to go with itch.io first for a number of reasons. First off, it allows me to give epub readers a pdf version with the cover art and a map. Second, I can update things in future and buyers can easily re-download. Third, they pay authors far better, which for now, means more (human) artwork and real editors in future.

For those of you who want a print version or want it in their customary library, the big sites will follow soon(tm). It’s much harder to update things there, so I’m being rather more meticulous about the whole thing.

The cover of The Half Elven Orphan, with the protagonist, a femal half-elf, crossing a river at night mounted on a black horse.