Free ebooks! Because I'm having a birthday...

Yes, it's my birthday weekend. Don't ask how old I am: 'tis a delicate question. Keith Hamilton Cobb (tall dark and beautiful, dreadlocks and all) had the right answer, when someone asked him how old he was -- in fact, he was about forty, not that he looked anywhere near it. But he said, "Old enough to know better, young enough to do it anyway." Well said.

So, since I'm having a birthday, I thought -- let's party. Let's have freebies, and ebooks make the best e-gifts. I thought about wallpapers, but in fact the blog is full of them -- I've been uploading art at 1200 and 1600 wide for over a year now, and all you have to do is go back through the "of interest" posts, save the art and you're done. So then I thought about ebooks.

Here are three, and I've formatted them to work well with the 10" screens. In fact, we just got a netbook with a 10" screen, so I was able to test them for size and appearance. If you want to see the whole page at once, in the proper orientation, use Acrobat's "rotate page" feature, and stand the netbook on end, as if you're holding a large book. Also, I set the type for the stories in 14 point, so even if you're reading at 75% page size, it's still easy reading.

(The only thing I haven't done is to test these books on the 7" tablet ... because the battery appears to be flat, and it takes forever to recharge. But I think it ought to work just fine, because of the 14 point text.)

So, here are two ebooks, all made in Serif Page Plus, for those who're interested in the "how" aspect. I've done them as PDFs specifically because I wanted to achieve a blend of art and text with an overall "storybook" layout, like this...

...and so forth! As much as I love the epub file format, you can't do this kind of thing in epub ... they're strictly for reading, with "header art" style illustrations -- not what I wanted here. So, good old PDF it is this time.

I've done three books, and by now you'll pretty much know what they are! I've made up The Legend of Chino Vollias as a very lovely book; I've done the same for Invitation to the Crypt, which you read a few days ago, for Halloween ... 

Someone was asking about Photoshop the other day, I forget who, but the answer is -- Photoshop: Elements 10 is included FREE on the installation disk for the Wacom Bamboo. The program is worth several hundred bucks, and if you're buying the mouse pen/tablet drawing set, there it is, registration number and all. I got the Wacom Bamboo for my birthday ... actually, I got it weeks ago, have been using it and loving it:

The only difference between what you see here, and my setup is that mine is organize to run left handed. I'm, uh, ambidextrous. I know it's really weird ... some things I like to do right handed, some things I do left handed. So my Wacom is set up exactly opposite to what you see here. And I love it!!

So where's the goodies, right?

Here you go:

An Invitation to the Crypt -- almost identical to the version published on the blog a short while ago; richly illustrated, formatted to suit the 10" screens or a laptop, whatever. The only downside is that the art has pushed the file size out to just under 3.5MB. That's not too bad, when you think about it. There's no DRM on the file ... the only thing I would ask is, if you're going to share it with friends, please ask them to visit the blog and download their own. Why? Because when they get on the blog, they might spend half an hour looking at my stuff, and that would be nice. Any warnings? None. There's a "subtext" relationship, if you choose to see it ... Amadeus and Rick are almost certainly intimate. But the story is written in such a way that if you prefer to overlook this and see two good friends, that's all you'll see. [Sorry: dead link. But you can still read the story in its newer, polished format -- with a suite of new artwork. It has had a title change and is now Invitation to The Crypt, and the new artwork looks like this -- more than worth a look, trust me. You'll find it on my writing blog, right here.]

The Legend of Chino Vollias -- in every way identical to the story which was published for the "Happy Post 700" blog entry ... also richly illustrated and formatted the same way, to suit the 10" screens. The download size of this one is also a tad high because of the art -- you're looking at a whisker over 5MB. Sorry guys, but high-rez art does this to the file size. Again, there's no DRM, and the only thing I ask is that if you want to share, send your friends here to pick up their own copy ... same reason. Any warnings? No. There some nudity, but nothing you won't see on any beach downunder. There's a passing allusion to the fact Chino swings both ways, but the main romance is actually straight. [Sorry: dead link. But stay tuned: I'll be publishing the story to my writing blog momentarily, at which point this link will be live again, albeit as a streaming-read, web based, not a PDF.] 

You might notice that the download links refer back to my old, defunct 2012 gallery site. The gallery is done, but these links should still work. If they don't -- it's fixable, but I'll need someone to let me know that these links have gone dead!

Enjoy ... um, "Happy Birthday to Me." 

Jade, 3 November (celebrating over the whoooole weekend!) 

ICE, WIND AND FIRE

Done and done! And I'm really pleased with how this one rendered. Each of the characters was designed separately. The blond is Greg Farris (as anyone who's read the book knows), the brunette is Alex Connor. The book is very descriptive ... not going to fool anyone here, if the characters were not properly designed.


Mel Keegan is also thrilled with the art, the character design, the color scheme ... it's just about everything the original 1989 version of the book was not! Think of this: 20 years, the author's been "seeing" this cover in the mind's eye, and finally it jumps up into technicolor, 3D.


This one was also done in several layers. The background is an image ... that really is Jamaica; though I couldn't swear to it being Montego bay -- I suspect it isn't! The characters were designed and built separately. They were then imported individually and posed. Then the whole image was rendered, and shipped into Serif X3 to have the overlays added.


The whole shebang will be shipped out as a 300dpi image, to a PDF document, which goes to the printshop, and the book will debut next month. (Incidentally, Serif X3 or X4 is the program that handles the making of the single-layer PDF required by the print shop. I have to say, Serif makes fantastic PDFs, with a fraction the fuss, bother, nonsense and expense of a lot of other programs that, frankly, can cost way too much.)


So, how about another "beauty shot" ... just because...


This is a pilot design for a novel called AD ASTRA, which is still in the work-up stages. The art is fine, but it's lacking "something." I'm not even sure what it needs at this time, so author Jayne deMarco and I are putting it away and we'll worry about it again when the book is finished.

These early posts were usually quite short, and when I look back at them from the vantage point of another year -- well, the art is simple by comparison with where I am at the time of this update. What can I say? Life is change, change either means progress or regress, and heaven forbid it should mean we go backwards. So instead of taking down the earlier posts for their simplicity (heaven knows, they're pretty!) I thought I'd gussy them up with some slideshows and, soon, videos, and invite you to browse! So check this out ... this is closer to where I am as I type this update in October, 2010...

... and wouldn't you know it? By about 2017, browsers stopped supporting Flashplayer, so the video dropped right out, and all that work -- and no little expense! -- was got nothing. Argh. Brilliant. 

Jade, October 1, 2009