Two Legends Pass

Within the last couple of weeks, we've lost two legends of the comics world, co-creators of iconic figures who were largely overshadowed in the public eye by their more famous collaborators.

Jerry Robinson, an artist on the early Batman comics, co-created both the Joker and Robin, the Boy Wonder. But he was virtually unknown outside of fan circles, since Bob Kane's contract with DC said that only his name could appear on Batman stories, a policy that went unchanged until the 60's, IIRC. He died on Dec. 7.

One week later, on December 14, Joe Simon also died. Joe was better known as the co-creator, with Jack Kirby, of Captain America. He and Kirby also invented the Romance Comic genre. And in later years, as Kirby was returning to DC Comics to work on his Fourth World books, Simon was writing books like Prez and Brother Power, the Geek.  It was Kirby who sucked up all the press and accolades in later years, and justly so, given Kirby's role in creating the Marvel Universe,  but Simon should never be forgotten. The men were a team for decades.

Maybe Not

Well, turns out the proofing process on Createspace takes a while to complete, so Hero Go Home might not be ready in time for Christmas. My proof copy is due to arrive around Dec. 12, and then I'll probably have to make some fixes which will delay the process further. On the other hand, I'll probably end up with a horribly ugly one-of-a-kind proof copy that I can use as the prize in a contest or something someday.

Just in Time for Christmas (I Hope)

Although it's still under review, I thought I'd let you know now that, very soon, you can own an actual physical printed version of Hero Go Home. I will post the link where you can purchase it as soon as it is available. I plan to follow up soon with print versions of Digger Breaks Through and Death Wave, although perhaps not in time for Christmas.

I've also been noodling new T-shirt ideas that may be available very soon. And there may be a major surprise announced in the very near future, if I decide that I can actually pull it off.

The point is, I need to get more serious about making money off of Hero Go Home, and the best way to do that, as far as I can tell, is to have stuff available to make money off of. I have some ideas to bring in traffic, but I don't want to spend money on them until I have some options for making some of that money back, and three e-books isn't going to cut it.

Oh, and if you're not reading Run, Digger, Run!, you should give it a try. We're eight weeks into the story now, and things are starting to heat up. I'm barely hanging on by my fingernails, getting the daily episodes posted (and today's episode, frankly, was a little rushed--I am committed to the 500-word limit, but today's episode needed about a hundred more words or so before the big cliffhang), but the characters are firming up and the momentum is starting to build. Give it a try, and I hope you like it.

So tonight, to (prematurely) celebrate breaking Hero Go Home into print, I'm drinking some cheap champagne. Also because tomorrow morning, I have to go to divorce class, which is the final step before my divorce is final. I keep hoping that I'll feel relieved once it's over, but right now, it still sucks.

Disintegration

We all have ups and downs. Riding through a down period right now. Not depressed like I was the last couple of years, just stuff collapsing around me. Had to buy some new tires, because the rubber was worn down to the radial belts. Power supply went down in my computer, which was a pain, but was remarkably easy to repair (literally the only hardware work I think I've ever done on a computer which did not require opening the case multiple times to troubleshoot the fix plus hours of cursing--even just adding a memory card always seems to go wrong at least once). I've had an upper molar slowly disintegrating for the last four years which lost another chunk last night. There's a class I need to take to finalize my divorce that I still need to schedule (yes, after 17 years of marriage and three-plus years of separation, the State of Oklahoma requires me to pay for a class in order to be divorced).

And then there's the royal screw job Target is giving its employees by moving its Black Friday sale up to midnight. I can't really blame Target; they're giving the customers what they want. I blame all those greedy douchebags who will be lining up on Thanksgiving for hours so they can buy cheap toasters. Part of me hopes that people won't show up so this doesn't get even worse next year, but the part of me that eats and has a mortgage must hope the sale is a big success so I will get plenty of hours.

I hate the holidays. I've been indifferent to Christmas for years and generally enjoyed Thanksgiving, but working in retail, I'm already sick of Christmas and hate Thanksgiving as well.

Riding the Wave

So the other night, we're doing our weekly role-playing game, and efamar gets this text alert. Everyone sort of pauses, because this never happens. So she checks her phone and announces, "Tornado warning. Huh." Which prompts a very brief discussion of tornado warnings. Brief because suddenly everyone stops talking, and their eyes go wide.

"Did you feel that?"

And before I could say, "No, I didn't feel anything," because apparently I was the only one who didn't (my feet weren't touching the floor at the time, but resting on the chair legs), the ground started to rumble and the house shook.

It didn't last long, maybe 30 seconds of real shaking, plus another minute or so for the last rumbles to die down. But everyone was really freaked out, except me. And I want to say it's because I've lived in California and earthquakes just don't faze me, except that I never felt a really major one even in California.

No, mainly I was just giddy with delight at what had happened in the game. Let's rewind a bit. A couple of weeks ago, my character found a little girl, the only survivor of a wrecked airship. And it was apparent that this girl was in some trouble, because she was being pursued by some real badasses. I wanted to take her back to her father's house, but there was some doubt as to whether or not he was in on it, and even if he wasn't, there was some doubt (mainly from efamar's character) that he was a fit father, given that he had sent her off to be wed at age 10.

But we decided we needed to meet with the father and probe to see if we could learn more about the situation so we could make a more informed decision. And as I have mentioned before, my character has alternate personalities. And as a matter of fact, one of them was feeding my main the lines he should be saying (there was a deal between them involving letting him out later to spend time with efamar's character--that bit didn't work out so well for him). The story was mostly true with one major bit of bluff in it, but the mark decided to call the bluff and start threatening the characters' lives (along with insulting the cover story).

And so I make with a few twitches and an inappropriate smile, and this wave of "Oh shit" flutters around the table. Because although my performance was no Ed-Norton-in-Primal-Fear star turn, it was enough to let them know there'd been a switch, and everybody was sort of panicked, wondering what the new arrival would do.

And of course, what the new arrival did was defuse the situation without bloodshed, because that's what he's good at. But the point is, by the time the ground started shaking, I was already riding a wave of giddiness.

Because there's a real sense of power in that "Oh shit" reaction. I'm not the kind of guy who generates that kind of reaction in everyday life, but at that table, one inappropriate smile and suddenly, everyone thinks I'm Bruce Banner and my eyes have just turned green.

It was also gratifying that at least one person at the table knew immediately which personality had emerged. I had tried to differentiate them. Seems it worked.

And now it seems as if we're stepping out into the larger campaign. Baby steps are done, small tremors have been noted, but now the shaking really starts.

I Should Be In Bed, Again

Here it is, after midnight. I'm supposed to get up at 5 in the morning, as I do every morning that I work, but I stay up till past midnight to update Hero Go Home. The image gallery on the front page is cool, but it doesn't update automatically. Every morning, I have to update it by hand--replace the image, replace the link taht accompanies the image, and add a line of code to the previous chapter of Run, Digger, Run! so you can click through to the next episode.

And the thing is, on the one hand, I'm terribly disappointed in myself. I had intended to be worked ahead with a comfortable buffer on the daily episodes, but instead, I'm barely getting each week done in time. I have episodes done through Friday, but I don't have next Monday's started yet. I barely have any outline notes. And I still need to sacan pages for Satuday's Vault and watch Blade II and do screen caps for Sunday's Super Movies. Not to mention all the sound editing I still have to do on the podcast dropping next Monday.

And yet, I feel pretty good. I spent a lot of time sound editing today. I'm starting to remember why it's taken me a year to get back to this again--it's a ton of work and frustration--but it's also fun. And I think I put together a good graphic for this week's chapter. Last week's was a little boring, but this week's is nice.

The big problem is, I'm still not generating traffic or money. I think I'm getting better at the serialization thing, and as I get further into the story, I'm hoping to generate more exciting chapters. So far, I'm worried that it has been a little uninvolving. Part of that is the nature of the format. Five hundred word episodes don't allow for a lot of emotional exploration. But as the story builds, I hope to make it more gripping. And the blanks are starting to fill in. For instance, this last week I figured out what the final scene will be. There's still almost fifty weeks between now and then, but I know where I'm headed now.

Seriously, as worried as I am that I'm dancing right on the edge, I'm also jazzed, because it looks as I'll definitely make it through the first month with 7-day-a-week posts on time. And if I can do it for a month, it's possible that I can do it for a year. And if I can do it for a year, I might actually be able to build a following and make some money. I hope.

Channeling

Today, I channeled the ghost of Arch Oboler and wrote what seems at first blush like an almost note-perfect Lights Out. The funny thing, of course, is that I wrote most of it during my shift at Target, muttering scenes under my breath as I was scanning shelves and stocking merchandise. I'm probably not the only Target employee ever to spend an entire day mumbling about murder, but I may be the first to do it for a radio-style drama. We'll see if it's actually any good on Halloween.

Gaming, Spoilers and Expectations in Writing

So last night we had a gaming session, and though not a lot seemed to happen, I came away from it pretty happy. It's tough with a new gaming world to find your place in it right away. It takes awhile to learn how the new world works. When I was in college, it was easier: a big fight against a cool-ass monster or villain, then phat lootz after, and I'm happy.

It's different now. I'm older, and I place greater value on different things. And our group is made up of writers and avid readers, so much of the joy of the game comes not from big combats, but from moments between characters who have revealed themselves over time. Last night, I had a pretty good moment with lots of conflicting emotions crammed into a relatively brief period of time. I wish I could get something that complex and interesting on the page.

And thinking back over it today, I realize that part of what made it work was that I had set up some expectations earlier. Essentially, what happened was, my character appeared to give another a hug. And in the moment between initiating the contact and explaining what it was about, there was a tension between several alternatives. Was he doing this as a  lost child needing comfort (since he had explained that he had no memories beyond a few years previously and had been wandering the fringes of society for as long as he could remember), or was this perhaps a more romantic gesture (since another personality controlling his body had hit on the same character the previous night--perhaps there was a secret crush or something)?

The reveal, when it came, managed to be both creepy and pathetic, and I hope was a surprise, upending the expectations set up while also (I think) satisfying them in a different way.

This plays into a theory I've had about writing for a while now. The trick--the really hard trick--to writing a story that works is to set up expectations and then satisfy them without satisfying them.

What?

An example: in the mid-1970's, Ralph Bakshi directed an animated film called Wizards. It was a satirical look at fantasy and sword-and-sorcery about the clash between the good hippie fairies led by the wizard Avatar and the dark forces of evil led by Avatar's evil brother, Blackwolf. It is set up in the beginning that these are the two most powerful wizards on the planet, so we know, we expect, that there will be a climactic duel between the wizards. And although it seems as if Avatar's powers are all bluff throughout most of the film, we hang in there waiting for him to bust out his Moment of Awesome, because we've been told that he's actually really powerful.

But the confrontation, when it comes, is over almost before it starts, because Avatar pulls out a gun and just shoots his adversary. And yeah, it's funny and it's a shock, and it's in keeping with Avatar's character. And yeah, this exact bait-and-switch is one of the most fondly remembered moments of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which came out four years later.

But the key difference is, in Raiders, it's a throwaway joke against a character we've never seen before. We had no real expectations. In Wizards, we'd been watching Avatar travel to this confrontation for an hour-and-a-half, only to settle for a swift kick in the balls. Now, knowing it's coming, I can appreciate the joke, but the first time I saw the movie, I was pissed off. Because I hadn't received what I thought I'd been promised.

And I wonder if that's part of what went into a recent study which found that spoilers do not actually ruin a story. I like surprise twists in a story, but obviously a story that depends wholly on surprise cannot become a perennial favorite, enjoyed over and over again. You can only be surprised once.

A well-told story is like a series of promises from the author--"Okay, you don't know what this means, but I promise, hang in there with me and it will mean something later, and it'll be cool, I promise!" So if you promise a fight, there needs to be a fight. If you promise love, there needs to be love. If you promise a solution to a mystery, the mystery must be solved.

But there's a trap, which is that you can't meet their expectations too square-on. There's a reason why the words "dull" and "predictable" so often go together. The story needs to be predictable, but in a surprising way, a way that lets the reader or viewer feel smart while also appreciating the author's ingenuity--"man, I knew something like that was going to happen, but I never thought it would happen like that! That turned out way cooler than I expected!"

It's a delicate balance, and one I'm always trying to do better.

It's ON! Run, Digger, Run!

The new story launched today. I'm not worked nearly as far ahead as I'd like, but it has taken me a while to get into the rhythm of the short daily clips. I'm hoping it will get easier as I get more used to it.

Misogynistic Joke of the Day

In the party supply section at Target, they have boy pinatas and girl pinatas. Boy pinatas, we're all familiar with: hit them hard and candy comes out.

But you are not allowed to hit the girl pinatas. You must instead get them drunk and promise to love them forever, then see if they'll give up the candy voluntarily. Afterward, you have to promise to call them.

The Children

Had an impromptu bad movie night the other night. We watched the 1980 horror film, The Children. And yes, it is still wretchedly bad.

But bad in interesting ways. The story in brief: a school bus carrying most of the kids from the small town of Ravensback passes through a cloud of toxic gas that leaked from a nearby nuclear plant. The exposure turns the kids into zombies with black fingernails with only one desire: to hug people. Unfortunately, their hugs kill the recipients. They burn until they are half-melted, unrecognizable husks.

So yes, it's awful. Filmed on a low budget in a small town somewhere (but a small town with some huge houses--maybe a suburb of a larger metropolitan area), there are no stars. Not one. Not even a cameo by a minor B-list celebrity has-been to pique an audience's interest. The script is awful, and the acting is worse. But it is not entirely amateurish. There are a few stylish shots, and some camera movement.

And the score is interesting. In places, it's reminiscent of the Friday the 13th movies, minimal keyboards with a hollow echoey feel, which just makes sense because the score was written by Harry Manfredini, who scored the Friday the 13th films. But in places, he also "references" (or rips off) Bernard Hermann and Leonard Rosenman. It just seems odd for this low-budget little piece of nothing to have an orchestrated score, even if it is just strings and keyboards But this was before synthesizers became ubiquitous.

Directing choices are also strange. The movie introduces us to many residents of the town, and it seems as if a lot has been left on the cutting room floor. Two women living together, one of whom seems really angry at the sheriff, for some reason. It looks like there's a history there, but it's never explained. Another rich woman is set up to be a major subplot--she shares a fairly big scene with the sheriff, and later, someone coming to see her is able to talk his way past a police roadblock--but then she disappears. we never hear from her again, there are no consequences to her scene with the sheriff, and her body is not even discovered when the sheriff visits her place later. The other people with her are found dead, but she's just gone. It just feels like a lot of stuff got left on the cutting room floor.

But as Sargon aptly observed, it's not as if they had no time for character stuff. Much of the running time is filler, dead space, as characters get in their cars, turn around, and drive into the distance, just so we know they're going someplace.

But perhaps the most fascinating thing about the film is the subtext. Stephen King in Danse Macabre talks about how horror movies often have a subtext that serves as an accurate barometer of what concerns society at large--Cold War paranoia, economic concerns, the Generation Gap. And that might be true for movies that are broadly successful. But what about a movie that found little to no audience?

Might it just be a look at the filmmakers' private fears? And what does it say about the filmmakers in this case? I mean, you could look at it really abstractly and say that it all about people we should trust implicitly being our enemies or something, but at base, the monsters are little kids who want hugs!  What about that spelled "terror" to Carlton Albright and Edward Terry, the credited writers?

Casting Call for Halloween '11

I've finished a first draft of this year's radio script and am now looking for voice volunteers. Details are on Hero Go Home here.

A Story About Theme

There's a thread running over on Codex about themes in writing, with basically two camps developing: one side that basically says, "I never write with a theme in mind," and another that says, "I never write without a theme in mind." And I 'm pretty much in the former camp.

When I was in film school, I took a class (actually, I ended up taking it twice and never passed) in which you had to make 5 short films. So comes the week my third film is due, and I have nothing. I get up on Sunday, realizing I have to get the thing planned and filmed that day in order to send it to the lab on Monday, get it back and edit it on Wednesday and turn it in on Thursday.

So I end up doing a TV commercial sort of thing, a pure exercise of movement and music, with no actual story to speak of. I draw my hand writing out the word "Canon" in pencil and then going over it with ink, with the idea that I'll then play Pachelbel's Canon along with it.And to make it visually interesting, I filmed it in short cuts of ultra-close-up with the paper backlit. Substitute chopping vegetables for drawing a word and it would look like any number of TV commercials. But after I had it edited, I realized that Canon was too slow and made it drag, so I substituted an upbeat Mozart concerto instead. So now it really had no meaning.

Now, the way the class was set up, after you showed your film, you had to sit silently while everyone gave their crits, and then you could respond at the very end, after everyone had their say. So for twenty minutes, I sat there while person after person waxed enthusiastic about my film and tried to tease ever more elaborate themes from it. Then when it was my turn, I told them that it was just an exercise in sound and motion, with no more theme than "Fuck, I've got a film due." And then I had to listen to them get angry for twenty more minutes for shitting all over their thoughtful criticisms.

I've always envied the people who can write a story that says something fundamentally important about the human condition, even if I disagree with it. The fact that I've never really been able to do it with any kind of conviction has always struck me as a lack within myself--I don't write stories with messages because I have nothing useful to say.

However, over time, I find I've grown less patient and less impressed with stories that try to preach a worldview to me. Death Wave and Hero Go Home might be superficial and without overriding themes that would make them into good English Literature 101 fodder, but at least they don't fall back on the evil faceless corporation, the evil secret government program, the evil military, the evil televangelist, the noble outsider deciding that other=righteous, "true love conquers all," or any of the other simplistic nonsense that makes up most of what I see and read. I can live with that.

A Very Apt Metaphor

Cracked.com is funny in a way that Cracked, the magazine (which in my youth was always just a lame Mad wanna-be), never was. Sometimes they pile it on a little thick, and sometimes I disagree with them, but that's a risk with comedy. The point is, in general, it's a fun diversion of a site that you never expect to say something profound.

But this...

In an online world, your writing is going to form a shell around you, and most of the people who interact with you will only see the shell.

Is profound. The rest of the article is good, too.

Did I See This Wrong?

So the other day, I'm at work, standing near the front doors. And there are these two teenage girls standing sort of huddled together looking at something on the floor. And they turn to me and ask, "Is that real or is that a toy?"

So I look down, and there's a big spider. Not tarantula big, but probably the biggest non-tarantula I've ever seen. The legs are spindly and smooth, not fuzzy, but the body is about as long as my thumb and a little thicker. And yes, I have small hands, but still...

The point is, it's so big that it looks like a toy spider, and it hasn't twitched. But it's not obviously rubber. So I nudge it with my shoe, and it starts crawling. And the girls squeal and by the time I've turned around to tell them, "Looks real," they're long gone. Not that I totally blame them, because they were wearing short shorts and I hear that spiders sometimes jump.

So the aisle of dollar-crap is right there. I grab a couple of small cardstock baskets, drop one on top of the spider, then use it to scoop the spider into the other one and trap him in between. And after a pause to show the guy at the Guest Service Desk my catch, I take it outside and away from the doors and dump it.

And this is where it gets weird. Because it hits the ground and suddenly, I see the ground is crawling with little tiny bugs the same color as the spider. I mean, it's like the spider had been covered with little tiny baby spiders who suddenly decided to all jump off at the same time, or maybe were knocked off when the spider hit the ground. Except that I've never heard of this, and saw no baby spiders on the floor in the store or in the baskets after I dumped the spider out.

So maybe it was just a coincidence and there was a colony of tiny ants or something in exactly that spot where I dumped the spider. What I do know is that the spider immediately crawled away, but not towards the doors, so not my problem.

It's Here! Hero Go Home Ebook Now Available

I've been looking forward to getting this one out there for a while now, and the day has finally come! Green monkeys and a Silver Scorpion! A Man Who's Known By Many Names! Balloon Armor! Ninja Robots! A Valkyrie Riding a Giant Wolf! A Deus Ex Machina! An Alien Invasion! Superbattles Galore! Hell on Earth! All in Color for a Dime!

Okay, that last one was a lie. It's a prose novel, and it's $3.99. But all the rest, seriously. Go read it.

Find it at Smashwords here. I'll get the Amazon Kindle link up as soon as it finishes churning through Amazon.

ETA: The Kindle version can be purchased here.

On the Launchpad

New character is all ready to go--stats rolled, background written, skills and gear purchased. I know pretty much who I intend him to be. Now to see who he will be.

Tomorrow night...

Strange Inactivity

Feels strange to be sitting at home tonight. I've spent the last five nights out of the house, plus Saturday nights are often movie nights with friends. However, we had movie night on Thursday, so now everything feels skewed. I just feel as if I should have somewhere to go, and I don't.

Which is not to say I don't have things to do. I have a ton, and a nearly unprecedented 4 days off in which to do them. Bad in terms of hours worked this week, but good in terms of having time to get caught back up on life. I need to start reclaiming the house from the mess that engulfed it after the heat wave clamped down on us. I need to put together some eBay sales for my dad. I need to finish editing Hero Go Home and finalize the cover. I need to get a lot of work done on the Hero Go Home relaunch: settle on one of the potential new themes I've been playing with for weeks, and finish up the new logo, as well as designing the look of some new featured graphics. And write a new Movie Monday, as well as working my way ahead on Out of the Vault.

Oh, and set up a plan for Halloween. Since Hero Go Home is now the official location for all Blog Events, the big festivities will happen over there. I have a short story written that I'm going to adapt into a new radio play (hard to believe it has almost been a year, already). I'm going back and forth between Non-scary 70's Horror and Superheroes Who Are Really Monsters for the Out of the Vault theme. I don't have a theme for Super Movie Monday yet; maybe some 70's British stuff like The Abominable Dr. Phibes, or maybe (as a companion to Out of the Vault) Superheroes Who Are Really Monsters, like Blade and Ghost Rider (which is unbelievably getting a sequel--you can see the trailer here).

I probably won't get it all done in four days, but I hope to get some really big chunks done. Good intentions and all that...

GIMP Tutorial and Game Preview

So I used GIMP to put together a really quick and dirty portrait of my new character in the new game campaign, and thought I would throw up a quick tutorial on how I did it. I'm not going to give all the menu paths and such; generally, selection tools are under the Select Menu, Gaussian Blur is under Filters>Blur, and the layer modes are on the Layers dialog under Windows>Dockable Dialogs.

I took as my model this photo of actor Corbin Bleu, best known for his role in the Disney Channel's High School Musical movies. He has matured into a handsome young man, and between the hair and the well-defined planes of his face, he looks a lot like the character I see in my head.

STEP 1: I used the Path tool to copy him out of the background and paste him on a new layer. There are some complicated methods using high-pass filtering to preserve the detail of the hair and such, but in general, I find it faster and easier to simply define a path around the figure, Select From Path, Invert, and Cut, then use the eraser to do fine clean-up. I will usually then Select by Color the transparent portion of the layer, grow the selection by 3-10 pixels (depending on how big the photo is) and run a Gaussian Blur of 2-3 pixels to eliminate the sharp edges to the image that are a telltale giveaway that the person has been cut and pasted.

This was a quick-and-dirty conceptual piece, so I didn't do as much clean-up as I could have on his hair and neck/shoulder areas, or the gap between his chest and his right hand. I also cloned out the necklace, although not completely.

STEP 2: I added a desert background, then flipped it to make the angle of the light more closely match that of the Bleu photo. Then because my character is of a non-human race with golden cat-like eyes, I needed to change Bleu's dark brown eyes to match. First I selected the area of Bleu's eyes, cut and pasted to a new layer, then erased everything except the irises. I desaturated the image so it was black and white, then upped both the brightness and contrast until the brown area of Bleu's eyes (hardly noticeable unless you're looking at extreme magnification) was quite bright. Then I used a small brush to paint in black, darkening the pupils and extending them into catlike slits.

STEP 3: I added another layer just under the one with the copy of the irises and painted in yellow over Bleu's irises. Most irises darken at the edges, so I left a little gap between my yellow and the edge of the iris to provide an outline (I've hidden the other layer so you can see the color more clearly).

STEP 4: I set the layer mode of the iris copy to Hard Light. This allowed the natural patterns of light and dark in Bleu's eyes to overlay the yellow color I'd painted in, making a realistic looking eyeball with shadows that match the lighting in the base photo.

The eyes look a little bright and artificial at this point, so I reduced the opacity of the color layer to about 60% and the overlay to about 80%, which made the effect more subtle and natural-looking.

STEP 5: I had the eyes looking pretty good at this point. The problem now was the color. The original photo had been taken indoors, while the background was saturated in the warm colors of sunset. So I added another layer, did a Select by Color on the transparent portion of the figure layer, followed by Invert Selection. Then I filled the selection with a tone which I thought would give a good match and set the mode to Overlay. It wasn't quite right, so I fiddled with the Hue and Saturation sliders under the Color menu and played with the Opacity until I had something I liked.

STEP 6: It still didn't look right, though. Notice that on the background image, it appears to be taken at sunset, and the shadows are very deep and black. So I needed to deepen the shadows on the figure, while making the highlights pop. I couldn't simply change the contrast on the figure, because that would also change the hues, making them garish. So I copied the figure and pasted it to a separate layer above my color correction layer. I Desaturated the image, then ran a Gaussian Blur. The figure was large, so I may have gone as high as 10 pixels on this. Experiment with what works best. I erased out the irises to allow the eyes I'd worked so hard on to show through.

I set the mode to Overlay  and kept the Opacity at 100%. Notice how it makes the shadows deeper and the highlights brighter without changing the overall hues. The blur also has the added benefit of smoothing out the skin tones and giving everything a slightly alien sheen. I probably could have done this better and more easily with an Alpha Channel or something, but I still don't understand channels, so I stick with what I know.

STEP 7: At this point, I was pretty happy with the result, although I figured I would add some processing to the overall image to add a subtle iris effect to focus attention on the focal point of the picture. I usually do this on a separate image, though, so I saved what I had to a separate JPG, then added the iris effect for the final result.

I intend at some point, once the game has begun and the character has taken better shape, to do a better portrait. But as a quick-and-dirty picture that was completed in an hour or two, this is not bad, and the basic techniques are applicable to a wide variety of situations.

If this kind of article interests you, let me know and I'll do some more. I'm no expert, but I've learned a few tricks here and there, and I'm glad to share if it does someone some good.

The Other Smeaton

So I thought I was done with the Dougal Smeaton posts, but turns out, I've got at least one left in me. I am excited about our new campaign and about my new character in it, but I notice that I still break into the Scottish accent every now and then for no damn good reason except I miss the big brute, I guess.

But here's the thing: I've mentioned this before, briefly, but he wasn't the only character I had in mind when we were setting up the campaign. I actually proposed two characters, and Dougal was the one who seemed to fit best with the rest of the group as it was taking shape. And since naamah mentioned publishing some of her initial notes as she was putting together Tom Gentry, I might as well do the same thing with the Smeaton who might have been. So here is my intial email to sargon proposing two character ideas.

Like I mentioned Monday, I had a character idea leap into my head while we were talking. Then as I was driving to see my daughter last night, it occurred to me that the group may have too many of one type or other character, so I came up with another. And no matter which one you pick, the other may be useful. So let me present the Smeaton boys.

Dougal Smeaton is the older of the two Smeaton brothers. The Smeaton family runs the Glenellon distillery near Aviemore along the Spey river. Dougal grew up around the boilers and condensers used to make the family product and experimented with steam machines when he grew older, an enthusiastic amateur like so many who helped drive science and invention in those days. His skills with machine tools and engine design are not fully developed yet, though he is an expert when it comes to boilers and pressure systems.

But when was old enough, he joined the Royal Highland Regiment (The Black Watch) or whatever Scottish unit you might have that would get him to Atlantis. He's a big man, strong, stalwart and intrepid. A trained soldier who also knows a little about steam machines and is eager to learn more.

His younger brother Torin Smeaton is a different character altogether. He also grew up around the family business, but was more interested in the product of the distillery than the equipment used to make it. He was fascinated at the thought that barley could be transformed into something entirely different. As soon as he was old enough, he began to travel to other distilleries in other countries, learning more about the art of distilling spirits. In Italy, he discovered that different herbs could be used to infuse multiple flavors into a product, such as Strega:

http://www.strega.it/store/product_info.php?cPath=1&products_id=1&language=en

He also had a brief affair with mysterious Italian woman (at least he thought she was Italian--they met in Italy), who introduced him to more exotic herbs, herbs which acted on the mind and psyche. In attempting to learn more about these substances--telling himself it was only to develop a new product for his family's company--he traveled to Atlantis in search of herbs unknown in Europe. In Atlantis, his studies on herbs brought him into contact with students of the Dark Arts, and almost without consciously deciding to do so, he found himself learning magic instead. When he looks back on it later, he'll wonder if perhaps his winding path was actually directed from outside, by Fate or by some other Power.

So there you have the forgotten Smeaton, as well as a first look at what would eventually evolve into the Smeaton we now know. Sargon expressed a preference for Dougal and suggested that he might be an officer for greater latitude of action. But I saw Dougal as more of an NCO. Which led to a bit more exploration of his possible background.

Thinking about this further, the Coldstream Guard/1st Atlantean Rifles obviously is the way to go. If there's any kind of technology exchange with Atlantis or something, he might have joined for that reason, which would have caused some hard feelings with his father, who would have preferred he join a Highlands unit..

As far as his age, I'm thinking he's probably mid-20's, like 25 (Torin is younger, closer to 21 or 22). And as far as freedom of action, what if he had been cashiered from the service, dishonorably discharged for some offense he didn't commit. It wasn't bad enough to get him thrown in jail, but it was bad enough for them to dismiss him (or maybe it _was_ bad enough to throw him in jail, if the case against him had been stronger). So he's military-trained, but not actually serving. Too broke to go home (and his Dad might not welcome him back with open arms anyway, after leaving Scotland to join some crazy Atlantean unit, then getting thrown out for dishonorable conduct).

As far as his military job, I don't know enough about the tech level of the Rifles to speculate. Maybe artillery or a mortarman, or a driver of some sort if they have war machines. Crewing one of those would have improved his engineering knowledge, also, I would think.

Best ideas I can come up with without more detailed knowledge of game world.

There was a little more back and forth, but it was mainly about what kind of engineering he might be good at. Finally, by the first game day, we had a more-or-less finished character: Dougal Smeaton, ex-artilleryman, engineer at the Phoenix Steamworks, engaged in building a steam-powered submersible for Sir Walter Graves and then pressed into service to help find him. It took a few weeks to really find his rhythm, and then it was a really fun ride. I can't imagine how the group would have looked with Torin in there instead.