Character roughs...

Greetings again goons and goonettes. I want to open yet another blog about VARULV (yes, apparently, it's officially in all caps now, since I've yet to see a press release or bio of yours truly where that wasn't the case..!) by mentioning how very excited I was to meet old and new friends alike at S.P.A.C.E. this past weekend who came out and got a copy. I actually have to order more of them because of you guys, and I couldn't be more delighted to do so! And I'll also open with a shameless plug: the new VARULV.COM (is the .com always capitalized too, now?) is also live!

So issue two, as I believe I'd mentioned before, is coming along quicker than expected and should be online come April, with print copies available in May, if not sooner! As I'm working on it, I'm also roughing out some concepts for the book's not-so-distant future.

One of those things is conceptualizing aspects of the third race -- the fae-folk of my saga. These are the elementals: Iele/Veela/Harpies (air critters), Mermaids/Sirens/Naiads (water critters), Dryads/Elves/Faun (earth critters), and Salamanders (and their Golems -- fire critters).

Above are some rough sketches of the Iele and Dryads which show the very human traits of both races. I wanted to keep my fae diverse, but retain a few human-ish traits for some of them. In fact, at this point I have it in my head that the Iele will often take human form.


This happy creature, which is a sketch approximately one inch by a half inch in size, is my only *good* drawing of what might become a Salamander. Again, it's only a rough concept in my head, but I have visions of creatures made of either fire or molten rock... something with no shape that requires a vessel to get around lest it burn everything it comes in contact with. I like Golems and the idea of archaic robot technology, or magic capable of bringing rocks to life. Actually, I think I probably just have a power armor fetish when it comes to writing, and like it when the big beefy monsters have some pathetic or otherwise useless beastie at their core. This is a nice way of saying I like to have a guaranteed easy-out when one of my protagonists comes in conflict with such a thing.

I think I spoke of new Ulven (werewolf-people for those of you just joining us. Ironically, Werewolf-People was my first choice for title of this book, but I digress) to be making appearances in future editions of the series as well, and the above drawing is the first concept for one such character. Early on, when I said that I won't just be putting werewolves into the book -- that there technically could be were-*anythings*, I was asked specifically about the possibility of were-lions. Being crazy, I said why not? Why not were-zebras too? Or were-ferrets? You could call them werrets.

Africa is oh-so diverse with its animal population, and with the idea in mind that Ulven are, in essence, all the same species despite their different physical characteristics, I came up with my first were-lion concept... though I think it looks more like a bear at this point. The girl is nearly spot-on, though. I took much of what will become her outfit from slips worn by women in ancient Egypt.

As always, more to come...