Tornin arrives

In a blur of motion, Tornin stands before Lorace, placing himself between the remaining wolves and their intended prey.

I spent more time on this than I should have, but it's Tornin.

The Final Warden is now available on Nook!

The 90 days of the Kindle exclusive are at an end for The Final Warden. With several friends and at least one eager reader waiting for a Nook version, I am happy to announce the Nook version.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-final-warden-thomas-cardin/1115213376?ean=2940016755540&itm=1&usri=2940016755540

I do not have a Nook myself, so I had to rely on the on-line reader to see that everything formatted correctly. Nook users please let me know how it looks, and enjoy the read.

A spirit restored

This is a portion of Lorace's dream. As a child, he chases a golden butterfly through a field of moon-like flowers. Before he can catch the butterfly, it bursts into a shower of golden sparks.

This went together very fast, less than an hour start to finish - mostly due to my getting the hand "just right" with just a few strokes of color, a feat which I must try to duplicate in the future (hand - feat? no pun intended). Also the background being diffuse and dreamlike helped make things quick. 75% of the time was spent drawing sparks.

Giving chase

He did not need to look to know the wolves were in pursuit.

I am not going ape about my anatomy on this one, but I kept to my maxim of drawing fast for these images. There's a difference in how someone runs for their life rather than just running a sprint, capturing that is hard - I tried to show it by throwing his body fairly off of its centerline. I will undoubtedly revisit him and work things over again.

A Wolf Howl

Lorace hears a wolf howl from the depths of the forest, and in his mind's eye he sees three wolves lifting their noses to his scent.

No shortage of wolf reference images to draw from, but I also wanted to create an image that showed the depths of the Keth Forest and the atmosphere beneath the fall canopy.

Halversome finished

It is late afternoon when Lorace crests the headland and beholds Halversome.

A start on Halversome

Ahh Halversome. I have just a beginning here. It is a bigger and more complex painting than the previous ones...what I have here is about and hour and a half into it. I sketched a few thumbnails to get the basics ironed out in my head of how I wanted to show the surrounding landscape. I spent a majority of the time so far on the forest and have a lot more to do to adjust depth and scale.

Halversome itself is just a sketch in the middle and there are a few farms shown on the hill beyond.

A narrow defile through the cliff

I am getting speedier and my speedy painting. I love stone against sky, the creating of intrigueing silohuettes.

Here Lorace has found a source of warmth and a means of taking himself out from under the bitter cold shadows of the seacliffs. Natural erosion has created a place of magical beauty.

"A headland rose before him"

Lorace's journey northward is marked by the wheeling of soaring birds. They dance on the offshore wind that has been his constant companion throughout the day.

"While the storm raged"

It was raining hard today on the way into work. It may have been the rain that inspired me to paint this image of Lorace in a stormtossed sea. This went together surprisingly fast. No references used for the water, though a slew of fine anime films were running through my mind while I just let my hand move.

If this is a disturbing image for anyone that's ok. Lorace is sleeping, held safe in the grip of the Lady --she protected him while the storm raged over the Vestral Sea.

The Stormwall Mountains

The dwarves often call the Stormwall Mountains the spine of Vorallon. It is a significant mountain chain than runs North-South through the entirety of the continent of Erenar. Lorace's first glimpse of these towering blue granite monoliths is at the dawning of an early winter day. The long grasses of the rolling hills have yellowed, but still retain the hint of slumbering green. The southern march of the trees of the Keth are bronzed with the reds and golds of late fall color.

The snow and glaciers nested deep within the great mountain chain are present year round. During the winter months, the ice causes the granite to gleam in deepening hues of blue.

The Final Warden on the top 100

Well so far this is a triumph. We shall see how long it lasts.

The Final Warden is currently rank 80 in the kindle fantasy top 100 rankings! Without being part of a free promotion or being announced by a best selling author or even being blogged about on a top review blog. All three of the Gift of Vorallon books have seen a sudden increase in sales this week as well, but The Final Warden continues to climb.

It has simply reached a critical mass of my own promotion, word of mouth of my wonderful readers, and a nice garnering of 4 and 5 star reviews.

I suppose it could all be a malfunction of Amazon's reporting software, but I am thinking they probably have that in good working order.

Anyhow, I wanted to say thank you to my readers and any fellow authors who are also on this journey along with me!   

To show my thanks to the many who have purchased The Final Warden this week, and to celebrate a few days on the top 100:

City of Thunder [Kindle version] is having a FREE promotion this Saturday, 04/13

A couple new picks

I did a quick self portrait--never know when people will want to see the guy behind the dragon face.

 

Also have another sketch done for The Final Warden trailer. Here is a look at Lorace's scars.

 

 

Hmmm...perhaps I should not have arranged these two pictures quite this way.



Gifts of Vorallon Promo Stills

I am storyboarding out a promo trailer. So far it is going to be a mix of stills, and motion graphics with text and effects. Here is an example of some of the stills, a teaser if you will. I bet those who've read The Final Warden can easily figure this one out.