A Far Out Fantastic Site

Finally, I’ve received the final product of the cover art for my short-read book, "The Trespassers"! So, I have a cover reveal for you today! However, this is only the illustration, not the full cover. I have not added the title or author’s name yet. I’ll be doing that during the week. I'm trying to get this book out as soon as possible and so I didn’t add the text to the cover for today’s reveal. If several of you would prefer the full cover reveal with the text included, then let me know in the comments box below and I’ll try to provide that at my Facebook and Instagram pages. For now, here's the completed illustration for "The Trespassers" book cover along with the new synopsis (blurb) that I shared with you last week: “The Trespassers"  After crash-landing on a desert planet, astronaut and forensic anthropologist Gav Torres becomes separated from the rest of his expedition. He soon enough reunites with everybody except one person: his fiancé, Shelle...

Illustration by yours truly! If you’ve been following my Facebook author page , you may had seen a post there from last week saying there would be a cover reveal here early this week for my upcoming short-read book, “The Trespassers”. I was actually hoping to have that cover reveal here today but it looks like it’s going to have to be in a special blog post a little later in the week.  The artist I had sent the concept sketch to made the full illustration based on it but it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. So, I asked her to make some changes. I’m posting below my side of the text chat with her to show you the details that need to be changed.  One of those details is the overall style of the illustration. It needs to be more photo-realistic. I don’t care for photo-realism myself, and I care for it much less in digital art, because I find it too technical and lacking expression. However, unfortunately for some of us, it’s what’s dominating the literary market as far as book co...

Credit: Pixabay In past posts, I've talked about the differences between contemporary book cover art and vintage book cover art, but mostly in terms of how the former is digitally produced and the latter freehand-produced. Filmmaker Zane Whitener talks about the differences in terms of the effectiveness the two communicate the genre, particularly the horror genre, in his documentary that I review below. Along with the subject of book cover art, I also have the latest progress on the art for the book cover to "The Trespassers", my short sci fi horror book that is scheduled to release in the next couple of weeks.  Mini Movie Review: 'Horror Books Have Lost Their Identity' Most of the movies I review here at the Far Out Fantastic Site are speculative fiction films, including science fiction and horror. This, time however, I'm reviewing a movie about horror fiction. It's called " Horror Books Have Lost Their Identity ", directed and narrated by Zane...

Credit: The blogger    Last Sunday was my first author’s vendor booth at Sacramento Comic-Con since four years ago. The annual pop culture convention, held in downtown Sacramento’s convention center, was the first one since the pandemic began. The attendance was scant but only compared to the other years before the world became stricken by the current plague; because Covid is still around, there’s still a lot of people who won’t go to crowded events. Yet, considering that, it was a good turnout. I can’t say a lot about how good Sunday’s con was since I didn’t get a chance to visit the other booths or go to any panels. However, of what I did see, it all looked like it went by really well. And it went by far better for my booth than I had expected since it hadn’t looked that good earlier.  Preparations Although the con went by fine, it was still a bit of a struggle for me especially in the preparations the day before and the day of. I got my swag, which consisted of promoti...

Credit: Pixabay Last post I had a cover reveal for the illustration itself. In this week’s post I have what I call a full cover reveal and so a cover that includes both illustration and lettering! Again, this is a new cover for my speculative fiction short story collection, “The Fool’s Illusion”, which turned 7 years old last month ! (No new internal content at this time. Sorry. Maybe on the book’s tenth birthday in 2023.) And my Patreon page is getting closer to launch! I made a schedule of Patreon benefits for the month of October! Full Cover Reveal for ‘The Fool’s Illusion’ Credit: The blogger/ Alex Vintagee Synopsis: Here is a collection of dark fantastic events and terrifying scientific phenomena. It contains stories of deadly creatures, including vampires and other undead things, and adventures into the unknown and terrible--tales that brew to the bursting point. This book will not fail to fool you with its terrifying visions of events that could be and ones that are impossible ...

Credit: Pixabay.com I have to make an apology: there will not be a Book-To-Movie   this month. I had intended to have one here this evening but this past week was a difficult one. Among other things, the internet in my area went out on Thursday when I was going to view the film on Amazon Prime. It was out the entire day. At first, I thought it was my own connection that got cut off but then I saw in the news that it was the service to my whole area. A major cable broke due to road construction going on at the time. By the time the internet came back on it was late and I did not have time to watch the movie and write a review the next day. That next day was also bad for me because I woke up with a bad headache that lasted into the evening. However, I’ll have a Book-To-Movie for you hear in October for sure. Since there’s going to be a lapse, I’ll try to get the review back on its original third Saturday schedule instead of the fourth Saturday like we’ve been doing since the spring. ...

Credit: Pixabay.com It looks like I’m going to have to outsource for the photographic version to the cover of “Circa Sixty Years Dead” . I tried getting together a digital cover during the week and I just couldn’t do it in the little time that I have. It’s a hell of a lot tougher than one would at first think, but a lot of the problem isn’t that it’s tough. A lot of the problem is that I’m just not a digital artist. I am a freehand artist. Yet I know the majority of the book market today does not call for freehand illustrated book covers which i s a damn, sad thing because it is a result of the total reliance on computer technology that is robbing the freehand artist of what he/she does best and puts their heart and soul into. So while I don’t embrace the digital trend in book cover illustration, I need to sell my books and so I am willing to have a digital cover edition of my book made. I won’t go into the details of this circumstance here because I’ve already done that...

Victor Frankenstein in many film versions of Frankenstein had to steal body parts from graveyards for his creation. Like him, there are creeps out there who feel they have to do the same with images when it comes to creating their art, only they don’t go to graveyards but more so go to websites. But there’s a legal and ethical way to grab the parts you need in order to make your graphic creation and that’s by going to public domain sources. That’s what I’ve been doing for the photo-real book cover illustration for “Circa Sixty Years Dead” . To gather the images I need, I’ve been turning to Pixabay .com.   If you ever look at the images that I display in my weekly posts here, that name probably sounds familiar to you. Pixabay is a really great source for graphic projects, including book covers. All their images are in the public domain and so you don’t have to worry about copyright infringement. Their contributors have been so generous with allowing free usage of their...

I apologise for not posting last week. I started a new day job and so it put me back in my writing schedule. But now I’ve returned to the night job here at the Fantastic Site once again! A few weeks ago I was at Crocker Con talking to a friend, Chris Wisnia creator of the Doris Danger  comic book series. The series commemorates comic book creator Jack Kirby’s art of the 1970s while spoofing 1950s and ‘60s atomic sci fi monsters. Anyway, I told him that one of the comic books I read over the summer was an issue from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman storyline from 2014, Overture . He told me he just finished reading Gaiman’s award winning novel, American Gods . I said I haven’t read that one yet because I normally don’t have the attention span for a 500-plus page novel. (The last one that I read was David Copperfield , which, as great as it is, took me over a year to read because I was reading other books simultaneously.) But I told him that I’ll probably read it as an excuse to buy the new...

Last post , I presented the complete book cover illustration reveal for my upcoming horror short read, “Circa Sixty Years Dead”. Now, may I present to you the full cover reveal--illustration and lettering both: Credit: Steven Arellano Rose, Jr. As I said I would , I used a graphic design application, Paint.Net, to paint the black sky and touch up some of the statue’s edges to reduce that glowing effect. I also used black digital paint to touch up the horizon line on the right-hand side because it had been uneven with the horizon line on the left. The rest of the illustration was produced by my own hands. The lettering was completely produced using Amazon’s graphic design application, the cover creator. Graphic art software is very handy in practical situations, in my case, the marketing of a book. Yet I try not to let the digital art drown out my art made with my own hands using physical tools, pencils in this case, as opposed to virtual ones such as Paint.Net’s paintbr...

Well, here it is! The completed book cover illustration for my short read horror story, “Circa Sixty Years Dead”. Credit: Steven Arellano Rose, Jr. That brings my book that much closer to its release! This week I’ll be working on formatting it for Kindle. I’ll also be uploading the illustration to Amazon so I can put it together with the rest of the cover. So next week, I’ll have the full cover reveal for you: complete with illustration, title and author’s byline. That is, provided that I don’t need to make any changes. Any changes I need to make will be determined by you, readers! Therefore, let me know what you think of the illustration and whether or not it needs any improvement. After all, the books I write are for you to read, not for me. The end product is for the pleasure of your reading; I already read the story as I edit it. I’ll check the comments box below throughout the week, and if there are any suggestions for the illustration then I’ll work on making changes t...

Well, I have some good news and bad news. I’ll get the bad news over with first. Because of some technical problems with the software that I used, I didn’t finish the book cover art for “Circa Sixty Years Dead”. I was really determined to complete it and so was up late into the night Saturday/early Sunday morning so I could have it here for you. By the time I saw that it wasn’t going to get done, it was already too late to post anything and so I apologise for the late posting. The good news is that the illustration is closer than ever to completion and I have the official synopsis for the book. ‘Circa Sixty Years Dead’ Cover Art Progress So I could have the best book cover art for “Circa Sixty Years” I took advantage of an update for the Paint.Net software that I use. Paint.net is a free software which is really useful for those basic needs of an illustration, mine being painting a solid black sky.  I know, I had said that I was going to use black marker for the reveal, but I’...

I was at one of the thrift stores in my town looking for a tee because I don’t like today’s styles in clothes. Not that I have a problem with anyone else wearing knee-length kaki or silky shorts or big brand gym tees, but today’s style just isn’t my thing personally. I’m a vintage type and so I buy and wear ‘60s/’70s style; I’m a nerd for those eras. Anyway, I didn’t see anything there that I liked as far as clothes go. But the store was having a Four-book/$1 deal. So I went to the book section to look for vintage paperbacks, especially ones with good book cover art. Book Cover Art From the Frazetta-Vallejo Era I found something by the late sci fi/fantasy author John Morressy, who I’ve heard of several times but haven’t really read any of his work. The book was a high fantasy called Kingsbane , the third part of the Iron Angel series. I’m not a big reader of high fantasy, although I do read at least one title in the genre a year. But this first printing from 1982 bears a book cove...

Credit: Wikimedia Commons When you think about it, the art to a book’s cover is the story in visual form. It either symbolically or literally shows the story that waits in between the covers (or, in the case of e-books, beyond the cover page). The book cover art that does this symbolically does so more efficiently and easily. That’s because a lot more about the story can be said that way than when only depicting a single scene like a lot of pulp fiction books did in the early half of the previous century (as much as I love the art work of those covers). With my own book cover art, I try to balance out symbolism with literal depiction, especially today when many books’ digital photographically realistic cover illustrations seem to sell more. However, I want my covers to both preview and tell the books’ stories without giving away any spoilers. That’s what I’ve been trying to do with the cover illustration for “Circa Sixty Years Dead” which, speaking of realism, I am presently...

Credit: Pixabay.com I continued working on my book cover illustration for “Circa Sixty Years Dead” all last week. I’ve been colouring it with coloured pencil and so was about to fill in the background sky. Then it occurred to me that I would probably have to replace that part with digital paint when it’s time to upload it to Amazon. I want the sky to have the realistic effect of a smooth, blue-black colour. Not only would that take too long to colour in with pencil but it would also require too much lead; I’m drawing this on 18-inch-by-24-inch paper. So, that will be the only digitally produced part of the illustration when the book is published. I try to stick to the original artistic experience as much as possible when publishing my art and books. In this case, that experience comes from paper, ink and coloured pencil. As hand-produced art stays closer to the artist’s creational act than does digitally produced art, print copies of books stay closer to the original copy than d...

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com Sorry about missing last weekend. I was sick (allergies) and so got behind in my projects. I’m still trying to catch up. My book cover illustration for “Circa Sixty Years Dead” is one of the projects I’m trying to catch up on. The outline is almost complete since I added some more basic details as you’ll see below. If you don’t remember my last progress photo of the book cover art, you can look at it at that week’s post and then come back here to see the comparison. So here’s what I’ve added so far (for a clearer view, click on the photo): Photo Credit: The blogger I drew in the blocks for the statue’s pedestal. I also fleshed out the man below, filled in the details for the camera he’s dropping and sketched in the dunes and some sand ripples. There will be more ripples and maybe some more, smaller, dunes when I colour-pencil in the picture. I use the scant details in the sketch only for a guide for when I colour in the picture and add the mor...

Book Cover Art for My Upcoming Horror Short Story I wanted to have the full outline of my book cover illustration for “Circa Sixty Years Dead” done knowing that I wasn’t going to get it painted by today. But an uncle of mine asked if I could help him clean out my grandfather’s house that he’s been renovating and, being family, I didn’t want to turn him down. I mostly cleaned out the house’s dungeon and took several things to Good Will which both put me back in the illustration a bit. The dungeon? Yeah, right! you say. Actually, it’s the nickname we give to the cellar, although sometimes I’ll call it the catacombs even though nobody’s buried down there (at least nobody we know of). As you’ll see below, a little under half of the outline to the book cover illustration is done, but it won’t take me long to finish it and then start painting (with coloured pencil) by the end of the week. It's very light, so if you want you can look at the concept sketch to it . So I can’t say the wh...