Scenes From The Vile Realm

Being a poor writer that made a whopping £12.76 from his books in the last year (HMRC took most of that, by the way), it has become jarringly apparent that if I want any illustrations in my books, I'm going to have to do them myself.

I am no artist.

I may be able to conjure up hideous scenes of worm gullets, embedded ticks, and forefingers in eye sockets, but stick a pencil in my hand and it all falls apart.

Fortunately, Paint and Photoshop are on hand to help me out. Yeah, Paint.

Let's start with the worst.

This one was actual paint on paper. It's bad, and I'm bad. Flat, uniform hills with a bit of shadow. Only by forcing myself to use this will I become determined to do better!

The idea is that it is the horizon of deep Winteridge: a frosty, forest realm in the northern reaches of Rosaria. Whether this evokes any sense of loneliness or isolation in the reader/viewer remains to be seen (but it was the plan).

I have it blu-tacked to my wall at home.

This one is a little better. In fact, right now it is the best that I am capable of. A birds-eye view of The Shivering Hearth Inn in Winteridge. The very inn that The Vile Realm begins in, where Marigold meets Kostya and the pair agree to go on a witch hunt in the woods. Chapter Two, so don't worry about me giving too much away with this!

This was largely a photoshop job, but the original design was a pencil sketch and ten tree drawings.

Proof!

I have grander ideas for the sign. Perhaps I'll get round to them. Perhaps I'll even remove the sign altogether when it comes to publishing the book.

The next image (above) is a sort of spoiler, but you'll find it difficult to work out where it fits in based on the image alone. I used grid paper, and wanted to evoke a retro pen and paper RPG-style map of supreme simplicity.

I think I succeeded on that front.

And finally, the big bad of The Vile Realm. Xotolo. A glimpse of this beast was apparent in Grim Work, though its actual presence there is going to be revealed to you at some point during The Vile Realm. Spoilers again? Yes! Will many people see this? No!

Another pencil drawing scanned into my PC and then "coloured" in Photoshop. The end result is a lot more cartoony than I had hoped for, but as I said earlier, I'm not going to improve unless I embarrass myself now.

I hope your belly laughs have subsided and a small percentage of you understand what I was at least trying to go for with these!

Until the next time.

#Art #Laughable #TheVileRealm