Art is an interesting thing. I’ve used art for my characters since the very beginning when I was writing my characters. Back then in was reference pictures taken off the internet. Then I paid artists to make pictures for me. Then I found the joys of 3D computer graphics and began making the pictures myself. Now there are the AI art programs that have hit the Internet by storm. All I have to do is type in some words and let the computer spit out an idea for me. There’s a lot of testing which text prompts work to get which results of course. But in the end you can get some good results, especially with some of the better AI art models coming out in the last year. And now that I’m about to publish another story, I want to show some of those characters off.
I just received a promotional cover for Space Cowboys 404: Cow Not Found. Raconteur Press will be publishing it soon so be on the lookout if you are interested. They are a young publisher that has made a big splash selling numerous short story anthologies, each one aimed at a different market, and they are going like gangbusters. Over a dozen authors contributed stories to this anthology, and I will now join the hallowed ranks of those who contribute to a work but are not famous enough to have their name on the cover, so are known as “And More.” This is my first published story since Mom started her final fight with Cancer. The world has changed. I feel scary good. Haven’t done this in a while, and when I ask the magic 8-ball what comes next it says… not found.
I watched Citadel over the weekend. It is a short series on Amazon Prime and the premise is that a nice family man finds out he used to be a spy. It is played straight, serious, and violent, without being bloody or overly violent. By action movie standards. The characters are compelling, the story interesting, and I can’t stop thinking about it after finishing the series. It is an excellent series and I suggest giving it a look if you can.
An Arnam can be hard to recognize in summer due to their colorful outfits, especially at night when their skin blends into the darkness. But in wintertime on most human worlds, they are usually much easier to see. Their bodies are designed to swim down into the coldest, deepest parts of lakes or oceans without needing extra insulation, and surface temperatures below zero don’t bother them at all. They will wear the same frilly dress or light business suit in the depths of a dark winter night in the middle of a blizzard as they will on a sunny summer day. They don’t need insulated coats or gloves. And their brightly-colored clothes stand out when everything around them is some shade of white snow.
The fashion designer is probably the most common and most respected Arnam profession on human-settled worlds. And since Arnam eyes can see wavelengths no natural eye can detect, they love to show off colors all over the light spectrum. And they love to accessorize. They wear fancy shades, hats, dresses, trenchoats, scarves, frills of all kinds, and anything else they can find. Anything fun, glamorous, or amazing is always something they want to wear. It is all decoration to them, and they decorate their bodies with wild abandon.