From the Shadows

TTTC - Chapter 8

2012-01-28T02:49:00.001-06:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

It's time to start a new chapter...

Click the images above for full sized turtley-goodness!

TTTC - Chapter 7 Page 20 END

2012-01-20T11:24:00.001-06:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Click the image above for full sized turtly fun! And don;t fear, it may be end of Chapter Seven, but Chapter Eight starts next week!

Be there!

TTTC- Chapter 7: Page 19

2012-01-13T06:40:00.001-06:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Click the image above for full sized turtley-goodness!

Book Covers

2012-01-08T09:12:00.000-06:00

Joy, huh?

image by Sureshr | Dreamstime. com

earth image by NASAsilhouette from photo by Photographerlondon & Dreamstime. com

image by Jim Parkin | Dreamstime. com

photo from Lars Christensen @ Dreamstime. com

art by me

a couple of banners

2012-01-04T20:20:00.001-06:00

So I thought I would randomly share these because I don't post much to this blog anymore. I need to. I need to do a lot of things ;)

Anyway, first here's the (finally) updated pimping banner that should have been done back in September:

If you're on Facebook you might have noticed the new profiles/timelines (looks a little MySpace to me, huh?huh?) so I slapped a banner together for my "cover image" - if you have no idea what I'm talking about check my facebook and you can see it in action.

(That's the new Claudius on the front left. I need to get his Morsels story edited and uploaded to Smashwords)

If, for some random reason, you want to use these go for it - they're under a CC license like 99% of my stuff is :)

And that's all. Back to work!

TTTC X-Mas Special

2011-12-23T06:33:00.004-06:00

It's time for Blogophilia again, that fun blog game where participants use prompts in a weekly post. Check out the other participants!This week's prompts are:

Blogophilia 43.4 Topic: "Shopping at WalMart"
Bonus Points:
(Hard, 2pts): quote a line from a Beatles song
(Easy, 1pt): mention 'address book and holiday shopping idea'

Last week I started back on my Vampire Morsels stories, and had planned to do Kariss this week, but I'm not going to have time. I've been too busy shopping at Walmart, or not. This year we got people expensive gifts because my husband went insane, so it was allover Springfiled - and what a mess! People running round it's 5 o'clock , everywhere in town is getting dark, everyone you see is full of life, looking for holiday shopping ideas! I still need to get my Christmas cards finished (late, huh?) and dig up all the addresses. I do have an address book, but it's outdated and falling apart. I need a new one.

and now that the pesky prompts are out of the way, here is this year's Terrible Turtle Conspiracy Christmas Special. If you don't know, you can read - and subscribe - to the weekly webcomic at http://terribleturtles.com . You can also see previous Christmas Specials.

Click the images to see full size - you'll miss all the details if you don't :(

Song driving me insane for no reason - "The Logical Song" - Scooter

some random book covers

2011-12-22T01:51:00.000-06:00

It was that or another pet peeve blog. Yeah, I apparently have a lot of those. But since it's the season to be jolly, I think I'll skip it.

Okay. short version.

1 1/2 days is NOT several days. In order to count as several it needs to be four or more.

Now on to the book covers!

My new favorite cover.

images from Giuseppe Parisi and Shutterstock & Cattallina and Dreamstime

Like this one, too :)

photo by © Kodell | Dreamstime. com

wood texture from www.flickr.com/photos/sunsetsailor/2921385411

sky by me

grass is a default picture tube in PSP

photo (yes, there is one under all of that!) by © Amy Harris & Dreamstime. com

original image from 1333809 Ontario Ltd | Dreamstime. com

art by me :)

statue by me - www.flickr.com/photos/pandora_6666/2404339317/

dancing shadow based on a photo by Nico Nelson - www.flickr.com/photos/niconelson/4063004923/

Probably enough ;)

TTTC: Chapter 7: Page 18

2011-12-16T02:03:00.001-06:00

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TTTC: Chapter 7 - page 17

2011-12-04T05:24:00.001-06:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

It's a day late because Jo was working on her book and lost track of time. She can admit it. It's all her fault ;) But better late than never!

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TTTC: Chapter 7: Page 16

2011-11-18T02:38:00.001-06:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Click the image above for full sized turtley-goodness!

TTTC: Chapter 7: Page 15

2011-11-11T05:32:00.001-06:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Click the image above for full sized turtley goodness

TTTC: Chapter 7: -Page 14

2011-10-28T03:02:00.001-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Click the image above for full sized turtley goodness

TTTC - Chapter 7: Page 13

2011-10-21T06:39:00.001-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Click the image above for full sized turtley goodness

TTTC: Chapter 7 page 12

2011-10-14T06:29:00.001-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Astute visitors will have noticed that the site was down all last week. This was due to technical difficulties that have been resolved. Yay for resolutions! Now on to the turtle-goodness!

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This should apply to artists, too!!

2011-10-09T02:44:00.001-05:00

HIYAH! Yeah, it is one of those days....

TTTC- Chapter 7 Page 11

2011-09-30T04:46:00.002-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Click the image above for full sized turtley fun!

TTTC- Chapter 7: Page 10

2011-09-23T03:09:00.001-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

The TTTC has been sporadic lately due to real life obligations of both Jo and Jonathan. Hopefully that is over and we can get back to weekly silliness.

click the image above for full sized turtley fun!

Pet Peeve #2

2011-09-03T07:11:00.000-05:00

There are a lot of things in the world that annoy me. (And here you thought I was a sunshine and daisies person, huh?) Most of them I keep to myself, but every once in awhile I think one should be shared for the good of all mankind. This is just such a case.

Pet peeve number two is when someone rejects something - especially in a rather snotty tone - and then later demands - again in a snotty tone - that I redo the redo to change it BACK to the way it was before! Only, they don't admit it was that way to begin with and instead pretend that it is an all new idea that they came up with.

BAH!!!

To protect the not-so-innocent I will create an imaginary scenario.

I've done a cover for Madam X. Madam X had semi-specific demands, for instance say a sailboat. I drew said sailboat to look like a REAL sailboat. This was rejected and in the end the sailboat they wanted was one that looked, on the whole, very unrealistic. Weeks later, Madam X reappears and wants the sailboat redone because it is NOT realistic! Ha! "It must have a realistic sailboat *snob*snob*snob*". Never mind that it DID have one she rejected. That has been conveniently forgotten.

So what's the point of this? If you have the balls to change your mind and demand something be put back to the original, then also have the balls to admit that it WAS the original, is not some idea YOU suddenly had and frankly it's your fault in the first place.

TTTC - Chapter 7 Page 9

2011-09-02T06:39:00.001-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Click the image above for full sized turtley fun!

And if you like vampires mark 9-10-11 on your calendar as the day Ties of Blood, the third in Joleene Naylor's Amaranthine Series, is available in ebook!

TTTC - Chapter 7 Page 8

2011-08-26T08:05:00.001-05:00

>What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Click the image above for full sized turtley fun!

And if you like vampires mark 9-10-11 on your calendar as the day Ties of Blood, the third in Joleene Naylor's Amaranthine Series, is available in ebook!

Book Covers

2011-08-23T09:15:00.004-05:00

so, I haven;t tortured - erm - shared lately and thought I'd remedy that. No, I'm not going to post them all, just ten or so of the recent ones.

Cover images courtesy of Henri Sivonen, Elena Elisseeva, Jose AS Reyes, R. Gino Santa Maria & Shutterstock. com

art by me ;)

Image from NASA/Hubble

image by Sad444 at dreamstime .com (He's kinda hot ;) )

the author sent me the base image, but I added all those twinklies and such :)

art by me

art by me again

hee-hee, me again. Funny story about this one. I sent the author a concept that neither of us liked and she commented back "You know, I like that image you have on your cover art website's wallpaper". and so here it is with a bit of rearranging so as not to be exact ;)

the author scanned most of those coins off, except for two which came from wiki commons. Scanning i handy for things like feathers or coins that you can;t get to photograph well ;) (I used it for a snake once, too!)

base image by author, though I tweaked it quite a bit.

handprints based on an image by Doeth Gwraig - www.flickr.com/photos/doeth2/2700970068/

cabin image - Steveheap | Dreamstime. com

my photo
of note - he has since changed the title to Water's Memory because that one was already taken. I have been too lazy to reupload it to flickr, though.

images from Frederick R. Matzen, Marema & Shutterstock. com

photo by Fotokostic @ shutterstock

okay, that's enough. to see the rest check my flickr album - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pandora_6666/sets/72157623412340567/with/5935801647/ - there's 289 in there total. Wow.

Pet Peeve

2011-08-23T09:04:00.002-05:00

I do book covers. I do cheap book covers. I mean dirt cheap. In fact, if possible I try to find free images to use to save the author money because I know how it is to be broke. So what's my pet peeve?

People who license their images as Creative Commons and then put nasty notes on the image or their profiles saying "Don't use my images for anything or post them on your pages!"

HELLO!! That's why Flickr allows you to set DIFFERENT licenses! If you don't want people to post them or use them, then label them ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. That option is there to the right side of the photo page. Ergh! It just burns me up. Especially since a lot of them get really snotty about it and act like the people who have used the image are in the wrong. Sorry, folks, but YOU applied that CC license, so you're the one at fault, not them. Bah!

Because I know that people like this are out there, I always check their profiles etc. before I'll use one of their photos, but seriously, how long does it take to correct the issue? Especially ones that have long lists of complaints from the photo's owner in the comments. I mean, wow, if it is SUCH a problem on that particular photo then take two seconds and change the license.

I used to ignore these, but I've started leaving comments recently that politely say, "perhaps if you changed your license from CC to All Rights Reserved it would help clear up confusion and people would stop using it?" Maybe they're just total, complete muffins and have no idea what the license is or that they can change it. Nah. I'm too annoyed to give the benefit of the doubt right now. Gimme an hour or two and I will, but right now I say we post their images in all our blogs under the heading "This is CC licensed - check the flickr page(s) for details!"

Bah!

TTTC - Chapter 7 Page 7

2011-08-19T05:56:00.001-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Click the image above for full sized turtley fun!

TTTC - Chapter 7 Page 6

2011-08-12T03:24:00.001-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Subscribers may have noticed there were no turtles last week. I had a death in the family and was out of town. Hopefully summer ends soon and we can all get back on track!

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TTTC: Chapter 7 page 5

2011-07-22T07:14:00.000-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Astute people might have noticed there was no turtles last week. It's not that you missed something; there really wasn't one. Why? Well, the story involves ninjas, zombie clowns, an ice penguin and a chainsaw. As you can guess it's really long and involved, so rather than bore anyone, let's get straight to this week's page!

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And watch out for zombie clowns!

How to make a fire heart tutorial

2011-07-16T00:33:00.001-05:00

This is done in Paint Shop Pro X2, but most graphics programs have similar tools, so you can do it anywhere.

first make a new image and make a shape - I used a heart:

You can also use a premade shape or object by just selecting the blank area around the object and then inverting your selection

Now make a new layer and paste this texture onto it

(go here for the full size)

Now on the first layer, where your original shape is, select the blank area around it (in paint shop pro you want to use the magic wand for this) and then click back to layer 2 - the texture - and delete the excess (press the delete key or use cut, whatever)

Use your warp tool - it might be a brush, etc. In Paint Shop Pro x2 there is a brush and a mesh warp grid - I have used the grid because I like it better. Whatever you use, warp the texture so that it curves with the contour of your shape - you're making your shape look 3-d here

Use the same method as above to clean up the excess - click on the original shape layer, select the blank space, click back on the second (texture) layer and delete or cut

Now use a smudge tool - each program may call it something different, but here are the basic setting I used:

use it to drag the flames upwards into flame shapes

do the same with the inside

duplicate this layer

for the top textured layer use the delete method mentioned earlier to eliminate the excess

adjust the transparency on the second texture layer (the one that still has the flames) I set mine to 84 (this is not absolutely necessary, but it helps to define your shape. If you like it better the other way then don't bother) You could also smudge the edges on the top texture layer to make it blend better, but I am doing this fast

now make a new layer under the texture layers for your glow. Set choose a bright yellow and use similar brush settings:

stamp it around so a vague glow eeks out around the edges, like so

here is the final layer pallet

and you're done

TTTC - Chapter 7 Page 4

2011-07-08T05:18:00.001-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

click the image above for full sized turtley fun!

TTTC - Chapter 7 Page 3

2011-07-01T01:00:00.001-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Due to an unfortunately miserable illness we missed another week last week. But, now we really are back on schedule (maybe I should quit saying that?)

Click the image above for full sized turtley fun and send Get well soon wishes to Jonathan (it's his week to be sick, now!)

blah blah and book covers

2011-06-28T23:26:00.000-05:00

I wasn't supposed to take any projects this month, but I had a bunch to finish up and I did take on some returning clients and also a couple fo new ones who TOOK THE TIME TO READ MY WEBSITE. Ergh! That s one of my biggest pet peeves. I've spent a lot of time making an FAQ website with all the details and yet people will still email me a generic "Please tell me what you offer and your prices" rather than following the link (which is provided in Mark Coker's list!) and reading what the prices are.

I don't get it. If I were going to PAY someone then I'd look up all about them first. I'd want to make sure that they did what i was looking for, that they had actually delivered to other people, etc etc. I wouldn't just randomly write everyone on the list and wait for an answer.

With that in mind I've been thinking that after I get back on the 10th, I may stop answering those emails. I may just hit "delete" because if you don;t care enough to go look at the site, so I care enough to work on your cover? You don't take it seriously, so why should I? But, I have a hard time saying no, so I don't know. It's something to think about, anyway.

so, enough yack, here's the month's worth of covers. Enjoy.

I feel too lazy to copy in the photo credits. They'e all listed on the individual flickr pages, anyway. I think this might be a record lately for the fewest covers in a month ;)

TTTC - An Explanation...

2011-06-10T06:17:00.002-05:00

There was no comic last week because of a rather tragic occurrence. Here, we have attempted to chronicle it. I'm not sure if we've done it justice.

Click the link above for full sized turtley fun!

Next week we will resume Chapter Seven

Even more book covers......

2011-05-27T03:33:00.000-05:00

Yeah, guess what I've been doing? I mean, besides cowering from storms, sitting in the dark and rushing to ER with my brother! (He's okay now - he had another bizarre seizure. They say it was a totally different medication this time. I am dubious.) Anyway, I've been doing BOOK COVERS! And for your enjoyment, here are a bunch of them!

Photo © Benkrut | Dreamstime.com

The rose is from dreamstime by Alexander Kopelev And the water is by me using an awesome plugin called Ripples Magic by Redfield (cost $20 but worth every penny!)

image from wikimedia commons - copyright New York Times and now in public domain (wikimedia is a great place to find public domain images!)

the author sent the image (he had two to choose from and this one was just so simple and eye catching I was like "yes!! This is it!)

smexy photo by IsabellSchatz at istock photos
I finally had to make my own blood splatter brushes. i just taped a bunch of card stock to the shower wall and threw spoonfulls of watered down black paint at it ;) I have made them into brushes bu I think I should post them as images so other people can use them, too.
I hope this author has more books coming. I like his taste in covers ;) heh-heh! (The book sounds good, too!)

I took the photo with my brother the assistant. he actually had all those different types of cereal in his cupboard! Seriously! There were a couple others, too, but they were boring. Needless to say almost none of that was any good and got thrown away after the shoot!

A super manip - the axe, bird and house are all separate images by Hubert Woods Jr. , Pklimenko & Susan Law Cain @ dreamstime.com It was fun, though.

Another manip (I love this one!) photos by Aaron Johnson | Dreamstime. com & Paul Hakimata | Dreamstime. com and, technically, there is a photo b me in there. Where? Check the reflections in the chrome parts of the motorcycle. The original image is on a highway in a deserty type area and since this is a residential that had to go (it stuck out really bad!) the house in the reflection is so distorted I didn't worry about property releases since there's no way you can tell where it is, but I will say it's from Hamburg, Iowa ;)

Some Jo artwork (this sounds like such a fun book!)

Some more Jo art work (you might notice I used the depth of field to make the stuff farther away blurry. Yeah, snazzy, huh?)

I had no idea there were this many....

Texture provided by Sienna62

baseball by © Patricia Hofmeester | Dreamstime. com

and last one...

cool artwork by me :)

There's actually more, but my dinner is done and I is hungry, so until next time - stay slinky!

TTTC: Chapter 7

2011-05-27T03:07:00.001-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

It's time for a new chapter! We can only wonder what joys and delights Chapter Seven will bring us! (Seriously, we have no idea, so don't bother asking!)

Click the above images for full sized turtley fun!

Swag Day & Sheep

2011-05-23T23:06:00.000-05:00

If you haven’t been following the I Smell Sheep blog you should (for a variety of reasons) but one the biggest is a very cool new thing they will be doing on the 10th of every month, starting in June – Swagday.

What is swagday? And hey, for that matter, what is swag? Swag is free stuff. So what is swagday? You guessed it: Free stuff day!

To play you just head over to the I Smell Sheep blog on the 10th of June and play the author to pet matching game. (Yes, this means match the author to the picture of their pet(s).

So what’s with the picture of the box? Because the point of Swagday is to climb outside your box and try something new. For me, my box is pretty big (sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal, romance, YA, contemporary) however, I know I avoid most chick-lit like the plague.

What box do you hide in? What genre’s have you consistently steered away from and why? And, while you ponder these questions, go check out the official announcement blog on the I Smell Sheep blog!

TTTC - Chapter 6 Page 17 - THE END

2011-05-20T05:59:00.002-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

This week brings us to the end of chapter six. ...

Click the image above for full sized turtley fun!!

(Yes, you sat through 17 pages of this chapter for that ONE joke. Feel cheated? Well, don't! Chapter Seven starts next week!)

And if you're looking for some slightly different humor, check out 101 Tips for Traveling with a Vampire by Joleene Naylor, which is currently a free download on Amazon!

Book Cover Extravaganza

2011-05-14T08:28:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so that's all I've been doing for the last three or four days. I need to take a break and get some writing (or photo editing) done, but don't think it is gonna happen...

On to the cool new covers:

Vector by me - based on an image by Gary Knight: www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/5542172347/

This is currently my favorite cover. Well, okay, this one and Devil's Mistress. (see farther down)

photo by me: www.flickr.com/photos/pandora_6666/1191320650/

That photo was actually taken with my cell phone a couple years ago - it's the corner of my yard overlooking the field next door ;)

original image from Christian Harberts | Dreamstime. com

I got to read this short story and it's good!

rock image by Shari Weinsheimer from www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=3954&am...

sky image by me - www.flickr.com/photos/pandora_6666/3224802052/

I also got to read some of this one - when I have more time I intend to read it all - it has a great beginning!

vectors by me - based on this image: wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Two_Elephants_in_Addo_E...

This one makes me think of the Just SO Stories book I had when I was a kid - http://buffy68.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8343635ed53ef013485d4d626970c-500wi

Photo by author - he also provided the photo for his last cover and it was equally cool. he must be a heck of a photographer!

IMAGES BY Geotrac | Dreamstime.com and Snake3D @canstockphoto.com

I LOVE this one!!! It looks like a book you'd buy at Hy-Vee in the rack by the check out counter (yes, this is what I aspire to ;) )

images by Andi Berger & Elena Rostunova | Dreamstime. com

half naked doctor. It's a winner in my book!!!

Photos by:

© Winterdove | Dreamstime. com
© Xalanx | Dreamstime. com
© Scott Griessel | Dreamstime. com

did lots of manipping - this is actually four pics (two were by the same guy). I thought it turned out good. The woman is obviously not standing there, but I dind't want her to be, hence the banner that goes behind her but in front of the rest of it.

there's 4 more waiting for approval, one I need to photograph for, three I need to draw, and two I am waiting on replies for to start - oh and one we are both waiting on a reply from an image owner... so yeah, not slowing down any ;)

TTTC - Chapter 6 Page 16

2011-05-14T08:14:00.000-05:00

Late posting this here because blogger was down... weird, I know!

Click the image above for full sized turtley fun!

TTTC - Chapter 6 Page 15

2011-05-06T05:14:00.001-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Click the image for full sized turtley fun!

Also, don't forget to pick up your copy of Shades of Plaid by Jonathan Harvey! It would make a great Easter gift!

Shades of Plaid (A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey into Christian Living)

Sample or purchase Shades of Plaid (A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey into Christian Living): http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/50196

Also available on Kindle! Go here

Shades of Plaid (A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey into Christian Living) |http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004UB5E3S

And in paper back!

http://www.amazon.com/Shades-Plaid-Unconventional-Journey-Christian/dp/1456431374/

Artwork: Self Portrait

2011-05-01T06:40:00.000-05:00

I originally did this for a cover concept that didn't get used, but I think it's worth saving, so...

Yeah, I used myself. I won't go insane and sue myself later ;)

(btw, notice my spiffy new signature? *points down* )

TTTC - Chapter 6 Page 14

2011-04-29T08:54:00.002-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Click the image above for full sized turtley fun!

Jo & Jonathan would also like to extend their thoughts, prayers and well wishes to those who've been effected by the flooding and tornadoes the last several days.

More Book Covers

2011-04-28T18:29:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I haven't posted any in awhile. If you'd rather look at photos instead of book covers, I just put some up on my Ramblings from the Darkness wordpress blog. - http://ramblingsfromthedarkness.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/retro-camera/ - check it out.

Now on to the covers :)

cool burning house photo © Peter Armstrong | Dreamstime. com.
woman silhouette by me

get the ebook - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/55073

image by © Victoria Suhanova | Dreamstime. com

get the book here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/53076

The image was provided by the author. It's by a friend of his, though I don't know their name.

original image from Pearljamfan75 | Dreamstime. com

get the book here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/55823

image from illustration by © Aleksandar Videnovic | Dreamstime. com

get the book here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52825

Image provided by the author

though you might not believe it, under all those layers is a photo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pandora_6666/4437907490/

get the book here: www.smashwords.com/books/view/53680

Original photo by Mettus | Dreamstime. com (it had a skull in it, but we elected to mask that out, as well as some american money that wouldn;t fit the book)

get the book here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/53681

Awesome photo(s) by Andrejs Pidjass | Dreamstime. com

get the book here:http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/53685

This is easily one of my favorites

skull from Liubov Shirokova | Dreamstime. com

very cool font from Last Soundtrack

get the book here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/53684

Art by me :)

and last but not least

photo by me :)

Get the book here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/53474

There are some others but this is long enough!

TTTC - Chapter 6 Page 13

2011-04-22T07:59:00.000-05:00

Now that the Terrible Turtle Conspiracy has it's own website each week I will post a link to the newest page.

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Running late this morning because... well, because I am. We were both late. It's been one of those days since yesterday ;)

Click the image for full sized turtley fun!

Also, don't forget to pick up your copy of Shades of Plaid by Jonathan Harvey! It would make a great Easter gift!

Shades of Plaid (A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey into Christian Living)

Sample or purchase Shades of Plaid (A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey into Christian Living): http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/50196

Also available on Kindle! Go here

Shades of Plaid (A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey into Christian Living) |http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004UB5E3S

And in paper back!

http://www.amazon.com/Shades-Plaid-Unconventional-Journey-Christian/dp/1456431374/

Just a Recolor

2011-04-20T23:09:00.000-05:00

Been gonna do this for awhile now and finally got around to it - it's just a recolor of the picture "Teenage Recoil"

The Barbie Girl Version:

And if you don't remember it, here is the original:

It was inspired by the song Teenage Recoil by Zeromancer:

(I don't own these lyrics!!!)

Teenage Recoil
(copyright Zeromancer)

Guys are drooling over you
Sampling your soul
You could be the chosen one
But what if
Everything they say is wrong
And you
Die some

Everlasting teenage recoil
Fall in love with anything
Come undone
With hearts unbroken
And wish upon a lucky star

Sometimes you feel so skinny
It's like you don't even exist
Lolita never been kissed
You gotta feel what can be felt
Touch what can be touched
Do what can be done
But don't
Die Young

Against all odds again
You got zip to lose

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMtcNDHwf70

Spring Fever Sale

2011-04-20T06:22:00.002-05:00

Spring is here - or so the calendar says - and to celebrate Indie Authors Unite is having a Spring Fever Sale! With 65 books under $.99 you're sure to find something to entertain you while you wait for Mother Nature to catch up with the calendar!

Participating authors include:

Linda S. Prather
Valerie Maarten
Samantha Fury
Elizabeth Reeyes
Alex Knight
Larry Enright
Angela Carlie
Tracey Alley
Tommie Lynn
& more! (including yours truly!)

if you're looking for spring bargains, be sure to check it out!

Rejected?

2011-04-19T09:10:00.002-05:00

Writers talk a lot about rejections, but they're not the only ones who get them. If you're participating in any project, whether for money or no, that requires the approval of someone else you're going to get some of your ideas rejected.

Case in point. Something I get asked frequently is do I ever have book covers rejected by authors and the answer to that is sure, all the time. In some cases when an author contacts me I will make several different versions of a cover and they will select the one the one that they like the best and from there we will tweak it into shape. It is a very rare occurrence that my first effort is approved as a final version.

The next question I get is "does that bother you?" and honestly, not really. Sure, the first time it happened I felt deflated, but after I thought about DVD extras I felt better. Maybe you've gone through the special features on a DVD and gone through character sketch galleries? Some of them have multiple concepts, all of which didn't make it to the final version, and even the idea that did make it usually looks very little like the artists original design. That's because there's a huge difference between "art for the sake of art" and "commercial art". In the first you can do what you want, express what you want, etc, but in the second you have to meet the commercial market guidelines and get the approval of all the people in charge of the projects. The first exists for the sake of existing, and the second exists, often, to sell something.

So what am I saying? Don’t take rejection personally. Yeah, it happens to us all. People say "get a thick skin", but that's really not good advice. You don’t need a thick skin, what you need is to look at it differently. Instead of thinking "this is my project - my baby - and they don’t like it!" think of yourself as just a part of the whole, or one member of the "team" and that particular idea just wasn't right for the particular "play" going on. The same thing can be applied to books, stories, you name it. After all, unless you're self-publishing, there's a whole team involved there too, so it’s not just your book, anymore, but everyone’s book. The same goes with the covers. It’s not MY cover, but theirs, and the author should be happy with it.

Not sure if that made any sense, but now for fun here are some of the aforementioned rejected covers :)

TTTC - Chapter 6 Page 12

2011-04-15T07:34:00.002-05:00

Click the image above for full sized turtley fun!

And if you liked this, then you'll probably enjoy the new book by Jonathan Harvey - aka Jissilly (that's J is silly):

Shades of Plaid (A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey into Christian Living)

Sample or purchase Shades of Plaid (A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey into Christian Living): http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/50196

Also available on Kindle! Go here

Shades of Plaid (A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey into Christian Living) |http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004UB5E3S

April Newsletter

2011-04-11T18:22:00.001-05:00

OMG! A newsletter! No, this is not an April Fool's joke, though I guess since I've been so lazy with these it might seem like it, huh? But, since this is late (due to a series of unfortunate events that are nowhere near as fun as Lemony Snicket's), I've missed the first completely. Just as well, I can never think of a joke, anyway.

The last newsletter I did was in January, and since then I've finished the rough draft of book 3 Ties of Blood. It's with the editor and the beta readers, so nothing to do now but wait patiently. I am hoping to get this one out before October, as I'd like to take the month of October off this year and just kind of relax for a change. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

There's been a lot of cool stuff happening all over the place, and I am going to be bad and not link to any of it. I know. Horrible, isn't it?

Oh, all right. Indie Authors Unite has moved to a brand new website that is much better. Valerie Maarten and Samantha Fury have worked their fingers off on it, so you should stop by and take a look!

You might remember that I mentioned a book by my friend Jonathan harvey, aka Jissilly. He has slaved long and hard over Shades of Plaid: A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey Into Christian Living and it is now available! You can get it on Smashwords, Amazon Kindle or in Paper Back.

I have managed to get two (oh wow, tow!) of the Vampire Morsels up on Smashwords as free reads. Check out Adam and Alexander and feel free to leave a review *cough*

The Author Samples on my blog were a lot of fun, so I have decided to extend them. If you would like to have a book featured, or know someone who would, send me the info (the details are here and I'll post it. This author business is plenty hard, so the more we can do to help one another, the better! Check out the Author Samples!

Something else I am toying with is Character Interviews. Say what? That's right, interviews of characters. Being the ever gracious vampire (read: he was threatened with glitter)Jorick has volunteered to go first. In the mean time, if you're a writer and have a story or book character that you'd like to have interviewed then go here for the questions and details.

All this talk about the third book makes me feel like I should mention the second book. Yes, if you missed it, Legacy of Ghosts, the second installment in the Amaranthine series, is available for purchase! You can pick up your digital copy at Smashwords or Amazon Kindle, or grab a paper back. If you're interested in an autographed copy then drop me a line at Joleene@JoleeneNaylor.com.

After the events of Shades of Gray, Katelina seeks peace with Jorick, but it’s hard to come by in a world shrouded in secrets and threatened by a brewing storm. Though Kateesha plans to fight the same battle as Jorick’s fledgling, a common enemy isn’t enough to overcome past betrayals, and the tempest explodes into a violent frenzy. Drawn into a deathly conflict, Jorick and Katelina must learn to overcome old regrets, or risk losing their future to the ghosts of their past.

Legacy of Ghosts, the second installment of the Amaranthine series, plunges back into a world of blood and cruelty where the darkness hold dominion and vampires don’t sparkle.

You can read sample chapters at http://joleenenaylor.wordpress.com/ in either whole chapter format or in tiny, blog sized nuggets. Yeah, I'm all about choice.

And why should DVD's have all the fun? Check out "The Lost Chapters" - aka the "deleted" scenes from Legacy of Ghosts. Stop by and enjoy a snippet of pointless vampire fun!

Now, let's get on to the

Random Fun

The Interesting link: Sokoblovsky Farms The world's only breeders of the petit lap giraffe, this Russian owned breeder's page has a giraffe cam, photos, and even a place to sign up on the waiting list to get your own petite lap giraffe. Of course, since the gestation is over 400 days it's going to be a long, long list. what? You don't believe that there are tiny, tiny giraffes? Of course there are! Just look at the photos! (And, if you don't know what's going on, watch the "american commercials" on the media page. That will explain everything.) - thanks Dawn!

The Lots-O-Fun link: Blame Society Home of Chad Vadar, Hal's eHow and many other fun and entertaining videos that are guaranteed to waste - erm, I mean fill - hours of your time! Ever wonder how to escape a succubus or catch a unicorn? Hal will tell you eHow! - Thanks Jonathan!

The Read of the month: Union of Renegades: The Rys Chronicles Book I by Tracey Falbe Free Fantasy novel. (from the site) Dreibrand Veta has killed for his country. At the frontlines of imperial expansion, he seeks to rebuild the fortune of his noble family. In his daring travels he encounters the rys, a race far more powerful than the human empire that bred him. Dreibrand cannot defy the rys Queen Onja nor defend his companion, Miranda, and her children from the wicked tyrant Queen.

The Music of the month: Drugstore Fanatics originally from Israel, this band now calls California home. You can get their album as a free download from their website - or pay $5 to upgrade to a higher quality format and get some extra tunes, too. On MySpace they call themselves Ambient/Industrial/Rock, but I call them catchy.

The Video of the month: Viral Videos of 1911 The top five viral videos of 1911. Wait. Do you see something wrong with that sentence? YouTube has too much fun on April Fool's, so check it out!

(if you have suggestions for the links of the month please email them to me at joleene@joleenenaylor.com – you will be credited by whatever name you choose.)

My Updates

WANTED

I am currently looking for some Affiliates to trade links with. If you have a website and would be interested please let me know!

Looking for Reader Reviews! Have you read the book? Did you like it? Did you hate it? Well write a blurb and let the world know what you think! Please send all reviews to joleene@joleenenaylor.com and I'll post them on the site!

The Terrible Turtle Conspiracy:

The Terrible Turtle Conspiracy is a weekly manga/comic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by Joleene Naylor that tells the story of the giant turtle attack in Tuttlesville and the interconnected aftermath.

THE BIG NEWS: http://TerribleTurtles.com is LIVE!

Due to changes in Myspace blogging, the Terrible Turtle Conspiracy has moved to a new home at http://TerribleTurtles.com. You can subscribe via email to have the latest comic page sent straight to your inbox, or you can read through older comics including the first five chapters, the holiday specials and the ever amazing "I am a Part of the TTTC" special one page promo comics! Come join the fun at http://TerribleTurtles.com!

We are now in the midst of Chapter Six: Room 207 in which the mild mannered Jacob Blunt has been given an opportunity to change his life. Will he take it or will he die first from lack of sleep? Read Chapter Six!

I am no longer posting the comic as one long post on Blogspot or MySpace, instead I post miniatures of the week's page in an individual post, so be sure to subscribe at the official site!

Website Updates

I have finally managed to updated the Cover Art Frequently Asked Questions in an effort to better serve authors seeking book cover art. I have also updated my website at www.JoleeneNaylor.com.

Check the Links Page for several new links to writers blogs and/or websites. There are some great authors to discover!

Last month I added two humorous flash fiction stories to the Flash Fiction section. The Party piggybacks from a Jonathan Harvey story and tells what really happened, while Supplier Shortage gives you an inside look at how vampires really lure their victims.

Last month I also added two poems to the Poetry section. Ward 16 and The Modern Farm, and this month I have added Rift of Silence.

The Book Cover Gallery saw the addition of thirty-five new covers including a YA Fantasy, some assorted Horror, a couple of humor, poetry, inspirational and some sci-fi.

Between last month and this month I've also added 18 new photos. Here’s a sneak peek at a couple of them:

Flickr Updates

In the last two months I added the following albums to my Flickr account. All of my photography is licensed under Creative Commons license unless otherwise noted. You do not need a Flickr account to view these. Clicking on the links will take you to a photo album with thumbnails.

Snowy Night Cemetery
29 photos of a cemetery at night in the snow.

January misc
18 photos of sunset, snow and a snowy burn pile

February Snow Storm 2011
63 photos of snow in all it's frosty, cold glory.

Out & About - More Snow
90 photos of snowy landscapes, abandoned cars, cool trees and frozen rivers.

Abandoned
33 photos of abandoned stuff including some great fiber glass textures, rusty tire rim, and some bizarre things in trees.

Spring
13 photos of green grass, dandelions and a fuzzy caterpillar

Blog Updates:

Since I have a new personal blog on Wordpress where I am cross posting, I will no longer list the Myspace posts.
In order to keep this short I am only linking to posts in March. For January and February posts please visit the respective sites. Thanks!
AMARANTHINE NIGHT (AUTHOR BLOG)

Tuesdays with Terry Part 3
The third part of an ongoing series of guest blogs where author Terrance Foxx shares the things he's learned on his writing journey.

Six Sentence Sunday
"How bad is it?" - six teaser sentences from the upcoming Ties of Blood.

Tuesdays With Terry Part 4
The fourth part of an ongoing series of guest blogs where author Terrance Foxx shares the things he's learned on his writing journey.

Vampires and ... pot?
Funny video sent in by Sue

Bid Not for My Love by Darcee Tana
Excerpt of Darcee Tana's historical romance.

Six sentence Sunday
Jorick drew a deep, frustrated breath... six teaser sentence from the upcoming Ties of Blood

Tuesdays with Terry Part 5
The fifth part of an ongoing series of guest blogs where author Terrance Foxx shares the things he's learned on his writing journey.

Six Sentence Sunday
"It won't be for long." - Six teaser sentenced from the upcoming Ties of Blood

Authors for DRM Free
What DRM is and why some authors don't like it.

Tuesdays with Terry Part 6
The sixth part of an ongoing series of guest blogs where author Terrance Foxx shares the things he's learned on his writing journey.

Spring Cleaning
All about the neat changes I've made to my blogs and new features.

Six Sentence Sunday
He heard something, but he didn't know what. - Six teaser sentences from Adam, a free short story available on Smashwords

Tuesdays with Terry Part 7
The seventh part of an ongoing series of guest blogs where author Terrance Foxx shares the things he's learned on his writing journey.

It's Out!
The official release announcement for Shades of Plaid by Jonathan Harvey

RAMBLINGS FROM THE DARKNESS 2.0 (PERSONAL BLOG ON WORDPRESS)

Dark Story Part 1
The first part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

Dark Story Part 2
The second part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

Dark Story Part 3
The third part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

Dark Story Part 4
The fourth part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

Dark Story Part 5
The fifth part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

TTTC Chapter 6 page 6
In which Jacob's cat leaves...

Dark Story Part 6
The sixth part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

Dark Story Part 7
The seventh part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

Dark Story Part 8
The eighth part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

Dark Story Part 9
The ninth part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

Dark Story Part 10
The tenth part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

Dark Story Part 11
The eleventh part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

TTTC Chapter 6 page 7
In which Jacob calls 9-1-1...

Dark Story Part 12
The twelfth part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

Dark Story Part 13
The next to last part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

Dark Story Part 14
The last part of the bizarre story about witches, wolves and demons.

Random Acts of Poetry
Three Random free flow poems about... what?

In the Mist Collab poem
What is in the mist?

Random Photos
Random photos of spider webs, dew, frogs and more.

TTTC Chapter 6 page 8
in which the sheep get too noisy...

Winter Photos
Pretty winter photos from the February snow

Ode to Chris
Another Harris-Naylor Photo Album by request.

End of the World: Flashfiction
When it all collapses there is only the darkness...

Two Manga Drawings
older group shots of characters from Midnight Grace

The Sinister Truth Behind Star Trek
Just where are all the dumb, fat people in the future?

Poem vs Story: Haunted
Which version do YOU like better?

Empty Bed & Haunted
Two collab pic-n-poems

TTTC Chapter 6 page 9
In which Jacob takes sleeping pills....

Slagle Cemetery in Pictures
Photos of Slagle Cemetery' includes a crypt, some old tombstones and some broken angel figures.

The Devil is an Angel, Too
Fun manga-style art

Christmas Collab
When Hamsters go bad there's no stopping them.

Vampire Art
An old commission from 2007

The Childless
Not all of us have kids!

Fallen Angel Artwork
Fun, Manga Style drawing

FROM THE SHADOWS - BLOGSPOT (ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY)

You can now sign up for an email subscription for this blog! Check the site for details!

More book covers
Six book covers.

My Weirdest Commission Ever!
A moose and a Mermaid play basketball...

More Book Covers
Seven book covers.

Random Art Stuff
A picture in progress, some sluggy wallpaper and a manga me.

My Photos in Action
People really DO use those CC licensed photos!

More Book Cover Joy
Nine more book covers. Yeah, I've been busy.

sam haven's Book Signing - Houston Texas
All the details on Sam Haven's April book signing

Self Published Author's Lounge

A REAL Writer...
What makes a real writer?

Authors for DRM Free
What is DRM and why do some authors hate it?

Free & Cheap Images, Music, Videos and More
For book covers, illustrations and trailers. An expansive list of resources.

Howe not to React to a Bad Review
When Indy Authors go crazy...

Smashwords Has Big News
Smashwords buys out Amazon (For the day)

When to Reply to Reviews?
You should never reply to a bad review, but what about a good one?

COMING NEXT MONTH:

Projects I hope to finish in April are

Legacy of Ghosts Trailer
book covers for other people
Some more Vampire Morsels
The special Bonus comic for the super secret TTTC Publishing Project
I wouldn't mind finishing up some other misc artwork, but we'll see about that

If you have ideas or suggestions on what could make this newsletter better, or just want to give me your opinion on something, drop me a line at Joleene@joleenenaylor.com.

If you would like to unsubscribe from this mailing, please send a mail to Joleene@joleenenaylor.com with the subject UNSUBSCRIBE.

Have a happy spring!

Jo :D

TTTC - Chapter 6 Page 10

2011-04-01T06:02:00.001-05:00

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

Happy April Fools! Today we have a special page just for you with some guest stars!

Click the little image above for the full sized turtley fun!

And if you liked this, then you'll probably enjoy the new book by Jonathan Harvey - aka Jissilly (that's J is silly):

Shades of Plaid (A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey into Christian Living)

Sample or purchase Shades of Plaid (A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey into Christian Living):

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/50196

Also available on Kindle! Go here

Shades of Plaid (A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey into Christian Living) |http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004UB5E3S

Paper Back coming soon!!!!

Sam Havens Book Signing - Houston Texas

2011-03-30T22:03:00.000-05:00

You Are Invited to a Book Signing of Farr Point

a New Novel by

Sam Havens

"I enjoyed the read so much I simply didn't want to put it down."

"From the moment you start reading, the story pulls you in."

"This was a slice-of-life from a period before my time - the 1950's - and I totally enjoyed it."

Sunday, April 17, 2:00 to 4:00 PM

Brazos Bookstore

2421 Bissonet

Houston, TX 77005

Located in Bissonnet Village Center, near Rice Village,

just south of 59 on Bissonnet between Kirby and Greenbriar.

(The salmon-colored building with green signs

on the south side of the street.)

Additional parking is across the street behind Shoe Savers.

More book cover joy....

2011-03-30T16:54:00.000-05:00

So, I've been busy working on covers lately. I know, nothing new, huh? These are most of the new ones - I have one to finish and one that is out waiting approval, and a couple I skipped because they didn't "do it" for me. Not to say they're bad covers, but I make what the author wants, which means it is not always to my taste. That's the difference between graphic art and art-art ;)

This is my new favorite cover! The trees are actually from photos (yeah, using my cheating method again!) but I used art media to paint in the figure :) Yeah. I love this one...

Okay, I really like this one, too! It was super fun! And the background texture really just "did it".

Artwork by me :)

It's the "symbols" from each book: incidentally the three ring one to the left is the executioners necklace and will be the one for book 3

Be nice if I'd finish the stories, now....

An example of a cover where the author said "surprise me". I love those kind.

Photo by me: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pandora_6666/1283013253/ (actually hubby might have taken it, I don;t remember and it;s not like we're going to bicker over photo rights ;) )

image from dreamstime.com by Jiri Foltyon

This is a really simple one, but sometimes simple is exactly what you want!

Image from author

ANother awesome one. The author sent me the pic, though I know he got it from dreamstime.

The author and I went through a few concept ideas and settled on this one and I am glad we did! I really like this one! And she was a dream to work with! (not that other authors aren't, or anything...)

Angel, swirlies and sparkly spots - does it get better?

artwork by me and swirls from room122.com

I have some illustrations for a book to share some other time, and then I have a sketch i will never do anything with that was fun, anyway. But, another day ;)

TTTC - Chapter 6 Page 8

2011-03-25T08:50:00.002-05:00

Click the image above for full sized turtley fun!

My Photos in action!

2011-03-24T18:56:00.001-05:00

My most viewed photo ever... I dunno..

So after I got an email today about someone who had used one of my photos on their website I thought it might be fun to share some other sites that have used my pictures. I think it's kind of fun to see that people are finding something to do with them!

http://partycode.de/ - they organize invitations for your parties and used one of my fav photos!

http://www.grainsofearth.com/16-cool-christmas-trees/ - 16 cool Christmas trees - the others are way better than mine! (the manly christmas tree)awesome images here!

This comes in at number five

http://www.squidoo.com/best-chicken-marsala-recipe - this recipe page brings me two plus steady views every day and has for a couple of years now. Doesn't sound like a lot until you start to add it up!

http://thebaconblogger.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-recipes-for-gift-giving.html - recipes for christmas gift giving - I remember those cookies. they were tasty!

http://thejigsawpuzzles.com/Xmas-and-New-Year/Old-Fashioned-Christmas-jigsaw-puzzle?&cutout=50%20piece%20Classic - this is totally smeggin' cool! Someone turned a christmas photo into a jigsaw puzzle! that rocks!

http://www.delish.com/food/recalls-reviews/history-of-the-christmas-goose - the story behind the christmas goose - very interesting!

the 41st most viewed photo

http://www.brighthub.com/parenting/grade-school/articles/93215.aspx - no bake ornament making for kids used the happy harry potter gingerbread man

http://hpfanit.vuotis.net/joulukalenteri2010/peli/joulu.htm - harry potter ornament again :)

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc55596.php - my old school!

http://blog.nj.com/adventures_in_nerdy_jersey/2011/02/voltron_video_games_and_tv_series_is_on_the_way.html - my lovely voltron action figure! whoo-hoo!

http://rednecksinthewild.com/2011/01/balanced-redneck-meal/ - YES!! someone else found this as funny as I did!

https://www.environmentamerica.org/uploads/58/47/5847ce565247b1f99faf0432d3afa10b/Environment-Missouri-Winter-2011-Newsletter.pdf - ha ha! the heading is made from the trees outside my house!

http://www.onlyfitforanashtray.com/about.php - it's the ever awesome cigarette in an ashtray!

http://guiadelactanciamaterna.wordpress.com/medicamentos-y-lactancia-2/tabaco-y-lactancia/ - and again! this time for a blog about pregnancy and smoking.

http://birding.about.com/od/birdprofiles/p/Black-Swan.htm - a black swan (you have to hit the more images to see it, though)

This shot up to number 3 this month with over 2,000 views in a couple of days. I'd bet it has to do with the article below.

http://www.thedailymeal.com/food-deaths-through-history - 21 strange food deaths throughtou history - this was just interesting to read - nice to see my jackolantern to good use though :)

http://www.eejlaw.com/exam_archive/Torts_II_final_exam_2009.pdf - this one is really fun! They used a cowboy pic I took in Arizona

http://moondustwriter.com/2011/03/02/lifes-storm/ - a seriously awesome poem and one of my fav lightning images

http://piperlarson.com/blog/2011/02/21/entrepreneurial-power/ - how to deal with a bad day - sadly I did not even recognize that pic :p I looked and it is mine, but i have so many cloud photos that I forget *blushes*

http://www.suicide-helplines.org/ - more clouds :p

Second most viewed photo

http://codingrelic.geekhold.com/2011/03/rip-wwwsuncom.html - I knew that blank tombstone would come in handy! (I've actually run into it in a couple other places but can;t remember where)

http://www.homeandabroad.com/browse/details/sites.ha?mainInfoId=6063296 - Virgina legends Walk

This comes in at number 16

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/oct/28/bleeding-edge-forensics-gathering-clues-blood-spla/ - Yes!! someone used one of the bloody pics!!

http://businessjournalism.org/2010/10/29/festive-friday-halloween-meets-christmas-this-weekend/ - halloween meets Christmas - yay! I love this one!

http://www.glassdoor.com/Photos/United-Way-Alexandria-Office-Photos-EI_IE3013.0,10_IL.11,21_IC1130334.htm - United Way photo number 3 :)

http://startortoises.net/photos4.html - some lovely tortoises :)

http://pixtr.de/geschaftsideen-3-stereotype-personlichkeiten-und-die-passenden-strategien - no clue what this says but it's my mules, anyway :)

http://blogs.equisearch.com/horsehealth/2011/02/21/george-washington-mule-horse-breed/ - the mules again!

http://kittyreporter.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/an-open-letter-to-senator-kyl-to-ratify-the-start-treaty-now/ - ha ha! one of hubby's rubber duckies!

In at number 36

http://theweek.com/article/index/213233/the-week-contest-blank-book---march-25-2011 - I knew those blank book pics would be handy!

http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/calendar/2011/03/21/readers-group/ - ditto

http://booksprung.com/quick-tip-dealing-with-greyed-out-books - and again

http://www.brighthub.com/diy/decorating/articles/105899.aspx - how to decorate an alcove with a tall vase - the yellow bush is mine ;)

http://hummingbird604.com/2011/01/31/valentines-day-giveaways-on-hummingbird604/ - my valentines teddy! :D

http://blog.liveatmadison.com/around-town/holiday-events-in-memphis-enchanted-forest-at-the-pink-palace-museum/ - and the dancing penguin!

http://www.femalenetwork.com/food-home/heart-evangelistas-cavite-rest-house-burns-down-10-common-fire-hazards - 10 common fire hazards - christmas lights (#5 in the slideshow is mine)

http://news.change.org/stories/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-of-the-virginia-state-aids-drug-assistance-program - welcome to virginia sign

http://news.change.org/stories/will-kentucky-finally-protect-its-citizens-from-secondhand-smoke - I KNEW those state signs would be handy!

http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/1/19/72723/8406/travel/Major+Time-Waster%3A+The+Website+That+Logs+Airport+Carpeting+from+Around+the+World - ha ha! Okay, the carpet in the Phoenix airport was one I did not think anyone would need!

Wow, that is way more than I thought I'd find that fast. Makes me feel like taking pictures again. I have to admit I've been on a slump lately because I'm tired of the same old, same old, plus I don't feel like anyone is getting any benefit from all the hours of work it takes. So, it's nice to see that someone is! Maybe I should take a month out and go photo crazy :p

Some random art bits

2011-03-23T00:58:00.001-05:00

I've been spring cleaning the blogs the last couple of days, and while I breezed through here I thought I'd post some random stuff.

here's some wallpaper I made for hubby's blackberry. I call him a sluggy because he calls me a chicken... it's a bizarre thing...

and speaking of hubby, we've been manga-nized:

And lastly, a piece I really want to get finished one of these days... needs a background and some blood :D

More Book Covers

2011-03-18T08:28:00.000-05:00

First, you might notice something really cool - look over there to the right. See the cool "subscribe via email" button? Yeah, now you can get emails whenever I post here.

I have been busy the last couple of days catching up on various things, like updating my website and uploading photos to flickr and I spent a dya organizing my flickr folders, and... lots of boring stuff like that. Then, I had some down time as the desktop PC had a bad hard drive, but after 24 hours of cloning (yes, it took THAT long!) all the data has been copied to a brand new 2 terabyte hard drive and is all safe and sound. Yay!

I posted a blog full of winter pictures on wordpress: - http://ramblingsfromthedarkness.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/winter-photos-blogophilia-3-4/ - for the sake of not repeating content, I am going to bore you with some... that's right, more book covers! yay! I'm working on a couple now that I am really excited about, but they are under wraps until they are approved ;)

The image is by Desy Pistonami | Dreamstime. com - she has an awesome set, I love her style!

And I drew this one :)

photo credit: 350jb | Dreamstime. com

photo by me:
www.flickr.com/photos/pandora_6666/3802753469/

silhouette drawn by me ;)

Artwork by me, again

And again...

This one you need to view full size so you can read his blurbs - seriously, I love them!

There's four others, but this is long enough for now!

TTTC - Chapter 6 Page 8

2011-03-18T07:38:00.002-05:00

Now that the Terrible Turtle Conspiracy has it's own website, I'll no longer post the whole comic here in one long blog. Instead, each week I will post a link to the newest page, like I've been doing on Myspace.

What is the TTTC? It's a webcomic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by me. we add a page every week, so be on the lookout. Why not visit http://TerribleTurtles.com and subscribe?

A little late today because the computer was down all day and most of the night cloning the hard drive. But, it is back up and all my data is safely on the brand new hard drive! Yay!

anyway, for full sized turtley-fun click the image above!

and don't forget on Tuesdays:

TTTC - Chapter 6 Page 7

2011-03-11T06:31:00.001-06:00

Click the image above for full sized turtley-fun.

And don't forget every Tuesday to check out more Jo and Jonathan collab fun on...

TTTC - Chapter 6 Page 6

2011-03-04T04:41:00.001-06:00

Click the image for full sized turtley fun! And don't forget every Tuesday...

TTTC - Chapter Six - Page 5

2011-02-25T07:29:00.000-06:00

Click the image above for full sized turtley fun!

And don't forget Tuesdays on word of the Day for more weird Jo and Jonathan fun!

My weirdest commision ever

2011-02-20T22:56:00.000-06:00

Yes, that is a moose and a mermaid playing basketball. I just draw it, I don't ask why.

LOL!

I thought it came out kinda cool. Maybe shoulda put some highlights on the hooves. Oh well.

TTTC - Chapter Six - Page 4

2011-02-18T06:07:00.000-06:00

Click the image above for full sized turtley fun!

Be sure to catch more Jo & Jonathan cartoon collab fun every Tuesday at the Word of the Day blog with the

More book covers!

2011-02-17T16:50:00.001-06:00

Jump up and down because I have MORE book covers to share! Ha ha!

Made from two images from dreamstime.com. The boy was originally on a modern bike, so I clone brushed the new bike out and replaced it with an older style bicycle. I think it came out pretty well, except in retrospect I'm not sure why his other foot isn't on a peddle. I should have drawn in a leg. Oh well.

Though this isn't the final version, I liked the background texture here. it looks metallic. This is the final:

All the images were provided by the author, in fact I know she took the photo of the camo herself :)

fonts and vectors.

photo is from dreamstime. I also got to read this one (It's for a short story) and have to say I enjoyed it. It's not up on Smashwords yet, or I'd link to it!

This is an art media/texture/raster mix. Google the author name. Go on, do it. Now how friggn' cool is that!?!?!? I am in geek fan mode at the moment!!! Have had to stop myself from saying "Oh! send me an autograph!"

And another image from dreamstime, though fun trivia fact: the original has a bunch of math computations on the paper, so I erased those and added a page from my story about a woman killing her husband because he snores (I happened to have it opened at the time). You can;t read it, but it gives it the submitted manuscript look, anyway! :)

I have some winter photos I need to put up one of these days, too....

Love is in the Air!

2011-02-14T16:03:00.000-06:00

From sweet to steamy, but always romantic! Why not get in the mood for love with IAU? Stop by and Read some romantic excerpts!

Random Character Sketches

2011-02-14T15:04:00.000-06:00

random, but cool, character sketches:

Nirel, Kariss, Michael and Elsa

Claudius, Benjamin and Bethina

Adam, Alexander, Arowenia and Ashton

Fav song of the moment – “The Humbling River” – Puscifer

TTTC - Chapter Six - Page 3

2011-02-11T06:02:00.002-06:00

Click the image above for full sized turtley fun!

Are Book Covers Doomed?

2011-02-04T06:14:00.000-06:00

This is from CBS news:

One interesting thing that I think they left out of the video is that eBooks need covers too. For instance, most eBook publishers have specifics regarding a book cover before you can publish with them, or get added to their premium distributions. Those covers still help sell the books the same as the covers do on a paper back. Personally, I have no fear that book covers will go away.

What about you? Are you guilty of "judging a book by it's cover"? How often to you check out a book (read a sample, click to know more, pick the book up in the store, etc) because the cover appealed to you?

One interesting thing that I think they left out of the video is that eBooks need covers too. For instance, most eBook publishers have specifics regarding a book cover before you can publish with them, or get added to their premium distributions. Those covers still help sell the books the same as the covers do on a paper back. Personally, I have no fear that book covers will go away.

What about you? Are you guilty of "judging a book by it's cover"? How often to you check out a book (read a sample, click to know more, pick the book up in the store, etc) because the cover appealed to you?

TTTC - Chapter 6 Page 2

2011-02-04T06:06:00.002-06:00

For full sized turtley fun, click the image above!

TTTC - Chapter Six

2011-01-28T06:35:00.000-06:00

Click the image(s) above for full sized Turtley fun!

2011-01-26T09:30:00.000-06:00

(From 2007. I could probably do a better one now. Maybe I'll try some day.)

I am going to endeavor to do this tutorial for both PSP 11 and PSP 9. When there's only one picture instead of two it's because the tools/commands etc are in the same location or look pretty much the same. You will notice small differences, but nothing that will complicate matters. Also, this is written for beginners – aka someone who does not even know where the copy button is, so anyone who does might find it kind of long winded. But hey, better safe than sorry, right?

NOTE: PSP 10 is a cross between 9 and 11, so this tutorial will work for it as well

That said we are going to explore the basics of photo manipulation – in this case we will be combining two pictures. A picture of a monkey:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="not mine"][/caption]

And a picture of a computer:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="still not mine"][/caption]

If you're attempting this – right click and save those pictures to your computer first thing. We're going to make this innocent monkey here a net surfing fool in a few easy steps. Okay, I lied. In several easy steps.

I am going to take a moment to give the lecture I have given a couple of people already – *puts on professor hat* image quality is IMPORTANT! You can NOT make a good manip from bad pictures! Pixelated or garbled pictures rarely are useable – you need clear, sharp images – and the bigger the better! Spend some time finding your image. Use Google Image Search and/or Photobucket to find what you need, and don't be too set in one ideal. Sometimes that one angle just isn't out there. In that case be ready to adapt a little bit. For instance I saved eight different monkeys and five computers before finding two to match up. The image selection is the first and most important step – always remember that. Also, don;t use any images for ANYTHING commercial - ie that you make money off of - unless you get permission from the owners of the images! And don't use random people unless you know them, even if it's just for personal use. *takes off professor hat*

All right, I'm assuming you have PSP opened, right? Good. Now, open both the monkey picture and the computer picture like so:

Now minimize the PC pic to get it out of the way and make sure the monkey picture is the active image – the top bar will change colors to let you know which image is active – it varies on your computer settings.

Once you're on the monkey picture the first thing you may notice is this particular monkey is not at any angle to be net surfing. He is, however at a lovely angle to be swinging on a rope, which is what he's ding. But don't worry, we can fix this! In PSP 11 we want the PICK tool, and in 9 it's called the DEFORM tool. Same tool, same function, different names. Ask Corel. :

Once you click it you'll notice a box surround your monkey that has little dots – or nodes – on four corners. Those are used for resizing it, but we don't need to do that right now. What we need to be concerned with is the little line in the center – it has a node at each end of to. If you hover your mouse over the center one you'll get a little + symbol. This node is used for dragging the image around or moving it within it's canvas. (the canvas is the little box your image is in – the piece of paper it's on so to speak). It's the second node we want. Hover your mouse over it and you will get a symbol kind of like this ( ). This is the rotate node. Click on it and drag it to rotate the image like this:

You want the monkey to be upright so that he can be using the keyboard. The angle doesn't need to be perfect the first time, you can rotate it again and again until you have what you want.

Wait – I know you're asking "what's with these checkers? And mine aren't pink! Why?" First of all, these checkers are what shows that you have a transparency – meaning there is NO data in where the checkers appear. Your checkers will be whatever color you have them set for in the FILE / PREFERENCES / GENERAL PROGRAM PREFERENCES tab.

Once our monkey is rotated we now want rid of that pesky background. There is a school of people who use masks to eliminate this, but I find that slightly complicated to explain in a beginners tutorial so we're going to go the simple way – cut it out!

You'll want the FREE HAND SELECTION tool for this. There is a smart edge but I find it rarely works very well. Check your settings in the TOOL OPTION PALETTE. If you can't find this palette right click on your top tool bar and go to PALETTES and then TOOL OPTIONS and make it visible. This is THE most important palette! We MUST have it.

Once you've found it check your settings – the information in this palette will change with each tool you choose.

Select JUST the monkey. How do you do this, you're asking? Well, if you know skip ahead, if not it's simple. Click on the edge of the monkey – any old place. Now move the mouse a TINY bit and click again. Keep doing this following the outline of the monkey all the way around. When you've brought your line all the way back around to meet itself click and voila! Monkey is selected – yes, those little dotty lines flash to let you know it's a selection – it's called a marquee.

But part of his hand is missing! It's chapped off the picture! Not to worry! We'll fix that later ;)

Once our monkey is selected we want to go to the EDIT menu and click COPY. Now, that computer image? Un-minimize it and move to the LAYER PALETTE. This is the second most important Palette for us. If you can't find it use the same method I specified for turning on the tool options.

On the layer palette you'll see we already have one layer named "Background". That's the picture of the computer. We want to make a NEW RASTER LAYER to put our monkey on. Why? Well, if we pout him on the same layer as the computer picture we can't edit him separately. Try it – paste the money on the Background and try erasing some of his edges. See? It erases the computer image as well (Hit UNDO now)– BUT if we have him on a separate layer and erase the edges it does not affect the computer picture below. All tools and filter will only affect the data that is on the ACTIVE layer – aka the layer that is HIGHLIGHTED in the layer palette.

To make a NEW RASTER LAYER just click the little icon:

You'll get a pop up box:

Let's name this layer MONKEY. No, you don't have to name your layers, I often don't, but for beginners OR for multi-layer images it sometimes is helpful to name them. Like in the art media tut I did where I hade twenty plus layers.

It's not as necessary in PSP 11 to name layers, however, because as you can see the layer palette is very different from 9. In PSP 9 you hover your mouse over the layer name and a box pops down with a preview of that layer's data. 11, however, has a thumbnail to begin with.

Anyway, hit the OKAY button and now we have a monkey layer! Check your layer palette and make sure MONKEY is the ACTIVE or HIGHLIGHTED layer and then we want to actually put our monkey on it!

Go to EDIT – PASTE AS NEW SELECTION. (In 9 this will be in a second box off of the PASTE arrow).

You should still have the selection tool selected, so grab the little bugger and move him across the picture to about where you want him. Hmm.. wait a minute! That computer is WAY to big for our little monkey! We better do something about that!

We have two options at this point – make the monkey bigger or make the computer smaller. Making things bigger distorts them and tends to cause pixilation, so whenever possible always make things smaller instead!

To change out computer around we need to be on the computer layer. Select the BACKGROUND layer by clicking on it in the layer palette.

Remember that PICK or DEFORM tool we used to rotate our monkey? Well now it's time to use those nodes in the corners! Select the tool and then click on any of the four corner nodes and drag the image smaller until it looks about right.

(IN PSP 11 it will automatically turn our BACKGROUND layer to RASTER 1 layer – but in PSP 9 you should get a pop up box asking if you want to promote it to a full layer – just hit OKAY)

Once it's sized correctly it's now time to work on our monkey and the problems with his missing right hand.

First we We need to rotate his arm to make it holding the mouse, but the PICK or DEFORM tool will rotate the WHOLE layer – no good because we don't want our little monkey rotated – just his arm. SO… We're gonna have to move that arm to a new layer, huh?

So, go to your layer palette and click on the MONKEY layer to make it active. Now we need the FREE HAND SELECTION tool again. One you have it draw a kind of boxy shape around his right arm from the elbow up:

Now – and this is cool – click inside the boxy shape on his arm and it will automatically select just that piece neat and tidy like:

This has selected the data we want to move t a new layer. Now go to the layer palette and you'll see there's a "new" layer named FLOATING SELECTION – as you can see by either the preview or thumbnail this is just the teeny tiny piece of arm we have selected – it is not attached to a layer and it is selected hence FLOATING SELECTION.

But don't want it floating, so right click on the layer palette where it says FLOATING SELECTION and scroll down to where it says PROMOTE SELECTION TO LAYER. Click this.

That layer that was FLOATING SELECTION will now say PROMOTED SELECTION – self explanatory, eh?

So, let's rotate that arm! Use the PICK or DEFORM tool and rotate it just like we originally rotated our happy monkey. Use the pick tool to move the arm into place by clicking on that line in the center until you see the + and then click and drag it, releasing it when it's where you want it to be.

At this point I am going to take a moment to explain why it is we're using the PICK tool instead of the ROTATE option. I firmly believe that people do much better if they understand WHY instead of just "Do this!". In the ROTATE box you have to type in the exact degrees you want to rotate your image – and if you don't know this can take unbelievable numbers of tries. Yes, I used to use the rotate method before I discovered the PICK tool – and trust me, this is easier because you can SEE what you're doing as you do it.

Okay, so our arm is rotated but look at that elbow joint! Yech! That looks bad, doesn't it? Well let's fix it! We'll need the eraser tool for this – it could also be done with a mask, but again, I find this is simpler.

Check your tool options settings – the hardness is going to be very important here. Click on the arrow next to it and you'll see little dots, these dots show you an example of what happens at each hardness level – a 56 is good for what we want here. You may also ned to adjust the size, again the drop down box shows you little examples.

Once it's all set click the eraser over our joint – the center of the eraser should be just to the left of the edge. This is going to feather our elbow joint and blend the two pieces together.

Of course, there's one more step to "blending" it in and that's to actually – well – blend it in using the SOFTEN tool.

Check your tool palette again.

Now run the soften brush over the part where the seam is still visible and watch it disappear.

If you get too overzealous with this you'll notice that bits of it disappear and the image below – the computer image – is beginning to show through. That's a symptom of too much blurring. Just hit undo and start again.

"But wait… no matter what I when I blur the edges the computer is showing at the joint!" This is because our arm underneath isn't quite long enough, but, we can fix that!

First we need to have the MONKEY layer active, so hop back to the layer palette and click on it.

Now we want to use the CLONE BRUSH. What the CLONE BRUSH does is.. well, clone.

Check your tool options again – always check your tool options when using a tool for the first time – or in some cases whenever you switch tools.

Now, let's clone baby! Start by RIGHT clicking on an area of our Monkey's shoulder – now move the mouse to the spot on the joint where the computer is showing through. You'll see there's two "brush outlines" – one with an x and one without. The one with the x is the area that it is going t copy and the one without the x is the area it is going to paint in.

Use the left mouse button to "Paint" the fur in until it looks good to you:

Ah he's starting to come along, huh? But his arm is on a different layer than his body. What if we want to move the monkey around? We;;, let's make those two layers into one layer!

Go to your layer palette and make the RASTER 1 layer invisible using the VISIBILITY TOGGLE. This is an icon of an eyeball that is next to our layer names. Click on it and a red X appears over it meaning our layer is now invisible. When you want the layer visible again just click the red x'd eyeball and it comes back – no damage done to your data what so ever.

"Eek! Now that we have the checkers I can see all kinds of weird black edges on my monkey!" Well, unless you're exceedingly meticulous or a pro at the selection tools this quite often happens, but it's all right. Just choose the FREE HAND SELECTION tool again and select the areas we want to cut off (note the visibility toggles in this image):

Once they're selected hit the delete button on your keyboard or else go to EDIT / CUT and they're now gone.

"Okay so that's done are we ready to make them one layer now? What about the lack of a hand?" Very good point! Maybe we should do something about that real quick!

On the layer palette make sure the PROMOTED SELECTION layer is active and now we're gonna use the CLONE BRUSH again. Only this time we're going to use it to make a round bump on the end of his arm – aka make him a hand:

(this image may not appear...)

Okay, the monkey has a hand and his edges are clean, so what about these layers? Well, we're going to MERGE them. Right click on either of the VISIBLE layers (aka PROMOTED SELECTION or MONKEY) and scroll down the menu to MERGE and then to MERGE VISIBLE ("aha! So that's why we made the computer invisible! You're not insane!")

At this point we have two layers again MERGED and RASTER 1. Hit the SAVE AS button if you haven't done so already and save this as a PSP image – or PAINT SHOP PRO IMAGE. This is the ONLY format that will preserve our layers. ALL other formats will merge this into a single layer image and we don't want that – yet.

So, while our background is invisible still let's take a moment to blend our monkey's edges. Why? Click over to the original monkey picture (if it's still opened) or any picture. Look closely at the edges of an object within the picture and you will see that they aren't sharp edges, they're soft and kind of blend in to the back ground or objects behind it or next to it.

Now turn the back layer on and look at the edges of our monkey. See how they are sharp edges and how it doesn't look like its part of the image? This is why we bland them. Yes, you can save this step – kind of – by using Anti Aliasing when you select the object but I always end up having to still blend it anyway so….

All right, if you did that little demonstration turn the background back invisible and grab your SOFTEN TOOL again (it's the one we used on the elbow joint). Run it along the edges of the monkey.

Turn the RASTER 1 back "on" and take a moment to look at what you've accomplished. Now, at this point our image COULD be done. But, I'm not satisfied yet. The picture is going to end up big in order to fit in the monitor, keyboard and even a piece of the tower because there's all this space between the components… Hmmm… what if we got rid of the space and moved everything closer together?

Before doing major experimental changes to any layer I first DUPLICATE it so that if I don't like what I've done all I have to do is delete the duplicated layer and there is the original waiting to be worked on again. So, let's do that first by RIGHT CLICKING on the RASTER 1 layer and choosing DUPLICATE

We now have three layers – MERGED, COPY OF RASTER 1 and RASTER 1. Turn the visibility OFF on the RASTER 1 layer and leave it alone for now – it's going to just sit there and wait patiently for us in case we need it. Make COPY OF RASTER 1 the active layer by clicking on it.

So, we're making it smaller, eh? How? Well, first pick the FREE HAND SELECTION tool and then go back to our image and trace around top of the tower and keyboard and around the desk edges like so:

....Seal it up so it's all flashing and twinkling and click in the middle – this makes it a – yes, you guessed it – FLOATING SELECTION. Drag this selection up towards the monitor until you have it closer to the monitor – but don't click off of it yet.

Now, just like we did for the monkey arm go to the layer palette, RIGHT CLICK and choose PROMOTE SELECTION TO LAYER. We now have four layers:

"But the towers way over there now!" Don't worry, we're fixing that now. Select JUST the tower and the desk around it and drag it towards the monitor and keyboard (yes, it might overlap a little, that's okay) but again, don't click it yet. Go back to the layer palette and promote this selection to a layer – bringing us up to five layers: RASTER 1, COPY OF RASTER ONE, PROMOTED SELECTION, PROMOTED SELECTION 1 and MERGED.

"But it's overlapping! That looks tacky! I thought this was going to look good?" Yes, yes, have some patience young Jedi! We're going to fix that – and we're going to do it the easy way too.

Go to your layer palette and turn the OPACITY down on the PROMOTED SELECTION 1 layer. IN PSP 11 you will see it above the list of layers and in PSP 9 it is next to your layer name (scroll down two pics 9 users and you'll see what I mean – sorry this pic was too wide to add it on!)

Turn the opacity down by grabbing the slider bar – about 52 or so is good. You should now be able to see through the computer tower – which means you can see the tower AND what it is overlapping! The checkered area is where we took the tower out of our COPY OF RASTER 1 layer – ignore it, pay attention to the edges.

Select the FREE HAND SELECTION tool and get ready to do some selecting. First, though, we have to decide WHAT to select. In this case we want it to overlap the desk, but we don't want it to overlap the keyboard. So, obviously we don't want to select any part that is overlapping plain desk, just the little piece that is overlapping the keyboard. While you're selecting, you might also check the edges of the tower itself and clean them up if necessary, as you can see I needed to do that:

Hot the delete button again and it's all gone. Turn the opacity back up to 100 – looks pretty good, eh?

"Hey – the desk is overlapping that black thing – whatever it is…" yeah I dunno what it is either. Some computer bit I don't have anyway, but we don't want an overlap, so….. go to the layer palette and select the PROMOTED SELECTION layer and – turn the opacity down again and then use the FREE HAND SELECTION tool hack out the piece overlapping the black thingy:

"Wow, isn't that nice?" Yes, it is, but we're not done yet. There's something very important missing from this image – something that happens in real life and which can make or break a manip – a SHADOW! Our monkey is not casting a shadow at the moment. You may be tempted to run to the "Drop Shadow command" but don't. It won't give you the results you want. The best way to do this is just draw it in by hand.

First we need a new layer – it needs to be between our MERGED layer and our PROMOTED SELECTION 1 layer.

Once you have the new layer – RASTER 2 by default – we want to finally use the PAINT BRUSH TOOL:

Check your tool options:

Now we're going to look at something we've ignored previously – the MATERIAL PALETTE. It has all kinds of very nifty functions, but we don't want anything except a plain old color black. SO, ignore everything right now except the two overlapping boxes. The top box is your foreground color – or the color you get by LEFT clicking and the bottom is your background color – or the color you get by RIGHT clicking.

Yours probably won't look exactly like this – but make it. All of the little buttons under the colored foreground color and background color ARE important. They represent textures, gradients or whether that color is even available. Click n the each icon to get a drop down menu or to make it visible invisible until it looks like the picture. (in the screen cap here the black circle means COLOR meaning we are using a flat color – the grayed out dots in the center are texture – which we don't want right now and the last one is an option to turn the color off which is useful for point to point lines which we're not doing either.)

Click on the top box and a dialog box will pop up. It has several colors pre set – including the black we want. Click on the black and then hi the okay button. Our paintbrush is now black. (The color might have already been black, but this was good practice.)

Make sure RASTER 2 is active and using the paintbrush "draw" the shadow in.

Now that it's done it looks kinda funny, huh? All the other shadows aren't black but instead a reddish color caused by the shiny wood surface. This is where we play with BLEND MODES. A blend mode determines how the layers blend into one another. So go to the layer palette. On 11 the box is next to the opacity slider above the list and in nine it is next to the opacity slider next to the layer name. Go down the list until you see OVERLAY and select it.

I'm sure you're thinking we HAVE to be done now – and again you could be, but the monkey's not shaded right, is he? Look at the way the light is shining no the computer – it is coming from the window so that the edges facing you have a bright light source behind them, but the monkey has the light source shining on his back! Don't worry, again we can fix it!

Go to the layer palette again and select the MERGED layer to make it active. We want to select the monkey, so let's do this the easy way, eh? Go to the SELECTIONS menu and choose SELECT ALL

This has selected the whole picture – or so it appears. Click in the middle of our happy monkey and once again PSP will automatically select all around his edges – snifty again huh? You'll see why we want him selected in a moment.

....

Now go make a new layer in the layer palette that is ABOVE the monkey – RASTER 3 by default. Make sure it is the default layer (yes, there will be one named FLOATING SELECTION – we do NOT want it to be the active layer. Now using your paintbrush draw in some shadows on our monkey's back.

Oh, wait I never explained why we selected it! Well, because when something is selected you can only draw INSIDE the selection. What this does is keeps our shadows from slopping all around our monkey without having to zoom in and painstakingly check edges!

Instead of using the blend modes this time we're just going to turn the OPACITY down on our layer.

Now, I've made a RASTER 4 to do another layer of shadows – these are the darker shadows – look at a shadow. It isn't a solid shade all the way across. Spots in it are darker than others, and that's what this second shadow layer is for – to duplicate that.

Play with the OPACITY sliders for both shadow layers – RASTER 3 and RASTER 4 – until you like what you see. Looks spiffin, huh? But you know what? That Monkey is just a little bit blurrier than the computer, huh? Say it with me… "We can fix that!"

Go to the ADJUST menu (it's opposite EFFECTS in 9 – don't ask me why) and click on SHARPEN. You might want to do it a couple times till you think it looks good.

We're almost done!! "Um, I don't wanna be a nuisance, but um.. well.. there's a lot of checkers going on and that one foot.. well it looks bad." Yes, it does, doesn't it. Guess we'd better do some cropping. Only if we crop the image the way it is now we'll have to either leave that bad right foot or else chop off most of the lovely shadow we just put in. Not cool. But wait – there's a way around it.. that's right we can rotate it!

As you recall the PICK or DEFORM tool rotates or resizes everything on ONE layer. Our monkey is currently spread across a bunch of layers so first we need to make the whole picture only one layer!

Go to the layer palette and right click on any layer. Scroll down the list and choose MERGE VISIBLE. Yes, this is what we did with the monkey and the arm earlier – glad to see you're paying attention!

Select the PICK or DEFORM tool again and rotate that bad boy!

Now we're ready to crop off all the extra gunk we don't want. Choose the crop tool from the toolbar:

Now, it is slightly different from 9 to 11 in that 9's loads faster because it lacks the very annoying little box full of pre-determined sizes that has to load. We don't want any of those, so if you're using 11 ignore the box and if you're using 9 be grateful.

Draw a box around the area we want to keep – you'll see the gray-ish shadowing over some of it? That shadow is over the parts that are going to disappear forever when we hit crop.

You can make the box bigger and smaller by grabbing the nodes in the corner. When you have it the way you want move to your TOOL OPTIONS PALETTE and hit the green APPLY arrow

And that's it. We're finished!

Upload your picture to photobucket.com and leave it for me as a comment. Okay, you don't have to do that – but you should share it with someone…

So, don't you feel like you've accomplished something? I know I sure do – wow, this is long – even for me.

Fav song of the Moment – "We Are" – Vertical Horizon

Giveaway from Faithfully Feminine

2011-01-21T20:34:00.000-06:00

so, I'm almost too late, but I like o slide in at the last minute. there's a giveaway going on at the Faithfully Feminine blog.You can click the spiffy button below for the details:

As part of the contest, I have to answer some questions, so here goes:

1: Why do you blog?
I blog because I enjoy it. I started out blogging to a circle of friends, and that's still how I look at it.

2: What is your favorite meal?
Pot stickers and fried rice.

3: Name one thing you like about my blog.

It looks so pretty!

4: Name one thing you dislike about my blog.
The header is a little large....

5: What is your favorite book?

That's a tough one. One of my Favorites books is My Sweet Audrina by VC Andrews. Another is the Complete Edgar Allen Poe.

6: What is your favorite song?
Wicked Game by HIM

7: MP3 or iPod?
MP3

8: TV or Movie?
Movie. There's not much on TV. In fact, we don;t even GET TV. We don't have satelite or cable, and wenever got around to buying a digital box. I guess that makes us wierd. We have Netflix, though.

9: Ice cream or Cookies?
Ice cream.

10: Action or Romance?
Action with a side of Romance ;)

Don't forget to enter - if you're fast! The prize is a makeover by My Design Girl. I'm all for a blog makeover, and she does beautiful stuff!

Some Random Wintery Photos

2011-01-21T05:39:00.000-06:00

The only new blog content I've been creating lately are a handful of random posts on the author blog and the short vampire stories, which I see no need to post in a bazillion places. You can read them on either the Ramblings from the Darkness blog, the Amaranthine Night blog, or on MySpace. How many places do they need to be?

So, in the interest of posting something here, I thought I'd bore you with some photos. I have some cool ones on my camera card still from a snowy cemetery at night (hopefully they turned out) but have yet to take them off, so you get some from last month that I never got a chance to post. What fun...

Cold, huh? Yeah, and you know what? It's still freaking cold!! I took a video to prove it, but I can't get my friggin' phone to upload it. It errors out at 15%. I dunno why, but it only uploaded a video once, and has never done so again. :(

Song playing at the Moment - "Beautiful" - HIM

2011-01-14T06:09:00.000-06:00

I figure it's about time I post something over here. I'm writing a series of short vampire stories, but as I am already bposting them on MySpace, my new personal wordpress blog (http://ramblingsfromthedarkness.wordpress.com) and my Vampire/author blog (http://joleenenaylor.wordpress.com) I rthought I'd skip putting them here. how many copies do I need out there of the same stories?

I've been working on the third Amaranthine book, Ties of blood - well, sort of. Mainly I've been doing book covers. I know, I said I was going to take a break, but they pay the bills, if you know what I mean, and I like heat and food. Everyone says "well, you should be able to make a living from your writing", but I have to stop and say "why?" If I really get with the program, I can write a book in a month, say three hours a day. Then if I were to work at it and not screw off, I could edit it in a week, do the cover in a few hours, etc. So, add all those hours up and tell me why I should be able to support a family for a year on the income from that small amount of output? Yeah, writing is hard work, but it's also self fullfilling work. Art has always been a self fullfilling field, not one to get rich in. I think soemtimes people forget that. If you want to be rich go to college and get a business/computer/something els e boring degree. If you want to stretch yourself between bills, but be happy, then go for an art related job. They don;t call them starving artists for nothing...

Enough rambling there. How about some more book covers then, eh?

Picture by me - trivia: That's my dad's gun, but it doesn't work. he bought it when he was in the airforce and it had to go into storage (I forget the real term for it) and the airforce guys in charge of the place played cowboys with it and dry fired it. beat it up so bad that if you tried to actually use it you'd probably get it blown up in your face.

Picture by NASA - that is the God's Eye Nebula. Awesome, huh?

Version 2 - don't ask me:

I won;t comment. Money spends the same the second time around.

Some fun computer art. Eyecandy for the flames - ooh yeah!

photos from Dreamstime. (too lazy to look and see who)

Fun with zombie cheerleaders. Art by me

photo from dreamstime.

And my eyes are now so blury that I can't read the screen, so I need to go to bed.

Night!

Song playing at the moment - "Come Home" - Placebo

2010 - In Pictures

2011-01-14T06:04:00.000-06:00

This should have posted the second... whoops...

what am I going to do today? I’ve decided that since it’s the New Year (and because Marvin says so) I need to impart some pearls of wisdom to everyone. Problem is, I don’t know that I have any. Take two and call me in the morning sounds pretty sage, but if you call me I probably won’t answer. Yeah, I have a phone phobia. Normal? No, but I don’t care. That’s the beauty of only spending time around other weirdoes (no offense intended guys). We all have oddball crap, so any one person’s particular eccentricity doesn’t seem so odd. Besides, the strange things just make us all cooler.

And yeah, though I just turned 31, I’m still pretty cool. That’s one thing with having your birthday right before New Years; it really is the start of the year all the way around for me. I suppose I ought to do some kind of introspective thinking, but I don’t feel like it this year. I have too much other stuff to do.

This leaves me wondering what to do with the “New Years blog”. It’s an expected posting, something that bloggers the world over do, but since it’s directions not included with the expectations, I’ll have to come up with something cheesy. In past years I’ve done my favorite bloggers, my year of “firsts”, my “already accomplished New Year’s resolutions” , etc. The logical thing to do this year is something with my books or my cover art, since I need to promote those, but I don’t want to do the logical thing. And then, Myke suggested on facebook that I should do a Photoblog of my New Years’ Eve, but it wasn’t photo worthy, however, I do love a good photo blog, so….

My favorite Photos of 2010

(links take you to that month’s collection on Flickr)

January 2010:

The new dog:

These are just cool:

February 2010

Rain on the vine:

Mitchell’s Campground cemetery:

Old wood:

March 2010

Visiting grandma Naylor:

Red tailed hawk:

April 2010

A gun, a mirror and an idiot – you do the math:

Dad shines a little light on the situation:

Pretty:

May 2010

Creepy bug:

Sunset swan:

Textures:

June 2010

Father’s Day:

Neat sky over wal-mart

Neighbor’s flowers:

Wild chicory:

July 2010

Our highway is now deserted:

Awesome clouds:

Fourth of July

Wall madness

August 2010

Dying summer

With retro camera ap for Android cool effects are only a click away

September 2010

Empty (yes it’s the same chair again)

Decimated:

More ap fun:

October 2010

Happy anniversary:

Halloween:

Autumn

November 2010

Branson:

Marvin’s side business (when he’s not taking over earth or running blogophilia)

Autumn at the park:

Frost on the windshield:

Yellow:

December 2010

Eclipse:

Our tree

This is frost that was standing straight up like a forest:

Ice:

After going through these photos it’s amazing how many of these photos were only taken because I had to stop working and take the dog out, and also how many things I can think of that I missed photographing! Lesson one: Always take a camera. Lesson two: You gotta take a break now and then, or you miss all the little wonders of the world.

Now that’s a pearl of wisdom!

Have a great 2011 everyone!!

Song playing at the moment – “Without You I’m Nothing” – Placebo

January 2011 Newsletter

2011-01-04T00:00:00.002-06:00

Don't reply to this email - for some reason it won't go through. To contact me please send a new message to Joleene@JoleeneNaylor.com Thanks!

Happy 2011! You may have noticed there was no December Newsletter, so this one is going to pull double duty, I'm afraid. Aren't you excited?

December was a good month on a lot of levels. In the Amaranthine world, I have joined with a group of fellow authors at Indie Authors Unite. Links will be forthcoming when things are finalized. Also, participating in a Holiday sale and doing a Promotional two-day book giveaway shot Shades of Gray sales to the highest they have ever been (not counting the free downloads on smashwords!). I owe a lot of that credit to my fellow authors who have all been chipping in and helping to promote one another.

Another cool thing in December was my author interview at Sinister Echoes. Alannah asked some great questions and we had a lot of fun. If you missed it, check it out.

So what does January have in store? I will be working on the third installment of the series Ties of Blood, as well as a short story project. because of this, I am going to be very slow where book covers are concerned, and in fact I may have to turn some down. I hate the idea of doing that, but I really need to take a month and focus on my writing. I may change my inbox to send a form mail saying something to this effect.

Also, january may well bring about the first book of my friend Jonathan Harvey, aka Jissilly. He has slaved long and hard over Shades of Plaid: A Very Unconventional Weekly Journey Into Christian Living. More details when I have them!

Another exciting thing is the new Daily Samples I will be hosting on my blog. This will be samples from other authors, so that you can get to know their work, too, and maybe find something you like. The first one is already been posted, and if you're interested in sending me a sample, then please see my blog post with all the instructions.

In return, samples of Shades of Gray have been posted on other author's blogs. So far it has been featured by Ashlynn Monroe, Linda Prather, and Valerie Maarten. Each one has a different excerpt, so be sure to stop by them all!

All this talk about the third book makes me feel like I should mention the second book. Yes, if you missed it, Legacy of Ghosts, the second installment in the Amaranthine series, is available for purchase! You can pick up your digital copy at Smashwords or Amazon Kindle, or grab a paper back. If you're interested in an autographed copy then drop me a line at Joleene@JoleeneNaylor.com.

After the events of Shades of Gray, Katelina seeks peace with Jorick, but it’s hard to come by in a world shrouded in secrets and threatened by a brewing storm. Though Kateesha plans to fight the same battle as Jorick’s fledgling, a common enemy isn’t enough to overcome past betrayals, and the tempest explodes into a violent frenzy. Drawn into a deathly conflict, Jorick and Katelina must learn to overcome old regrets, or risk losing their future to the ghosts of their past.

Legacy of Ghosts, the second installment of the Amaranthine series, plunges back into a world of blood and cruelty where the darkness hold dominion and vampires don’t sparkle.

You can read sample chapters at http://joleenenaylor.wordpress.com/ in either whole chapter format or in tiny, blog sized nuggets. Yeah, I'm all about choice.

And why should DVD's have all the fun? Check out "The Lost Chapters" - aka the "deleted" scenes from Legacy of Ghosts. Stop by and enjoy a snippet of pointless vampire fun!

Now, let's get on to the

Random Fun

The Interesting link: Don't Click It Why? because there is nothing to click on this site. An experiment by the institute of interactive research, the interface is designed to give the user several example scenarios and determine whether they miss - or don't miss - the click. Think your smart phone touch screen, only with a mouse and no tapping. The Explore section is especially cool. See if you can not click for your whole visit.

The Lots-O-Fun link: Free Rice So there's a good chance that your playing does not feed the hungry, however, the game is addictive anyway. What is it? Basically it's multiple choice vocabulary questions that go something like:"Basic means" 1-happy 2-friendly 3-flat 4- no frills. sound easy? Oh, it is - then they throw out words like verisimilitude. I made it to level 39 of 60. No good at English? there is also Art, Math, Chemistry, Geometry and Language learning to choose from. A fun time killer!

The Read of the month: Halloween's Perfect Storm by LC Cooper Halloween is never out of season, especially with this amusing short story about a surprise Halloween haunting. A free read.

The Music of the month: It Doesn't feel Like Christmas by Toad the Wet SprocketOkay, so it's one song, and okay, Christmas is over, but come on! It's free Toad, people! Toad! who doesn't love them some Toad? Huh? Huh? No sign ups or user names, just click the download button, enter your email address and follow the link they send you.

The Video of the month: Cruel, Cruel Moon song by Paul & Storm, video by Mike Spiff Booth. Sent to me by Jonathan - aka Jissilly - this is a fun, lighthearted and funny song about a big, shiny moon that transforms the singer's significant into a werewolf so that he fears she may kill him. Fun for the whole family!

(if you have suggestions for the links of the month please email them to me at joleene@joleenenaylor.com – you will be credited by whatever name you choose.)

My Updates

WANTED

I am currently looking for some Affiliates to trade links with. If you have a website and would be interested please let me know!

Looking for Reader Reviews! Have you read the book? Did you like it? Did you hate it? Well write a blurb and let the world know what you think! Please send all reviews to joleene@joleenenaylor.com and I'll post them on the site!

The Terrible Turtle Conspiracy:

The Terrible Turtle Conspiracy is a weekly manga/comic written by Jonathan Harvey and illustrated by Joleene Naylor that tells the story of the giant turtle attack in Tuttlesville and the interconnected aftermath.

THE BIG NEWS: http://TerribleTurtles.com is LIVE!

Due to changes in Myspace blogging, the Terrible Turtle Conspiracy has moved to a new home at http://TerribleTurtles.com. You can subscribe via email to have the latest comic page sent straight to your inbox, or you can read through older comics including the first four chapters, the holiday specials and the ever amazing "I am a Part of the TTTC" special one page promo comics! Come join the fun at http://TerribleTurtles.com!

In October we continued Chapter 5: Missing, in which Harold's friend Rich hires a detective to find his missing friends, but the investigation gets weirder by the minute...
Read Chapter Five!

And don't forget the super special 14 page bonus Holiday comic, chock full of turtle dogs, samurai gerbils, and lots of mayhem!

The comic will still be posted on Blogspot as well - Chapter Five - but the official website is certainly superior!

Website Updates

I have finally managed to updated the Cover Art Frequently Asked Questions in an effort to better serve authors seeking book cover art. I have also updated my website at www.JoleeneNaylor.com.

Check the Links Page for several new links to writers blogs and/or websites. There are some great authors to discover!

I added two flash fiction stories to the Flash Fiction section. The Junior Warlock of Mapleleaf Drive pits a teenage warlock against his neighbor's evil dog, meanwhile in Attic Treasure Alex finds an old purple quill in the family attic, but harmless fun turns tragic when he and his sister try to use it.

I also added two poems to the Poetry section. Raven Darkness and Something Golden.

The Book Cover Gallery saw the addition of twenty-four new covers including some thrillers, romance, historical, and even sci-fi.

I've also added 16 new photos. Here’s a sneak peek at a couple of them:

Flickr Updates

In the last two months I added the following albums to my Flickr account. All of my photography is licensed under Creative Commons license unless otherwise noted. You do not need a Flickr account to view these. Clicking on the links will take you to a photo album with thumbnails.

Misc November 2010
10 photos of rain drops, the moon and my new book.

Branson, Missouri
80 photos of Branson including Christmas lights, landmarks , bridges, and rock faces

Frost
13 close up photos of frost.

Autumn
52 photos of leaves, weeds, trees and a pumpkin

December Snow
29 photos of snow and frost

December Misc
5 photos of the eclipse

Blue Christmas
18 photos of our blue and silver Christmas Tree

Blog Updates:

AMARANTHINE NIGHT (AUTHOR BLOG)

Lost Chapters: The Black Clique
Jorick explains to Katelina why Vampires prefer black.

Lost Chapters 3: Ask and You Shall Receive
Katelina and Jorick discuss Loren's history

Just in Case
You never know when you might need to defend yourself against a vampire...

In an Alternate Universe Part 1
Fan fiction written by Jonathan Harvey

Lost Chapters 4: Jorick of Oz
Who knew Jorick wouldn't find a snowball amusing?

In an Alternate Universe Part 2
A second fan fiction written by Jonathan Harvey

In an Alternate Universe Part 3
After two rounds of Jonathan Harvey fan fiction, Jorick revolts.

Lost Chapters 5: They Say
The story of where the coffins come from

Smashwords explained
Smashwords eBook publishing explained for Readers and Authors

Lost Chapters 6: That Would be Cheating
The finer points of mind control in battle.

Seven Author Principles
Written off of the article Seven Principles to Build a Great social Network

Six Sentence Sunday
Six sentences from Shades of Gray for the weekly blog event

Vampires Get Depressed, Too
A fun YouTube video

The New Google eBooks program
Google eBooks explained.

Holiday Sale
Multi Author, Multi Genre event

Six Sentence Sunday
Six more sentences from Shades of Gray for the weekly blog event

Join Me
For an awesome author interview on Alannah's blog, Sinister Echoes!

Lost Beginning
The original beginning for book 3: Ties of Blood

New Beginning
The new, unedited version of Ties of Blood

Vampire Paper Dolls
A very cool set of vampire paper dolls from Dover.

Author Excerpts
Now accepting samples of authors work to post on my blog through the month of January

Eternal Gift by Ashlynn Monroe
An excerpt of Ashlynn's paranormal erotica, Eternal Gift

FROM THE SHADOWS - BLOGSPOT (WRITING, ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY)

Legacy of Revolt
Short Story. After I loan my characters to Jonathan, they revolt!

More Book Covers
Book Covers for The Gypsy, You're Next, Adaire Park, & Before You

The Party
A silly short story about a costume party that goes horribly wrong

Book Covers Round 2
Book Covers for Monster Story, The Shoestring Greeting Card Company, Uncommon Bond & Here Begin the Lessons.

Even More Book Covers
Covers for Photographing Love, The Blooms Between Death and Reincarnation, Owner's Manual for Injury Prevention, Insatiable Love, The Cry of the Morning Glory, Siddhartha Gautama, The Pleasure of Rustics & An Anthology of Deady Mysteries.

A Couple More Book Covers
Covers for The Hill and Alien Challenge

Internet Ramblings
Fun things I've found online and a poem about the color red

Anatomy of a Book Cover
The Book cover for The Voices of Cellar's Bridge: Katherine's Hop from sketch to finish. Also featuring a poem about the color orange.
A Question of Evil
A silly short story about a vacuum salesman's bad day

Another Batch of Book Covers
Book covers for Bramdean, Shades of Plaid, Advertising for Love, You and None Other, and Don't Murder Maria.

MYSPACE (PERSONAL BLOG)

Legacy of Ghosts - Chapter 1
Chapter 1 of the new novel

Legacy of Ghosts - Chapter 2
Chapter 2 of the new novel

Legacy of Ghosts - Chapter 3
Chapter 3 of the new novel

Legacy of Revolt
After I let Jonathan Harvey write a story with Jorick and Katelina, my characters revolt.

The Party
A short silly story about a costume party that ends in unforeseen disaster

Where's the Respect?
After comments from MySpace's marketing department that bloggers don't make up a high enough percentage to count, some of us are understandably upset...

War
The MySpace battles rage on.

Poets Round Table: Openings
A roundtable poem about the rescued miners that I contributed a stanza to

Blogophilia 3.0
Testing the new platform and photos of fun with hats

Supplier Shortage
A silly short story. The Vampires' King is dead and, worse, they are out of kittens!

Internet Randomness
Some interesting things I ran into online and a poem for the CPC Simple Sunday

Anatomy of a Book Cover
While other people wrote books for NaNoWriMo, I did a cover...

Random and Boring
Exactly what it says. featuring three videos of our trip to Branson

Blogophilia 43.3
More boring yack. featuring book covers.

RAMBLINGS FROM THE DARKNESS 2.0 (PERSONAL BLOG ON WORDPRESS)

Testing This Out
I am making an effort to move my personal blog from Myspace to wordpress - one post at a time.

Bubble Wrap
A rant about over protecting children

Destiny and Rice Crispies
The story of how Rice Crispies changed my life....

Blogophilia 43.3
Random holiday yacking. Featuring Random Book Covers

The Scanner Saga
After a computer upgrade my scanner suddenly doesn't work...

A Visit from the Relatives
There's nothing like family...

Demon's Freedom
Flash Fiction. A demon gets his freedom from the family line that commands him.

TTTC Special message
A special Merry Christmas from Jo and Jonathan

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Yahoo Groups
A take off of the famous Kindergarten list

Ranting
A rant about people's need to slam one another down

Laundry Theft
A funny rant about a seriously aggravating incident: someone steals a load of my clothes from the laundromat

COMING NEXT MONTH:

Projects I hope to finish in January are

Legacy of Ghosts Trailer
Pick a personal blogging site
book covers for other people
The rough draft of Amaranthine Book 3: Ties of Blood
The special Bonus comic for the super secret TTTC Publishing Project
I wouldn't mind finishing up some other misc artwork, but we'll see about that

If you have ideas or suggestions on what could make this newsletter better, or just want to give me your opinion on something, drop me a line at Joleene@joleenenaylor.com.

If you would like to unsubscribe from this mailing, please send a mail to Joleene@joleenenaylor.com with the subject UNSUBSCRIBE.

Have a great month and a great year!

Jo :D

A special TTTC Christmas Message....

2010-12-24T07:54:00.000-06:00

Click the images above to see what diabolic gifts Day & Dark has planned in a 13 page Christmassy Special!

visit http://TerribleTurtles.com

Another Batch of Book Covers

2010-12-17T06:22:00.001-06:00

Sometimes I feel like this is all I post. I have two more I am working on and after those I am taking a break through Christmas - unless it's for Jerry or is something super amazing I can't pass up. I need to get caught up on some things!

The author provided all the images except for the studly hunk who happens to be... my husband! Ha! I used an image of him when he was 21. I need to scan off all my old photos someday... I think this needed something more, but that's me.

This is for my good friend - and partner in all things silly - Jonathan. You can check out his website at http://JisSilly.com for info on the fun, upcoming book. I will do more on it later when it's available to purchase.

There was another version of this that I liked better, but I know that as a thumbnail it wouldn't have worked well because the title didn't show up. Still, I loved the white with a splash of color:

see?

This one also had an alternate that I liked better, but it's not up to me, it's up to the author.

and now...

The fire image is mine - I believe it's steal wool burning, but it might be our bbq. I had to create the jitter font effect manually, but I liked it. it's a time travel piece, so I wanted it to look "echoey".

And last I have a bit I did for a cover, but I haven;t heard back from the author, so I dunno. if I don;t soon I may use this elsewhere because I really like it:

And that's it. I am outta here ;)

Song going through my head - "If I Could be Like That" - Three Doors Down

A Question of Evil - short story

2010-12-16T04:39:00.000-06:00

I've been filling in all week for Jonathan at the Word of the Day blog, and that includes writing this week's silly story.....

A Question of Evil

“And that,” The newscaster concluded, “has been the fifth blender murder this week.”

The words caught Todd’s attention, and he paused to peer over his roommate’s shoulder at the television screen. “Did she say ‘blender murder’?”

“Yeah,” Martin answered. “There’s a maniac murdering helpless blenders. He sneaks into their house, leaves a not that says ‘I hate the taste of lime!’ and then chucks the blender out the window.” He pointed to an image of a ruined blender flashing past on the TV. “Look at all its poor little guts just strewn about all over the sidewalk. Oh! The humanity!”

“Um right.” Todd took a step back. Martin just hadn’t been the same since he’d come home with purple hair. Maybe the dye had leaked into his brain or something. “I’m going to go to work now.”

“All right.” Martin sniffled and dabbed his eyes. “Just be careful.”

“Um, okay.”

Todd tried hard to shake off the morning’s weirdness. He headed to the office to pick up his vacuum cleaner and his case of supplies. Once he was there, his boss took a moment to remind him that if he didn’t sell a vacuum cleaner today, then he wouldn’t get a paycheck for the week. Todd always appreciated when his boss took the time make his bad day worse.

But that was just the beginning.

Todd didn’t sell any vacuum cleaners all morning, though he did get half of a salsa lesson from a black haired dancing girl – until her husband came home in the middle of it. Todd explained that he was just a vacuum salesman, he even tried showing the guy the vacuum (and hiding behind it), but he still ended up with a black eye before he could make it out of the house.

“Go back to the devil, you vacuum salesman!” the guy shouted and waved his fist before he slammed the door.

Todd wanted to eat lunch, but he only had enough change for a glass of ice, which the cashier suggested he should eat outside. He was sitting on the curb, crunching his frozen ice cubes, when a neatly dressed fellow carrying a heavy case came to a stop next to him.

“Hello,” the guy said affably, then nodded to the vacuum. “A fellow salesman?”

“Um… yeah.” Todd gave the guy a once over. He wasn’t sure about getting too friendly with the competition.

“I sell encyclopedias,” the guy explained. “My name’s Bob.”

“Oh, hi Bob. I’m Todd, and I sell vacuums. Or at least I’m supposed to sell vacuums, but mainly I just carry this thing around a lot and use up hundreds of little white filters.”

Bob nodded sympathetically and took a seat next to him. “I feel your pain. This is a tough town. It’s the kind of place that could drive a guy mad. Just last week one of my coworkers snapped.”

“Really?” Todd wasn’t interested, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Yeah. It was after he went to this one house… I forget the address. Anyway, he tried to sell them some encyclopedias, but he said the coffee pot kept laughing at him. And then this blender salesman showed up with some fancy routine. He made them all lime smoothies-“ Bob’s voice dropped low so that Todd had to lean close to hear. “I hear that guy can blend a whole lime in his display blender just like that!” He snapped his fingers, and Todd jumped back. “Anyway, so this co worker said that the coffee pot told him that all blenders must die. He ran out of there so fast that he didn’t even take his case with him. I have to go pick it up today.”

“Oh.” Todd crunched his ice in what he hoped was an interested and absorbed way. “That sounds weird.”

“I know! And then there’s been all these blender murders.” Bob tapped the side of his head knowingly. “It makes you think, doesn’t it?”

Todd stopped crunching his ice as a realization struck him. “You mean that your crazy coworker is the blender murderer?”

Bob looked at Todd as if he’d fallen off a truck of used potatoes. “Noooooo. Why would you think that?”

“Well, he said blenders must die…” Todd trailed off. “Never mind.”

“I was going to say it makes you think that maybe there is something evil about kitchen appliances. I mean just look at them. They all look like they’re sneering. I bet even that vacuum cleaner looks evil.”

Todd closed his eyes and opened them again, but Bob was still there and the conversation was still happening. “My vacuum cleaner isn’t evil-“

Before he could finish his sentence, Bob unpacked the vacuum cleaner and made a triumphant sound. “If it’s not evil then why does it have horns? Huh? Look! Look!”

“Those aren’t horns,” he tried to explain patiently as he pulled the machine away from the lunatic and tried to pack it back in the box. “Those are patented, convenient wrapping nubs. You wrap the cord around them to keep it tangle free. No untangling the cord with a De-veel vacuum cleaner.”

Bob didn’t look convinced. In fact, he tried to voice that opinion, but Todd was tired and he didn’t feel like listening, so he packed up his vacuum and trudged off. As if his boss and his black eye wasn’t bad enough, he had to run into the cuckoo of the encyclopedia salesmen.

But Todd’s bad day turned around. It was his last stop, and he had to use up all of his little white filters, but he managed to sell a vacuum cleaner to a little old lady named Delores. She signed all the paper work, paid all the fees, and Todd arrived back at the office short one vacuum cleaner and one contract richer.

“So, you sold one?” his boss asked skeptically. “Or did you give it away?”

“I sold it!” Todd snapped and dropped the signed, sealed contract packet on the desk. “Along with a full package.”

The boss opened the envelope and flipped through the contents, muttering to himself, “One year warranty, yadda yadda yadda, extended leakage protection, yadda yadda yadda, hypo allergenic cat groomer attachment, yadd yadda yadda, one soul, yadda yadda yadda.” He broke off and grinned at Todd. “Good job, kid. Looks like you’ll be getting that paycheck now.”

Todd waited by the desk while his boss went to cut him a paycheck. The phone rang and when no one came to answer it, Todd decided he'd better.

“Hello, six-sixty-six vacuum cleaners, satisfaction guaranteed or your soul back. This is Todd, how can I help you?”

“Oh hey, it’s Martin. Could you grab a bag of ice on your way home? I just bought this really cool blender….”

Anatomy of a Book Cover

2010-12-04T03:44:00.002-06:00

Things have just been insane around my house this week. I have two book covers waiting approval, a third I am in the middle of, and two more in my inbox waiting to be addressed. I am in the midst of some plaid editing (You still don’t know what that is? that’s coz you didn’t go look, did you?) and I’ve gotten involved with a group of indie authors on Facebook. It started out as the Black Friday sale, and has now expanded into a full on Holiday sale - check out the cheap reads here: http://www.amazon.com/lm/R1108DUARP28EE/ . We’re also discussing a kind of informal Facebook group to help one another out and such. You can go take a look at that too here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=142302989147609& . I haven’t updated my website yet, or even started the December newsletter and then we’re having our family Thanksgiving tomorrow (Saturday) so my productivity is bound to be pretty low. People ask me “How do you do it all?” Answer: I don’t. If advice is what we ask for, then let me give you some. Pick one thing and stick to it. This multiple project life is for the birds.

Of course, I intend to ignore that advice and keep stretching myself thin because I refuse to give any of it up. Just sayin’.

On a side note, a funny thing happened to me today. Well, it’s funny in a sick way. I will probably have to give a deposition over the phone in the next few days to prove I was not having a “secret relationship” with someone - or they could end up going to jail. Seriously. I feel like such a vixen. Interestingly enough, it is because they helped me with my first book some time back that has brought it all about. So does this mean that I can say “read the book that almost put one man in jail”? Oh for the way we were when the world made any flippin’ sense!

Now that I’ve bored everyone beyond tears, I am going to bore you further. NaNoWriMo, which means National Novel writing Month , is held every November and writers all over the world try to get 50,000 words out before December first. I didn’t have enough time to write, but I did get to participate in a way with LC Cooper. She wrote The Voices of Cellar’s Bridge: Katherin’s Hope for NaNoWriMo, uploading the “in progress” file to Smashwords every day, and so instead of just sitting down one weekend and zooming through the cover, I also did it in progress stages so that readers could watch both the cover and the book grow. It was a very cool project, but alas all good things come to an end and it is now finished. However, for your viewing enjoyment, here are the six stages:

As often happens, the concept was the author’s idea; I just drew what she asked. Here is the original sketch that , yes, is on tiny notepaper as I drew it during a Dr. Who break while I was at my brother’s house.

Scanned and slapped over my handy dandy template, I started by blocking in the bridge in art media. Art media in Paint shop pro can imitate many different things like markers, pastels and more, but I usually use the oil paint, as I did here.

The sky in this version is actually a photograph with some blurry filters applied and is actually the same sky I used in the Butcher Harbor cover a few months ago. Another sneaky thing I did was with the charred wood texture. Looks pretty real, huh? That’s because it is. As luck would have it, I had just recently taken some photos of charred wood in the neighbor’s burn pile, so I chopped out a rectangular section of it and pasted that into a new layer and set it to Overlay. Yes, I’m giving away all of my secrets here, so take notes.

Here the title got fixed, and you can see there’s more charred wood texture applied, as well as a sand texture (done the same way!) and a grass texture on that cliff top out there. Both the sand and grass are from photos I took in Virginia Beach a couple of years ago.

And then I did the same thing to the weeds with a photo I took in College springs, Iowa, and added the smoke in the background with the ever cool Eye Candy plugin (seriously, they were worth the $200 I spent on them!) and then blocked in some misty-ness. But don’t get attached to it, because…

We’re all done and a lot of the mist went. I did add some foam at the base of everything and textured the rock with some photos from along the side of the highway. We also opted to add a red glow inside the bridge that represents elements in the story.

If anyone is interested in the book, which looks pretty interesting, to me, you can get it on Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/28720

Wasn’t that exciting? And now it’s time for the segment I like to call Random Things from My Hard Drives.

I haven’t taken any photos off since October, so I thought I would instead share a poem I wrote on request about the color Orange.

Orange
Light breaks over the horizon
like juice in a cup so bright
the yummy goodness is impossible to ignore
so bright and friendly
how can anyone be hysterical
while drinking of the citrus
even if they added
cloves to the juice
that is
orange.

(It was inspired by the same conversation that inspired Jonathan’s Blogophilia entry this week, so I thought it was appropriate! And yes, it is supposed to be weird.)

Fav song of the moment - Sail Away with Me - Sunrise Avenue

Internet Ramblings

2010-11-29T06:36:00.000-06:00

I am supposed to be posting Spiffy Old Stuff, working on the newsletter, updating my website, working on a cover, drawing icons for Lowell and probably twenty other things, but I’m ducking out for a moment to post a random blog (hence that random banner up there).

I have to say all this social networking/MySpace disaster has really cut into my productivity lately. Between having to now actually DO things on Facebook and playing with MyBoomerPlace, as well as trying to figure out 3.0… well, let’s just say it’s taking a lot of friggin’ time. I wish they’d done this back in May when I had free time (Did I have free time in May? Does anyone remember?) Anyway, I’m going to make myself a test profile on MySpace, I think, and try to see what I can do with the profile/blogs because I refuse to upgrade this one until I know what I am doing with it. Speaking of other blogging sites, I’m going to tri-post this with MySpace and MyBoomerPlace. . ( MySpace: http://myspace.com/joleene_naylor MyBoomerPlace: http://myboomerplace.com/user/joleene_naylor/blogs )

Speaking of the MySpace mess, this is what I got in the mail the other day from them:

(Click photo to see full size)

I tend to link everything together (Flickr, Youtube, Facebook, twitter, Mysapce, you name it!) but I think I’m opting out of this one. It looks like it’s just an excuse to clutter up the stream some more. And speaking of things I’m not going to do, I got this the other day, too:

(click image to get full size)

Yes, this IS an email wanting me to expand my bandwidth on Diagonalley.5u.com - a website I bet you didn’t even know I had because I abandoned it years ago! Not that it wasn’t a cool idea, but it seemed to be too confusing for other people to participate and I moved on to a new hobby other than website building, so it just got left in the dust. I can’t imagine why it’s suddenly getting traffic! Though it had a peak a couple years ago when someone took the “find your wand” quiz and put it on their Facebook. I know it had an increase in traffic because I had a wave of complaint letters from people who didn’t like the quiz questions, who didn’t like their results, etc. etc. By the end of it I was so annoyed that I let other people write the replies back for me because I was sick of saying “Thanks for the feedback, but this is a free quiz on a website I’ve stopped updating. Thanks.” And then I quit answering them altogether.

Speaking of answering odd emails, I got a funny one last weekend:

No idea who she is, or why she thought I was at lunch. I replied back and said “I wasn’t at lunch, I took a whole day off!”, but I haven’t gotten an answer to that. Oh well, it made me amused for a moment. Though Uncle Sam is not amused, it seems. Apparently over 70 some domains have been seized by the US government - mainly torrent download sites, from what I understand - for participating in copyright infringement:

(Click for full size image)

If you want to see this in person, one site that the article listed (and the site I screen capped) is http://torrent-finder.com/ . Though the logos are all catchy, I think Uncle Sam went a bit crazy with the drop shadow. Yes, I am critiquing the design of the official, scary notices. Just because they are scary, official notices doesn’t mean they shouldn’t look their best!

And speaking of making things look their best, there’s a pretty cool new… erm, site I guess you’d say at http://www.yohdr.com/ .

(stolen from their site)

HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography is a technique used to create photographs of scenes with both very bright and very dark sections without the result becoming either washed out or too dark. Done right the results can be quite spectacular.

This is accomplished by taking multiple photos of the same scene with different exposure times. These separate photos are then combined in a smart way to create a result that has good exposure across the entire image.

Of course I had to try this out. Since I was in a hurry I didn’t actually take three photos of the same thing with different exposures (like you’re supposed to!) instead I edited three photos curves to get a close semblance to three exposures:

Then I uploaded them in the super easy uploader and it gave me this result:

Since the ground is just a black silhouette, this wasn’t the best choice of a test photo, but I was in a hurry. Still, I was happy with the results as, editing the photo myself back in July, this is what I came up with:

And that’s all the randomness I have for now… What? You want more? Well aren’t you lucky that it’s time for the segment I like to call “Random Things from my Hard Drives”?

Tonight’s segment is a little off the cuff I did for Simple Sunday at the CPC. The piece was inspired by Guylane’s artwork “My Life in Red”:

Red,
fire streaks the dawn,
like blood of champions that drips unheeded
between the cracks of last night's dreams.
Half forgotten in the mist of morning ,
voices whisper and shadows flee ,
chased away by the rising sun .
In the day the night's demon cannot stay,
but must hide in all the spaces
beneath the floor, behind the door,
where the golden rays cannot reach them.
But when the darkness returns
and the shadows stretch,
they'll creep forth once more
to whisper visions into the ears
of the unwary,
weaving threads of nightmares
while the sun sinks in streaks of golden fire,
colored like the blood of champions,
Red

Fav song(s) of the moment - “Fairytale Gone Bad” & “Sail Away With Me” - Sunrise Avenue

A couple more Book Covers

2010-11-29T02:17:00.002-06:00

There's one more waiting for approval, and that should be a wrap for November. In the meantime, please enjoy these two spiffy covers:

The capitol building and stethoscope come from wikimedia commons (A fantastic place for finding public domain images!) and the gun is mine. If anyone is curious what that particular gun does to a mirror, you can see it here:

It's a long story, but it involves an idiot, in case you ca';t guess that....

Anyway, for number two:

The alien and the spaceship comes from the much pricier fotosearch.com, while that cool fire from the ship is by Patrick Hoesly. But what about the background, you ask? well, that's actually mine :p

And that's all I got for now.

Fav song of the moment - "Fairytale gone bad" -Sunrise Avenue

Even More Book Covers

2010-11-25T05:45:00.001-06:00

It's been a busy month!

(the background is actually a texture I use for manga work usually, overlayed with some flowers photos I took last spring and the couple comes from Stanislav Popov

Some more pink flowers from the same month as the ones above. Hee-hee.

(no yellow stripe on the final. It's just there to show where the spine is)

(The photo is actually from the zoo in Arizona - I 'shopped out a couple of birds that were in the way ;) )

(Another Arizona picture on the bottom - though this one was a sunset - and the wild rose I took this summer. had fun playing with curves and levels and such to get this look. Kind of feels "California" to me for some reason.)

(Actually an image of a pine tree at the ducky pond that I warped all to heck!)

(Just a pretty raindrop on leaves photo. I have a ton of those.)

And had to draw this one, obviously. I looked up a tutorial for making hair and needless to say the end result was not at all as good as the tutorial's examples. Ah well.

Working on four more right now, hopefully will have them done by the end of the month. it's been busy, busy, busy!

Fav song of the moment - "Fairytale Gone Bad" - Sunrise Avenue

Black Friday Sale!

2010-11-25T00:48:00.004-06:00

Black Friday isn't just for toaster ovens and winter coats, now you can get also get special deals on ebooks for your Kindle.

Click here for the list of Amazon ebook deals!

Follow the link above and check out the special holiday price of just $.99 on a list of Kindle books, including Shades of Gray and 101 Tips for Traveling with a Vampire.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Book Covers round 2

2010-11-12T16:36:00.002-06:00

I have five more, but that's good for today.