Arty Stuff for Books

The nice thing about stumbling into round two of putting words onto a computer screen and then pushing a few of the right buttons so it goes up for sale is that all of my half groping for what in the hell I was going the first time magically turns into my style come round two.

Last time I needed something to spice up the pages where chapters began and scenes turned into other scenes with something other than large blank space and ***. So I sat and thunk and thunk and thunk, had some honey, and then doodled.

I could say I was going for something primitive, a design indicative of early William the Bastard (or Conqueror if one is so inclined to giving credence to such things) art, all lines and no shading.

Or I was lazy.

Take your pick.

So, here I am poking with a large stick at Book Two and drumming up ideas for it. I still wish for the design to be hand drawn so it looks hand drawn so the book looks old but...it can still be cool, yes?

Putting away my mountains and other various land marks that need doodling and life I sketched, shaded and shrunk two designs.

The first is supposed to be sort of vague as it's a spoiler but one no one would get until the very end (Bruce Willis was actually a toaster the whole time).

And, in keeping with my previous book's theme of "hey I can draw swords, I like swords" for the scene change I went with a weapon more heavily involved in this tale:

It's the little things that can turn a book into something magical; a good cover, special fonts, over-sizing the first letter in a chapter, also hiding a shit ton of fairy dust in between the corners but I have to wait for the spring thaw before I can start laying my traps.

I like to think of it as one more tiny step forward to putting all those wacky words I have into something legible.

The maps give me a giant pain in the lower back region but I love making the little chapter/scene art pieces. Now back to mountains, I guess.