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 Sorry for the Delay      My mom's in the hospital. She had to get a biopsy but it went fine and she just needs to recover now. She has cancer and I help take care of her.     Have you ever had art that just didn't work out? Of course you have; everyone has. I have a ton of great ideas where the execution in photoshop doesn't pan out as I hoped. I've gone through several of my artworks and made updated versions of them to remedy this.     Here is an example of a great idea but sloppily executed. I might go back and rework it later.

 Wildlife Photos of a Bobcat      Sometimes you wind up in the right place at the right time. I was driving in the mountains and had gotten out of my car to take pictures of a landscape. To my great fortune, I ended downwind from a bobcat. It wandered up and I was able to get several great pictures before it noticed me and ran away. Here they are: This is the landscape I originally intended to photograph.

 What Will the Future Look Like?     Although not a requirement, most science fiction takes place in the future. As a sci-fi writer, a large portion of what I do is based around my envisioning of the future. My novel takes place in the year 2324.     So why 2324? The year is a very important part of defining how the future will look. If you start too close to the current year you'll end up with situations like George Orwell's 1984, a dystopian social science fiction novel who's time is already long past. I wouldn't want to write a book that can easily be disproved in a few decades. A couple hundred years in the future sets a good time frame; there's a lot of time for technology and our pioneering of the universe to grow but it's not long enough that everything will change. We'll still have Earth and some semblance of modern technology.      After that's been established we decide the mood. In the same time frame a dystopian future will look completely di

 Genetic Mutations      When you think of foxes you generally think of a red color. But foxes can be several different colors and even change color from season to season. Arctic foxes for example are brown or grey in the spring time and turn white when winter comes. It's a form of seasonal adaptation.     Mutations can change a fox's color too. Red foxes can become a silver or black color. These mutations are a result of melanistic color morphs. Melanin is a process that makes a fox’s natural fur color darker through a genetic mutation. It is the absence of light coloring, this is due to a dark-colored pigment called melanin that develops in the skin and hair. Around 10% of wild red foxes have melanistic morphs.           I was lucky enough to get photos of a black fox in the wild, although the quality was unfortunately poor. At first I thought it was a skunk but, upon looking at my photos, it turned out to be a fox. This inspired my character Erica “Lapis Lazuli” Atchfi

 Applying Science to Science Fiction      Fun fact about the color blue in animals: blue is not caused by pigments. Most pigments that animals exhibit on their fur etc are caused by the food they eat. Blue however is very rare in nature and more often caused by the structure of molecules and the way they reflect light. The blue morpho butterfly for example is that color because its wing scales are shaped in ridges that causes sunlight to bend in such a way that blue light, at just the right wavelength, is reflected. Blue jays' feathers are made up of light-scattering, microscopic beads spaced in a way that everything except blue light is cancelled out.The only natural blue pigments belong to obrina olivewing butterflies.     So how do we apply this to science fiction? You've probably seen blue hair in fictional works and anime. It's common yet never explained. We are left to assume the character dyed their hair. But what if it was natural?     In my book, Rainbows Wane, on

 Investing In Getting Your Book Published      I'm nearing the finish line of completing my book with 215 of 250 pages edited and have looked into publishing. There's a lot of things that need to be done and investments to be made.     First off, you need to hire an editor. A manuscript with grammatical and spelling errors is dead on arrival. It's important to get outside help; we each have biases pertaining to our own work that can blind us.     You need someone to design cover art for the book. As an artist I'm tempted to do this myself but cover artists know what sells. There are specific things that attract people to reading a book. People can and do judge a book by its cover.      Finally you need an agent to have a chance to sign on with a major publishing company. All these things take money and it's unlikely a first book will sell very well until the author is established. Most authors don't see returns until their fourth book. If you want a sustainable

Sketching Monsters     Sometimes it's nice to take a break from serious art and have some fun! I love creating Dungeons and Dragons like monsters. You can get really creative with them. No worries about strict human proportions; they can be however big or small you want.     This is a Puppeteer Beholder and Clockwork Golem. Beholders are generally large floating eyeballs but this one is animating a golem. I drew this a while back but still like it. Expect to see a lot of this kind of thing. It's not part of my book; just for fun. Currently I'm working on more concept art for my book: Signature Rainbows Wane.

 Colorado Nature Photography      I love to hike and drive up in the Rocky Mountains. There's beautiful scenery and plentiful wildlife up there so I always bring my digital camera. Over the years I've developed a pretty good eye for quality shots. You should be working with the rule of thirds. Here are a few landscape photos of Colorado. Maybe later I'll post about when I saw a bobcat or black fox *wink*.  Here's Hail Ranch. This trail burned in a wildfire sadly.     The Enchanted Mesa Trail at sunrise.     This is Sunshine Canyon. And this is the tundra around Trail Ridge Road, higher up than trees can grow.     I have many more to share in the future.

 Fixing Rough Drafts     At the time of writing this I am on page 202 of 250 in editing my story. I'd like to share a paragraph and how I improve it. Rough drafts are by nature clunky, repetitious and poor quality but serve the important purpose of laying the bones. Now it's time to flesh them out.       " Azalyske unveiled them in the desert bramble but now of withered brown, dry, dead vines. The sun entered the final leg of its daily toil, illuminating the sky in pink and orange. Not a cloud was to be seen. Long shadows began to creep across the thorny vines in eerily shifting nets. The air still burned from the midday sun."    Several changes need to be made. "withered brown, dry, dead vines" is redundant and causes the sentence to run on. "illuminating the sky in pink and orange" is well and good but it could be better. A clever metaphor or simile would improve it. "The air still burned from the midday sun" echos the word "sun&qu

 Fan Art and Monsters     Most of my work is entirely original content but on occasion I'll sketch some fan art. It's fun to draw monsters; you'll see many more in the future. I always enjoyed looking at illustrations of monsters and learning about prehistoric creatures.     Here's some fan art from the game series Monster Hunter. It's a Lagiacrus fighting a Rathalos. Monster Hunter is a fun series and I really enjoyed Monster Hunter World. Hammer was my main weapon but I was proficient in all of them. It takes a long time to color these in, especially since I use photoshop, so most of my sketches aren't colored.   

    Here's A Joke I Made Up Question:     Why didn't the clam want to get in the sauna with his friends?  Answer:     He had low shellfish steam!

 Building a Blog (update)     Now that my blog is setup and I've added some content I'm ready to make it grow. It's important to use "evergreen" content or posts that won't become obsolete with old references. Make the blog stay fresh for new readers.     The next step is getting the word out on social media; something I am notoriously bad at. I don't expect the blog to grow fast. Most people wait over eight months before making a single cent. But hopefully in time it will snowball.     I'll of course continue to add posts and am ever drawing closer to having my book published. That will allow a lot of content about my world I'm not able to publish yet. If you like my work please help it grow. Thanks.