Now the introduction is complete with the three prologues, it’s time to up the pace with the first chapter and introduce to fully grown Dancescu twins.
The first chapter can be downloaded from the page at the top, or here.
Thanks to all have read the tale so far.
P.S. Please bear in mind this is a very hastily written story (a chapter a month after all) and as of which the grammar may not be completely perfect. Thanks 🙂
It’s amazing what suicide can do for somebody’s career. You release a few mediocre albums containing a couple of half decent tracks (in my opinion anyway) and then gorily end it all at your peak, forever cementing your name in the legendary rock halls of fame. Without the shotgun, or the shock of a world, and you may just fade off into obscurity, never to be heard from again.
This week I’ve spent my working hours in Manchester on a training course for Adobe After Effects. Previously we have done all our adverts (the company I work for sell advertising space on a host of LCD screens across the world) in Flash, and previous to that they were done in Macromedia Director. Looking back at some of those old adverts it’s quite remarkable how they’ve evolved into how they appear nowadays.
During the week’s course we had to undertake an exercise in making a man look like he was actually blowing his own brains out. Now the footage provided was of a young bloke (I’ll call him Kurt) pretending to shoot some sort of automatic rifle at his head then falling over. We learned to digitally remove his head at the correct point, add gun flashes, blood splashes with accompanying sound effects of gun blasts and squelching sounds.
Strangely, the exercise proved to be quite worthwhile, and even though it won’t propel me into the aforementioned hall of fame, it’s helped me to get an idea of how this package works, and further my own skills.
The true test of this will be when we have to create actual adverts using it, as well as the yearly sales presentation which will be due in January.
Speaking of which, I need to come up with some ideas. I’ll try sandwich this in somewhere between my own work.
Now back kick starting the run up to Christmas 😀
Ok time for a shameful self plug!
This is the book that kick-started my progression into Merlin Corp. Having done a few pieces of artwork for the writer I was offered to illustrate a range of books for young children starting with this one Island of Ice and the Snowmites.
Having already been illustrated in the 80’s and 90’s I had quite a large body of artwork to go off. The problem being that the work was very old fashioned. I did my best to inject a bit more colour and life into the book starting with the picture below of the character Zandeer floating through the air.
The book was a great learning curve into how publishing worked. The paperback version, sold by a company in America is more expensive and inferior to the glossy, heavy and beautiful hardback version we created ourselves. It also served a lesson as to how shipping, distribution and marketing were to be handled.
For more information and reviews, the book can be seen at Amazon here.
The third part of my monthly novel is now free to download.
Either from the link at the top at the top of the page or here.
Thank you for reading. 🙂
Standing in an eerie crypt, surrounded by vast, ornate catacombs I peer at what appears to be a larger than life-size bronze angel draping a huge Hungarian flag over the beautifully carved tomb of what I assume to be a bishop or priest. I guess he must have been a man of some importance; there’s his death mask in a glass case, and a photo of the previous pope in the adjoining room.
There’s a bit of information next to the tomb but it’s all in Hungarian.
I call over my mate Krisztian. ‘Hey can you translate this for me pal?’
He wanders over and peers at the text before replying in his usual thick accent. ‘Ah it just history and shit.’
Before I met Wendy I had no desire of ever going to Hungary, but then again my knowledge of the country was also extremely vague. I can now say that it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to, and the Hungarian people are rightfully proud of their homeland. Not to mention being proud of their heritage, their food, and their drink.
The people we met were friendly and welcoming, especially in Krisztian’s home town of Csatka – a village of around 250-300 people miles from anywhere. Thankfully they sorted out their priorities and made sure they had a drinking establishment, where we spent several nights.
I won’t mumble and bumble on about all the stunning places we went, as I know it can make for tedious reading, suffice to say Hungary, (and its capital Budapest) is a memorable place and I look forward to visiting again next year.
Next time I’ll make sure I go equipped knowing more Hungarian words than just ‘thank-you’, ‘beer’, ‘and ‘no palinka’.
Well done to my good friends Danny Boswell and Will Eades for creating the animated intro for the videos for British Basketball website Hoopsfix. Both ultra talented designers who certainly have amazing careers ahead of them.
You can check out the Hoopsfix Youtube Channel here.
DB Design can also be seen here.
The second part of my monthly novel is now free to download.
Either from the link at the top at the top of the page or here.
Thank you for reading 🙂
As my sis has pointed out, I cannot mention Angel without writing something about Angel’s creation – the child-like Seraphim. Described as being built from several suits of armour with six arms and no speech abilities, Seraphim is able to wield six swords at once (4 swords and 2 guns in Tapestry of Fates), and comes complete with a huge sense of justice and devotion to his friends.
As an assault droid, Angel programmed Seraphim to act in an ultra violent, rampaging mania if her life is threatened or if she comes to harm. He is also programmed to obey all of her commands, disguised as kind requests.
His violent side is mirrored in his benevolent nature and innocence, as is shown in Book 2 of Tapestry of Fates (Spirit’s Pain) when he introduced.
  When he got to Gemma, she looked up at him through red ringed eyes; tears streaming down her face.
  Did you kill him?’ She whispered to the tall droid as he freed her from the shackles.
  Seraphim paused and then slowly placed a finger under Gemma’s eye, carefully wiping her tear away. His eyes shone a deep blue. Softly bleeping he nodded at her.
  ‘Thank you.’ She quietly choked, embracing Seraphim tightly, who in return held her back.
Here is an excerpt from my other tale ‘The Lost Flame’ that perfectly describes the nature of Seraphim.
Please excuse the very poor grammer – it is over ten years old.
Seraphim and Boddington
Old illustration of Seraphim and Boddington
I’ll be honest, Uni was pretty much a big waste of time for me! Not having a proper tutor for the entire first year, getting myself in major debt, and forgetting just about everything there is to learn about Animation just about sums up how pointless for me it was.
There were good things mind! I had a blast whilst I was there, it helped push me towards the wrtiting side of productions, helped with my art, and I got to throw my mortar board in the air at graduation. Uni was also responsible for giving me a character that I have been determined to put in every piece of writing I create even if I had to change her to a pink-haired human if necessary.
One of our assignments was to create an original character based upon two completely different subjects or genres. For instance one of my friends created a Transvestite Gladiator. I decided to combine Robots and Angels, and named my character Cyphangel. Her back story was that she was an assasination droid, built in pinks and purples to deceive her targets. We had to construct these characters using a crude armature and plasticine.
To this day that model remains at my dad’s house, and Cyphangel has morphed into simply ‘Angel’. She has also give rise to my sister’s and friend Symon’s fave character – the childlike, four sword, two gun wielding Seraphim. So far both character’s have appeared in both Tapestry of Fates and Phoenix, serving as a link to the two tales.
Recently I was quite disheartened to see a character in Tekken 6 paying more than a slight resemblence to Angel, in both looks (pink hair) and storyline.Thankfully I could never be accused of stealing as it’s nearly a decade since I left uni.
Now I’m due to put Angel into Fallen Tears.
Has anyone heard of a robotic, vampire angel?
Finally, the 1st Prologue has been completed for my gothic vampire tale and will be uploaded tonight.
Starting the next chapter as soon as possible.
Thankyou to anyone who takes the time to read this piece of work. x
kennydreadful 