In Darkness Bound

Below you will find a selection of 22 winter scenes in water colour, suitable for Christmas and Greetings cards. Simply click on the image to view a larger version, and right click on the larger version and use "Save Picture As..." to copy it to your computer. Each painting was originally about 5.5" X 4".

         

 

       

                     

     

                       

      

      

In the early days of working on In Darkness Bound I sketched some impressions of what characters and machines might look like. Some of these you can find in the Gallery. At one point I had even considered illustrating the book, but as the pages mounted I realized it was impractical. Moreover, few adult works of fiction are illustrated these days. It seems a lost art -- which is a pity, but perhaps something of a by-product of movies, TV, and the like. How can mere painted pictures or pen and ink sketches compare with the stunning visuals of CGI that accompany most movies -- and in particular those of the SF variety? To have done the book justice in terms of illustrations I would have had to have spent far more time than I had available to render the necessary images. Nevertheless, I offer here a few works that I have done that relate to In Darkness Bound and Zero-Option.

In looking at these you're probably going to say to yourself: "Why the Heck is everyone so beautiful?" Well, in the future posited in the novel the technology of medicine has advanced to such a state that there's absolutely no reason anyone should be 'plain' or 'ugly' unless they choose to be. Genengineering, biobots, and body-sculpting have made physical perfection the norm. And if you think that's stretching things a little, consider that in Medieval times most people were pretty darn ugly. Why? Because medicine was a extremely crude 'art' back then, mostly practiced by quacks, in a world absent of what we would consider even the basics of good medical practice. They didn't have vaccines, anti-biotics, skilled surgeons, and the plethora of technology we take for granted today. So most people had bad teeth, bad hair, bad skin, and smelled pretty ripe. If they got injured or were afflicted with some ailment that caused physical scarring they were stuck with the results for life. No plastic surgeons back then.

Several centuries from now our medical science will seem primitive to the society of the future. One can't even begin to imagine the marvels that will be at the fingertips of the people of those times. In Darkness Bound just touches on some of the possibilities, and I believe things will be far more extreme than in the novel. But enough of that. You're here for the pics, so without further ado I offer you these wallpapers. Enjoy! And feel free to pass them on to others.

 

The first of these wallpapers are images of some of the main characters. Larger views of what you'll find in the Bios sections. All are formated for 1024 X 768, but they should scale up or down reasonably well. You can download them directly merely by right-clicking on the image of your choice and selecting the 'Save Target as' option. Or you can simply click on the image and it will open in your browser, at which point you can then save it to your computer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following are images that came to mind during the writing of the novel. In some cases they inspired scenes, but they shouldn't be taken as verbatim interpretations of the written word. They were meant more to get me in the mood for particular moments in the book.

 

'Carter and Bobbie'. Here is a scene between Carter and Bobbie. In the book they're actually sitting looking out at Obsidian through a somewhat smaller viewport . And while in this image Bobbie has long hair, in the book she doesn't -- for reasons of practicality.

 

 

 

'The Solitary Soldier' In this scene I imagined Sergeant Mackay after a devastating loss. I just had the impression of overwhelming loneliness when rendering this painting, and I tried to translate that into words in the book. When you come to the moment I think you'll know it. But again, this is not a literal interpretation.

 

 

 

'The Fall of the Last Rain' is another moment in the book you'll recognize when you come to it. In some ways, for me, it was the saddest scene in the entire novel, and I have to confess that it was difficult to write. Originally the character in question survived, but as I was writing this particular draft of the novel my father died and that just worked its way into the story. I think I simply needed to express some of the sorrow and emptiness of losing someone close, and at that time the characters in the novel just seemed the best way to do this.

 

 

'The Scout Flitter' is a very early technical piece, drawn as an aid when I was writing the first draft of the novel. The flitters featured in the novel are less angular than this, more organic in appearance. Still, it gives you some insight into the thought processes that go into creating a world of the future. It's a lot more difficult than you think, because you have to invent all manner of technologies and keep them consistent. It can be constraining at times, simply because there are occasions when you might consider putting characters in a certain situation and then realize there'd be little or no threat because of the technology available to them. Sometimes you have to be very inventive to get around this without straining the credulity of the reader..

 

 

'The Connie.' I always imagined the ships to be enormous. Hundreds of meters long, bristling with weaponry, with massive engines. Initially I had a more Star Trek/Star Wars form of space flight in mind, with none of that pesky zero-gee stuff to contend with inside the ship. But it just seemed wrong as I worked on later drafts and the ships evolved from the rather organic images you'll find in the Gallery into much more brutish and functional machines. They're weapons of war, after all, and I wanted them to look such. This image is of the FS Confederation, Lhara Jhordel's ship from Zero-Option.

 

 

Movie style poster for In Darkness Bound, incorporating some of the images from the the trailer you can find elsewhere on the site. Here it's incorporated into a wallpaper format.

 

 

 

 

Movie Poster with black border. Here you can download just the poster in a slightly larger format than what's on the wallpaper.

I've always loved movie poster art, so I thought I'd apply some of the technique to rendering a poster to advertise my book. I've tried to incorporate elements of the story into the piece in such a way as to embody some basic themes the novel touches upon and to pique the interest of the audience. There's quite a difference between movie poster art and book cover design, however, so you'll note that my approach to this is very different from what I did for the cover of my book. Although you will sometimes see novelizations of movies (or re-issues of books that have been made into movies) use the poster art for the film as cover art for the book, in general the art forms are two different beasts and require different sensibilities.

 

 

 

Movie Poster with white border. Same poster as above but with a white border.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tess: The Wild Girl of Valhalla. One of the major characters from the young adult fantasy trilogy I recently completed work on. This is a color rendering of an earlier sketch that was done during the writing phase of the novels.

 

 

 

 

 

Trog: The Machine Man. Another of the major characters from my YA fantasy. Trog is connected to Tess in many crucial ways, and her fate ultimately turns upon him.

 

 

 

 

 

Tess: A Portrait. A portrait image of Tess, taken from the larger painting.