Tag Archives: illustrations

My Illustrator’s Daughter Gets Involved

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My latest book ‘Claymore’ has been on Amzon.com for a few weeks in all three formats now (ebook, black & white paperback, and color paperback). Besides my day job as an engineer, I have been a bit lazy since then, playing games and watching shows on Netflix. Soon I will need to start my next project in earnest.

Meanwhile I have had some exposure and sales for the new book, especially with friends and relatives. My illustrator bought an expensive version of the book (the version with color interior illustrations) for her daughter. As you can see in the attached picture, she is really happy to have my story in her hands. (Okay, she is happy to have the illustrations in her hands.) I appreciate her positive response.

TizianaDaughter

I am indecisive about my next project. I have two more books planned and outlined for the Tomek series that I want to complete, but I also want to do a ‘hard science fantasy’ story that I have in my head.

I’ve never heard that term (hard science fantasy) before and I may have made it up. The general concept is a world similar to the one Tolkien created (not too similar, but with magic, magical beasts, and wizards). Earthling astronauts land there and try to make sense of it. I have specific ideas in mind (about the science behind the magic and about plots and characters) but haven’t outlined them in any document yet. I would want the plots and characters to dominate and not have it all about the science. It would be, at some stage, a battle of science against magic where science is losing. Later as they ally with the good guys they learn to meld the two technologies together.

I am sure something like that has been done before somewhere, but I want to do my idea with it.

Writing Obstacles into the Story

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For my latest manuscript the editing is done and all the interior illustrations. This illustration featured today is for chapter thirty-one. This chapter has Claymore finding exactly where prisoners are being kept.

When I wrote my first book, my editor complained that I had my character solve problems almost instantly. I learned challenging obstacles are important in a story, something everyone seems to know, but I didn’t back then. Obstacles that are quickly overcome are not really obstacles.

Now I am on my third book, and in this particular case, the character Claymore has spent over half the book trying to find where the prisoners of the evil covert organization are. Here he finally gets a peek into the bad guy’s surveillance room and recognizes video feed of one of the prisoners. Now he can switch to planning the rescues.

I am still an amateur writer, but here I have the produced the most serious struggles for the protagonist. I just wonder if I went too far. Nah. It was a struggle for me personally though. I have a tendency to want my character to be masterful or expert. And I still do that to a degree by making the opposition stronger.

I try to have the character to be strong in some things, but also have some significant flaws that cause him or her problems. In Claymore’s case as an example, he is a bit snobby and overconfident. He is a wealthy and clever lawyer. That is one of his weaknesses that make his problems worse. At a point before this illustration, he is living homeless and broke. While he never gets his wealth back, he does become successful again and makes a difference in the lives of the victims.

Chapter 31 final

Introducing Supporting Characters

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Supporting characters are important in most stories. Chapter seven of my work in progress introduces Phee, the green girl in the picture who is the major character besides Claymore himself (the other green species). I didn’t just want her to show up for no reason. Her existence on the same planet as Claymore changes the whole story.

Chapter seven was originally the first chapter until I found I needed introduce Claymore and establish his personal conflicts first. Then Phee’s appearance could be all about her, and the significant twist she presents to Claymore’s goals and hopes. Phee represents mystery, and evidence that the criminals Claymore is trying to hunt down are way bigger than a few street hoodlums. He still won’t know how big until later.

Introducing Phee properly was so important to me that chapter seven is probably the most carefully crafted chapter in the book. (Though, I’m still an amateur no matter how hard I craft.)

This illustration for the chapter is another by tizianafruiu of freelancer.com. Here Claymore is trying to research the strange planet Phee came from. I think Tiziana did a good job making research look intense.

chapter-7-final

Short Stories in the Appendices are Fun

by in Baktu, Claymore, Tomek Series and tagged , , | 1 Comment

I have recruited two authors to write short stories for my next novel ‘Claymore’ (one of them is a maybe). I also sent an invitation to Gavin Parish but it is too soon to know if he accepts.

With my last novel ‘Baktu’, I had three short stories added to the book’s appendices, written by independent authors. These stories focused on back stories for minor characters. I gave the credit to the author at the top of each story. It was a lot of fun for me and I thought the stories were great and added a valuable dimension to the book. So I decided to do the same with ‘Claymore’.

I expect it to take four to six weeks for all my planned illustrations and short stories to be done (by freelancers). The novel itself is done except for grammar edits. In parallel, I need to start planning the book cover.

The second chapter to have an illustration is Chapter five. I plan to post on this blog each Monday or Tuesday until Claymore is published and include a chapter illustration with each post.

chapter-5

In this illustration, Claymore is presenting his bill to the legislature of the Azten Empire. He is pushing for more resources for government law enforcement agencies to take the pressure off citizen vigilante work and to create reliable justice. Good luck with that Claymore.

Navinos and Claymore

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I am on my last rounds of editing my next book ‘Claymore’ (except for purely grammar edits). I am focusing on minor details like plot details, characterization and descriptions.

While I am at it, I hired tizianafruiu from Freelancer.com to illustrate some of the chapters. I am not illustrating all 49 chapters, just one-fifth of them. I already have three of the planned ten completed. Here is the illustration for chapter one: chapter1

Claymore is the one wearing blue (or is it purple?). His race is ‘navino’. Claymore is eating with his niece and her friend.

Claymore has had subtle connections with Tomek in the Negative Zero and Baktu novels and now he gets his own book.  The novel, Claymore, will start before the Negative Zero novel and end after the Baktu novel and investigate some background mysteries from both of those books.

Below is a previous illustration I had drawn for the same chapter one, except a misunderstanding made it a landscape orientation instead of the portrait orientation I wanted. This was a different artist and you will see her opinion on the chapter 1 meal and what a navino looks like.navito-7

Just for another opinion on what navinos are from another artist, below is the published illustration from my first novel ‘Negative Zero’ of a navino:

Navino 1b Tint z

Prepare for the Visual Feast!

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BaktuIllustrationsFrontCoverSmall

Baktu Illustrations Newly Released as FULL COLOR Special Edition!

Welcome back friends!

Happily, there is even more great news to share about Baktu! Cass here at the blog helm again, checking to inform you of the latest developments about the printing of the book and distribution on Amazon.

As those who purchased early copies of book two in the Tomek series will know, the novel contains beautiful illustrations from contest winning artists, sourced from around the world. As he shared the novel with others Jimm learned personally of Baktu collaborators and fans of the written word who wanted to badly to see the original versions, that he pulled the trigger on an accompanying printed graphic which is just now available to the public, also on Amazon.

Due to the cost of full color publication of the entire epic, the artwork had to be printed in black and white throughout. As you experience the image in only the form of light and shadow, it gives the drawings within the full length novel a nostalgic and dream like quality. Each visual likeness leaves your imagination to explore and envision the colors, hues, and contrast of every depicted scene. This difficult choice to remove color from the pages was done with the purpose to make the book more economically priced and therefore accessible to more readers.

After seeing full novel in print, Jimm knew he wasn’t quite done sharing the diversity of talented artists who had contributed to the novel. It then also became of high importance to Jimm, as he progressed through the project, that the audience be given the opportunity to enjoy the full beauty of the different graphic styles of the artwork in high resolution full color.

Personally, it is such a treat to see both the black and white, as well as the full color side by side as I read the novel again. Sometimes my imagination closely matched the artist’s rendering, and other times I was delighted to see that the artist had chosen nearly the opposite colors to what sprang from my imagination.

In the full novel your imagination really makes the drawings your own as your mind’s eye fills in the details between light and dark – whereas the stunning high-resolution drawings provide every detail and some surprises as to the artist’s interpretation of the story. The full novel and the special edition collection of color illustrations are complimentary books, and make a beautiful set for avid readers and science fiction fans of all ages! In this newest release of the drawings accompanied by a short blurb about each artist, you may find yourself lost in the soulful pictures, and dreaming up the prequel as well as back story for Wra, Spri, and the other natives of Baktu.

After you’ve enjoyed them both, please feel free to leave your comments or questions for the author about both the story and illustrations here! I’ll be back with you to share the next developments for the Tomek series! Thank you again to all the fans for your support and interest. Your continued curiosity and compliments have been a joy for everyone who contributed to the project, and especially for those artists who thanks to Jimm are able to bring the adventures of Tomek to both the digital and print world in black and white and brilliant color! Thank you!

Amazon: Illustrations in Baktu (54 pages): collected by Jimm Grogan

Amazon: Baktu: Book Two in the Tomek Series, By Jimm Grogan (356 pages, black and white)

For more information: https://jimmgrogan.com/

Contact: https://jimmgrogan.com/contacts/

Baktu Finally

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After what what seemed like forever to me, I have finally published the kindle edition of my book Baktu. It took a while to have all the illustrations created. Now, it is available on Amazon.com here.

The two paper editions will be available this week. There will be a cheaper black and white edition, and a color edition.

Illustrators

All 33 chapters except two have illustrations, and two of the appendixes also have illustrations. See the small thumbnails of the illustrations in above excerpt from the acknowledgments page. I hired eight different illustrators, each with a different style. It was fun having different visual interpretations of the chapters from each of them, and hopefully it won’t be too confusing to the reader. I am excited to show their work. After the fact, I see I forgot to acknowledge one important illustrator: GrayCactus, who illustrated chapters 8, 12, 13, 15 & 33. I don’t know how I missed that. I will need to update the kindle edition of the book to mention Gray Cactus in the acknowledgements in a couple weeks, and hopefully add the two new in-progress illustrations while I am at it.

Also, I really like the short stories in the appendixes of the book. These were written by other writers (not me) and they did an excellent job for me. Each of the three short stories revolves around a different minor character in my book. I think each add some depth to the Baktu world. I am thankful for these writers participation.

It is nice to have this project unleashed into the world so I can finally show it to those who have been waiting, and I can turn my attention to the future big thing.

Baktu Accepted Into Amazon’s Scout Program and Publishing Competition

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Amazon Approved Baktu to Move Forward – Includes First Sneak Peek For Readers!

Baktu Novel Cover

Baktu, the second science fiction novella in the Tomek series.

Great news fans! You’re invited to a private sneak peek of Baktu hosted by Amazon Kindle!

Hi Everyone! Cass here again, guest blogger, with the pleasure of sharing the first official flames of attention for Baktu! As you know Jim’s book is complete, has now also gone through the sometimes complex editing process, and as the publishing date approaches, more and more good news for fans of the series keeps coming out!

Just this week Baktu was awarded admittance into Amazon’s Kindle Scout competition for unpublished manuscripts. You the reader directly benefit in this unique competition, because as part of the program, Amazon allows you to check out the first few chapters and nominate Baktu for publishing through the competition, for free. As well as another benefit after the competition concludes.

Starting today you will have a full month to check out Baktu’s opening section, nominate it for publishing, and share it with anyone – for free!

After that, and with the most nominations in this competition group, their program additionally rewards those readers who nominated Baktu by providing each of you a complimentary Kindle eBook edition of the entire book to keep!

Please do support the continuation of this fun sci-fi series by enjoying Amazon’s advance preview and offering Baktu your publication nomination after you have taken pleasure in the exhilarating opening scenes and developing story! When Baktu moved onto the next stage your participation at this early stage guarantees you a complimentary copy of the full novel as soon as it’s released by Amazon!

The anticipation of Tomek’s landing, at the outset of Baktu, and escape from the dangerous powers in the previous novel, Negative Zero, are only the first mysteries revealed to readers who take advantage of Amazon Kindle’s sneak peak. You will soon be lost in this fascinating world that is both totally alien and not all that much unlike our own world. If only we had the intergalactic travel, Baktu would definitely be a must see destination.

It has been noted that along with the book’s cover, a large part of Tomek’s journey includes the mysterious illustrations always intended for inclusions the final print publication. Amazon’s Scout competition, however, only allows for the novel’s cover and text to be reviewed and nominated. But, we are glad to report that after winning, when published and sent by Amazon to all those who nominated it, we can confirm that Baktu’s eBook will definitely include the full set of color illustrations!

This is a really great opportunity and deeply appreciated honor for Baktu to have met their standards for publication and to have gained immediate admittance into the active competition. We invite you to please visit Baktu on Amazon’s contest page, enjoy the sneak peek, and give Baktu your nomination! Please do also share the experience of your reading it with everyone you know and also with Jim directly here on the site!

Amazon’s Scout Competition: Kindle Scout Amazon: Baktu

URL Link: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/3KSTIP7RAU1QL

 

For more information

https://jimmgrogan.com/

Contact: https://jimmgrogan.com/contacts/

Illustration Contest for the Baktu Prolog

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Prologue.MatiasDC.small

$100 winner by Matias “delcar” Del Carmine

I am making slow progress on my novel ‘Baktu’ which is the sequel to ‘Negative Zero’. I believe I am over half way through the last major revision of the manuscript.  I am still hoping for a July publish date, but it may be August.

It has a prologue, an introductory chapter for new readers, or segue chapter for readers of Negative Zero. I put on a contest at freelancer.com for an illustration for the prologue. I was happy with the results. I picked the $100 winner and selected four runner-ups and bought their illustrations also for $50 each.

The subject of the prologue is Tomek in his damaged spaceship being confronted by two elite imperial ships for trespassing in a forbidden area. After some resistance he puts on his space suit and escapes in his escape pod designed to look like debris when his ship explodes. He makes a hard landing on the forbidden planet Baktu.

The problem, as should be expected, is that the illustrations do not agree with each other on how Tomek and his spaceship look, and the art styles are different. Otherwise I would want to use them all and make a heavily illustrated prologue. I still want to, and am trying to think of a way to present them in the book without confusing the readers. Maybe in the preface or the acknowledgements I could explain about the contest and the different interpretations of the prologue scene by the artists.

Prologue.Abdulrhman92.small

by Abdulrhman Zaki

The featured image above is the $100 winner by Matias “delcar” Del Carmine (MatiasDC).  I enjoyed the dramatic wow effect. This was also a favorite of my friends and family. It shows Tomek in combat with the two enemy ships. For ship  illustrations I asked for signs of damage. The red warning light above Tomek is intended to be the sign. The planet Baktu is visible, with an apparent sunrise or sunset going on.

Next is a second opinion on the interior by Abdulrhman Zaki (Abdulrhma). This shows a situation similar to the previous illustration. However this illustration show lots of cool gadgets and console busyness which is attractive to most science fiction readers. I like it. It also shows a warning projected onto the window, and a ‘loading’ bar which I assume shows the progress of the laser charging. In the prologue, which the contestants had access to, Tomek’s damaged laser cannon takes a long time to charge up, and is a issue in the sequence of events. The planet Baktu, and its moon is further away, so I expect this moment is earlier than the one in delcar’s illustration.

by Dienel96

by Dienel96

The next two illustrations are both by dienel96.

One is the picture of the exterior of Tomek’s ship. This is different than the description of the ship in ‘Negative Zero’, and shows no sign of damage. But it still looks cool. The clouds in the background seem unexpected to me, and not quite plausible in outer space. But then I decided that the Baktu solar system was near a nebulae. Besides, it looks cool and added a mysterious exotic mood. The aurorae borealis going on down on the planet was interesting too.

by Dienel96

by Dienel96

The other picture by Dienel96 shows Tomek in his spacesuit headed for the escape pod. Here is another interpretation of the interior and the console. The console is cleaner and more organized here. The cockpit looks big, larger than I envisioned; you could dance in it, artificial gravity permitting. It looks like it would be more pleasant as a longer term home. I’m sure he was sad to leave it behind.

by nasstaran

by nasstaran

Lastly, in the chronology of the prologue, Tomek is marooned on the surface of the planet Baktu, and the scene is set for the remainder of the book. This last illustration is by nasstaran. So I get a picture of Tomek on the surface of Baktu. Here he is sitting on top of his escape pod figuring out what to do next. This picture is not as flashy and glamorous as the others, but I like it. I like the plants, the details and the moment specific to a moment in the prologue. I like the lonely and tentative mood.

Illustration for chapter one of Baktu

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My sequel, titled ‘Baktu’ is making slow progress. I expect to publish in July. Meanwhile I hired Telsey Glau to draw the internal illustrations, one for each chapter. Imagine, a science fiction novel with illustrations. It’s crazy but I want it. She completed the first illustration this week. Here it is:

Baktu. Chapter 1

Baktu. Chapter 1.