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I’m not a 3D artist, but I’m getting better at kit bashing 3D assets to make the models I need for different covers. I needed a dog sledge. So I built one.

It’s fiddly, but fun. All the elements have to “parented” to another asset. You can’t see him, because he’s hidden, but originally there was a naked man in this file, and all the indvidual pieces of the sledge were parented to him, so when I moved him, I moved the sledge. Once the sledge was built, I deleted the man.

Dogs are tricky as they have fur and my computer isn’t strong enough to render all the different hairs. So it usually crashes. But you can’t have a dog sledge without dogs. So I cheated. The three “dogs” in this image with Fenna, are tails from a costume. Oh, and the tracks from the sledge were a challenge. Like I said, I’m no artist. So I took some train tracks and put them in the scene, playing with opacity to get some shadow. I think it works, and the cover images are smaller so it looks more seamless.

The dog in this image with Maratse in his nightshirt is an older model with hairs that are less dense. The computer rendered him without too much effort. Which was a relief. It’s the same sledge as the original model which I import into whatever file I’m working on. The snowy landscape – the same as the one in Fenna’s cover – is a moonscape with a snow surface texture.

There are times when I really should listen to what the wise folk say, and use covers that fit the genere within which I think I write. I might even sell more books. But half the fun is creating a cover to fit a story, and I have so much fun playing around with characters, building sledges, and just creating that I must admit I worry less about genre and marketing and more about story.

Now I’m wondering what to build next.

Pretty sure it’s going to be a spaceship! 😉

Chris

I can’t remember where I was standing when I took the photos.

Just another day in the north. 😉

I might be misquoting Tolkien with a title like that, but it felt appropriate. North Bane is close to going live and I’m getting excited. I’ve also made the decision to bookmark the novel with two short stories. The final edition will open with To the North and close with Winter Spoor. It makes sense to collect these three titles in one book.

North Bane started as a chapter per day on my Patreon page, and then it stalled. Too much was going on – in the story and in real life. So I reset and we’re back on track with another gritty action and adventure story full of prehistoric beasts, and several characters with serious “issues” that need to be addressed before they can move on.

As for the pitch invasion with toy dinosaurs?

Well… if you can’t have fun when editing? When can you?

More soon!

Chris

As for John Buchan’s John Macnab? I thoroughly recommend it, perhaps even before reading North Bane?

This was last year’s Halloween project, and I have finally gotten around to publishing it. Released each Sunday over five Sundays in October, this is a Halloween mystery novella in which we spend way, way too much time inside Petra’s head.

But she’s not alone.

Luui has managed to squeeze herself in there, too.

Atii, Gaba, and even Maratse join Petra in this fun, if a little “icky” Halloween mystery.

Here’s the book page, and the all important shameless link!

Chris

The contrast of colours between the land and the ice was striking in Greenland, and even more so when we lived in Qaanaaq. These photos are taken “on this day” in 2011. So this was a sunny day in June and the sea ice – quite chaotic as you can see – was still very thick. I say very as it is a lot thinner than it used to be, but still about a metre thick, I think. We didn’t fish like we did in Uummannaq, so I never tried to dig a hole.

But there was plenty to explore on the land, and looking out onto the ice and the mountains beyond never got old.

There’s alwasy a lot of hype about Captain Scott’s cabin in the Antarctic. I understand why. But I could walk to this one from my house. 😉

After a brilliant weekend on the water, it’s only fair to give something back. So I put my good friend Lars into a story. He’s broken all kinds of bits of his body when mountain biking, so it wasn’t a stretch. 😉

Here’s the book page, and that shameless Amazon link!

Chris