Bamboozled – cover (by sarah)

This is what yesterday's fiddling around with GIMP - a drawing editing programme that's open source before any of you get the wrong idea!

I flipped the image so it is a mirror - I did this as though the initial Bamboozled story will be staple bound the whole big story wont be and it's the same cover and basically the placenta tree and fire will wrap round the binding slightly and still look ok where as the tower and punk kind of wouldn't.

I have also put an oil filter over it to make it look more like an oil painting - it makes a very faint difference but I think it improves it. I have a limited number of fonts to play with so this isn't exactly what I wanted but will do for now whilst I work out how to add things to the GIMP. I also want to put a box around my name at the bottom and centralise it - I haven't found a way to do that yet in the programme. And of course I want to go in and clean up some bits of it and am thinking of adding some flares and stuff to it but am not sure yet!

Cover Illustration – Bamboozeled (by sarah)

So this is what I have been working on for Revolations Bamboozeled - it is slightly wonky as I'm having trouble fitting the sketch book into the scanner. This is the first proper picture of The Punk and shows the Tower of Babel and the placenta tree from the Punk stories. There is space specifically left for the title and my name at the bottom as well which mucks up the layout of the image for me slightly.

What I want to know is - what sort of software would be good for processing this and cleaning it up? Would I be better off trying different art mediums - this is water colours and colouring pencils and I kind of haven't used water colours before this. Does anywhere have a bigger than A4 scanner that want bankrupt me/allow me to borrow/use? And in general what do people think?

Drink and Draw (by sarah)

Last night part of what I did was go to the second ever Drink and Draw in Cheltenham organised by Proud Lion and the True Believers Comic Con team. I wasn't there for all of it due to poetry stuff but I did abandon my family there and later came back for them. It was a hive of activity with people chatting and eating and drawing, Jean and Mary had a great time drawing and playing with lego.

I kind of failed at networking but then I always do, it's kind of just not me - it's called being shy! I tried to start a couple of convos but Mary or Jean interrupted and that was it.

I false started 3 and finished one concept sketch for my Punk series and reconciled myself to being the least talented person in the room - and I mean that - you should have seen some of the stuff being drawn!

Anyway for those of you interested in the process here are three concept sketches.

The city Babel with it's Tower - based on coral reefs and sea shells.

Placenta tree which is where the clones both Masters and Slave and highbreds are produced.

Punku with her laser pen - I am still not entirely happy with her but think she is almost there.

These are all elements that will go into the front cover which I designed in my first Script Frenzy.

I'm looking forward to the next drink and draw and also am steaming ahead with the drawing stuff - my plan is now to attempt to do some water colour back grounds.

Musical Mary (by sarah)

Mary has been gifted Jeany's old Uke that my aunt gave us - mainly due to the colour thing 😉 Mary loving pink and Jean detesting it these days. At two events we have been involved with recently there has been miniature music which is something my friend Zaphire is involved with. They give out ukes to the kids and sing songs - that is were the ooo ooo eee bit comes from that Mary is singing.

Mary has always been really musical - I know she isn't really playing this and it's out of tune and stuff but I'm still impressed! I need to dig out some other vids we have of her including air guitar when she was tiny and recorder tutting when she could sit up and stuff.

Camp Nano (by sarah)

I am going to be taking part in Camp Nano next month - a sort of more informal version of the National Novel Writing Month - I am going to use it to try and finish some more of the Punk stuff off - I have simply labelled it as The Punk's Universe - here is the round up of it:

The Punk's Universe is the over all title to all my previous nanos and script frenzys which are based in the same worlds and timelines. Currently it sits at about 9 novels, a couple of hundred pages of comic book scripts, one film script (not complete) and dozens of short stories. A lot of it is 70-90% complete (of first phase and some is even on 2nd phase ie the getting ready for publishing bit) so I thought I'd work on them collectively and hopefully bump a few more into phase 2.

The premiss is that there is a group of long lived Aquatic Apes who where the first people and they run human society in the back ground. There are three waring factions and humans where genetic slave stock made from the defeated other first humans who lives in the forests and deserts. Due to a eugenics war the Aquatic Apes or Masters are almost extinct and can not bred but rely on tech to clone themselves. Punku and a few others are hybrids of the slaves and aquatic apes and have been given life extention tech and other adaptions - they can pass for humans but have been alive for 1000's of years.

The timeline for the world currently spans from the pre-history of the Aquatic Apes where they evolved and created their own civilizations (Alantis, Heva and Pacifica) to a 1000 odd years in our future set in space with upload and where the singularity may finally be possible.

p.s. my user name is 5affy and I will attempt to put updates on here and Purple Monster.