Save 15% on all T-shirts from Retropolis, The Celtic Art Works, and the Pulp-O-Mizer

Filed under Works in Progress

So, here’s the deal: in an apparent commemoration of Pearl Harbor Day (coming up on Monday!), you can save 15% on any T-shirt order from The Retropolis Transit Authority, The Celtic Art Works, or the Pulp-O-Mizer. The sale runs through Monday the 7th. All you have to do is enter the coupon code MERRY15 during your checkout.

And since the sale is running on all my T-shirts, you can combine a whole bunch of shirts from all three of those places and slash a mind-melting 15% off the whole order.

I’d like that; in fact, I wish you’d consider just getting one of everything. But the actual real-world beauty of this sale is that there is no minimum order. You can get the same reduced price on a single shirt, if you like.

But, you know, consider that one of everything idea anyway. You could cover a heck of a lot of torsos that way, believe you me.

But say you’re not shopping at one of those fine web sites because you do all your online shopping at Amazon?

Well. If you happen to be shopping at Amazon, and if maybe you just need to add a little something to get free shipping… you can take advantage of my ongoing Amazon experiment with a selection of Retropolis Transit T-shirts over there. They’re not on sale, but those (slightly lighter) shirts are already priced lower than the ones I sell myself.

Yeah, that’s the ticket. You should probably get every one of those, too.

New paperback editions of Matthew Hughes’ Fools Errant and Fool Me Twice

Filed under Works in Progress

Matthew Hughes has just published new paperback editions of his earliest Archonate novels, Fools Errant and Fool Me Twice. I’m always happy to do the layouts for his books and I’m especially happy to do the print layouts. Say what you like: I really do like paper.

As with most of Hughes’ self-published editions, the cover paintings are by Ben Baldwin. I just adapted them to the book’s shape, which I did here with knotwork borders.

From the description of Fools Errant:

Wise, witty and just a little weird, Fools Errant wryly strolls the satirical path laid down by Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and Jack Vance, heralding the brilliant debut of a gifted new voice.

Foppish young Filidor Vesh wants only to dally among his shallow pastimes. But a simple errand for his uncle, the vaguely all-powerful Archon of those parts of Old Earth still populated by human beings, becomes a frenetic odyssey across a planet speckled with eccentric nations pursuing odd aims with intense determination.

Harried at every step by the irascible dwarf, Gaskarth, and frequently at the peril of wild beasts, enraged mobs and a particularly nasty thaumaturge, Filidor makes a relucant progress toward a final encounter with an ancient and possibly world-ending evil.

Fool Me Twice continues the adventures of Filidor – who we’ll see again, in the Hapthorn novels and elsewhere – in his new position as apprentice to his uncle, the Archon. Once again we have travels to far and peculiar corners of Old Earth – in what’s remarkably like the last age before Jack Vance’s Dying Earth – while Filidor “must cope with philosophical pirates, prophet-seeking aliens, light-fingered mummers, and a tiny, bothersome voice in his left ear.”

As always, lots of fun. If you’re more of an ebook reader – I don’t judge – you can also get the books in electronic form through your favorite outlet or at Hughes’ own Archonate Bookstore.

And now, a word from our sponsor

Filed under Works in Progress

… who is me.

I know. That does seem redundant. Pretty much everything you see here is a word from me, whether or not I’m wearing my Sponsor Hat, so you could argue that it doesn’t really bear mentioning that this is A Word From Our Sponsor. On the other hand, it’s my blog (and my hat) so I’m going to call it whatever I like.

Sorry. Lost track of my thought there. The actual Word, then, is that from now through November 8th you can save a bunch of money on T-shirts from The Retropolis Transit Authority and Saga Shirts. Twenty per cent, in fact. All you have to do is add at least $30 worth of T-shirts to your shopping cart and then, when you check out, use the coupon code JOY20.

Since men’s and women’s tees are priced at $21.95, after the discount a shirt will be just $17.56: a pittance, honestly. Kids’ shirts are even a little less.

The same discount applies to T-shirts you design in the Pulp-O-Mizer. I just don’t have nifty sales banners over there. Why not? I’ll have to ask Our Sponsor.

New Retropolis calendars and a free shipping sale on t-shirts at Retropolis and The Celtic Art Works

Filed under Works in Progress

I use several different vendors for my merchandise at Retropolis and The Celtic Art Works. They often offer similar products; but when I’m deciding which to use I try to use the one that I think does the best job for that particular product.

That’s the theory. What happens, now and then (and often when I’m not looking), is that a vendor discontinues a product that I really like. If I haven’t created an alternative in advance I run around the room in frenzied circles until I’ve put together a replacement from someplace else.

That happened, recently, to the paperback blank books I used to sell. Last week I discovered that it had happened to my large wall calendars, too.

So for the past few days I have been running around in frenzied circles. The result is a new incarnation of my calendars – almost all of them. Still a little work to do at The Celtic Art Works.

For now you can find the new calendars at Retropolis.

I miss the square calendar pages from the old ones. Square pages meant that any image, whether in a portrait or a landscape orientation, would work equally well. Or equally unwell, if you want to be picky. The new calendars have pages that are wider than they are tall, so they’re not as good a fit for vertical illustrations.

But there’s an upside: they’re available in three different sizes, from a width of seven inches to fourteen inches. You can also pick whatever wire binding color you want, and even the holidays are (somewhat) configurable. Altogether, not a bad deal.

You can also select what year you want for your calendar. Which is nice, though I’m not sure how many of you buy your calendars eight years in advance. Oh, I know someone does, ’cause this is the Internet.

Other news from my online stores: for the next few days you can get free shipping on a t-shirt order of $30 or more from The Retropolis Transit Authority and Saga Shirts or, for that matter, from the Pulp-O-Mizer. Just use the coupon code FREESHIP30 through October 29.

Free standard shipping on orders of 2 T-Shirts or more from Retropolis, the Celtic Art Works, and the Pulp-O-Mizer

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Through September 22nd, you can get free standard shipping on orders of two T-shirts (or more!) from Retropolis, The Celtic Art Works, and the Pulp-O-Mizer.

Just use the coupon code 2SHIPPING during your checkout.

Through September 1st: save 15% on t-shirts at Retropolis and The Celtic Art Works

Filed under Works in Progress

Since I flipped that switch on the Hyperphasic Temporal Desynchonizer yesterday, I haven’t been quite sure what time it is; but whatever that time is, it’s the time to save some money on t-shirts.

So hie you, I say, over to Retropolis and The Celtic Art Works and buy yourself (and everyone you know!) some shirts at the low, low price of whatever-fifteen-per-cent-off-is.

I think it’s roughly eighty-five per cent of the usual price. But don’t quote me. I’m still having a surprisingly difficult time trying to unflip a switch that may not have been invented yet.

Ladies of Retropolis scramble for their rockets

Filed under Works in Progress

I’m probably winding down on my new Retropolitan character models, but these ladies just wouldn’t be put off. Wherever they’re headed they seem to be pleased that they’re on their way; my guess is, they’re scrambling for their rockets. You can tell by their aviator’s headgear.

Goggled female pilots were in a sad minority among my character models. There’s a pretty simple way in which I actually grow a cowl out of the male heads – but that same method doesn’t really work with my female heads. I could fix that, but it would be a long, painful process. So I fell back on a workaround that I’ve used just once before.

I was happy to do it: now I know these ladies will be fully equipped for their travels over the city. It’s a weight off my mind.

But like I said, I’m probably winding down now. There are a couple of other things that I really should be working on. But once I got on a roll with my characters I just couldn’t stop… until now. I think.

I guess we’ll just have to see.

A Uchrony of Retropolitans; also, stupid morpher tricks

Filed under Computer Graphics, Works in Progress

Okay, after my post the other day you may think that I’m spending all my time considering feedback from the Bizarro World version of my editor. Not true!

Over the past few weeks I’ve been spending much more of my time on the sort of thing we see here. I’ve been adding to my collection of persons from Retropolis by modeling new characters; I’ve also worked out some tricks that extend the use of older characters. And I’ve done a bunch of them! I left out the imaginary editor you saw in my earlier post because you’ve seen him already, and all that exposure tends to make him more demanding; while another character that I like very, very much doesn’t appear here because he constitutes a spoiler, sort of, and as a result I’m keeping him under wraps.

The tricks I mentioned each have to do with the use of morph targets. I use those already for facial expressions, and for parts of expressions, but the first new thing I thought of was to use morphs to combine two existing character heads into a new character. I’ve mixed, say, 40% of Character A with 60% of Character B to get a new head that looks different from either of its parents.

This is possible because all of my recent male heads share the same topology, while all of my recent female heads also share a common topology. (No… sadly, it’s not the same topology as the male heads.)

So I mix the same amounts of two characters, the same way, in every one of their facial variations, and hey presto, new character. I should have thought of this years ago. I’m sure other people have.

This worked really well, sometimes… though not always. Some of these characters have so much personality that they just keep looking like themselves. Still: very neat!

The second trick is even more useful. I do a lot of work on UV mapping on these heads, and although it’s always very similar it’s a thing that’s frustratingly incompatible between models. In addition I calculate vertex colors to accent the creases and hollows in the faces, and that takes about two hours every time I do it.

But I don’t have to! I mean, this was the really clever idea that I ought to have thought of a long, long time back: because I can also morph an old head completely into a new head. My UV mapping and vertex colors remain the same as they were in the earlier character.

I can’t even imagine how much time I’ve wasted by doing those steps manually for every head. It’s a lot of time.

I decided many years ago that a truly lazy person should be willing to work very hard, one time, in order to prevent hard work that has to be done over and over again. I have aspired to be that person. But I see I’m not quite there yet.

Truly, the Way of Laziness is a long and difficult path to master.

Get Matthew Hughes’ Devil or Angel & Other Stories… with a cover by me

Filed under Works in Progress

I’m more pleased than a bucket full of grinnets to show you my cover for Matthew Hughes’ new collection Devil or Angel & Other Stories – which is now available in eBook and printed form at Amazon, at Hughes’ own Archonate Bookstore, and elsewhere.

You can get the book in epub or mobi format from The Archonate Bookstore, as well as the printed version. The mobi file is up at Amazon but the paperback version isn’t quite there yet.

I’ve been formatting Hughes’ self-published books for a couple of years now, but this is the first time I’ve also done the cover illustration for one.

This was a great one to do, too. Hughes’ work is often – though not always – humorous, as you may judge by the cover. Many of the stories in here remind me of those short, hilarious science fiction stories that Fredric Brown used to write; and since Hughes subtitles the anthology “Old Style Science Fiction and Fantasy Tales” I took that as permission to treat the cover a lot like some of the funnier covers for some of the funnier books that I used to harvest, on bicycle, from the used bookstores all over town during my peculiar childhood.

Now, you may know Hughes best for his Archonate novels (like Majestrum, The Spiral Labyrinth, and others) but only one of these selections has ties to the Archonate. The rest are stand-alone tales, many from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction or Asimov’s, and a few that were commissioned for anthologies like Old Mars or Songs of the Dying Earth.

And since you may think I’m prejudiced in favor of the book, don’t listen to me. Listen to Gardner Dozois:

If you like vivid adventure science fiction and fantasy, of the sort written by Jack Vance, Poul Anderson, and Roger Zelazny, you’ll like Matthew Hughes too.

… and John Joseph Adams:

Matthew Hughes writes contemporary science fiction and fantasy with a classic sensibility–driven by adventure and thrills, and chock full of sense of wonder.

But, seriously, listen to me anyway. It’s great stuff. Would I steer you wrong?

A flying scooter for the Retropolis Courier Service

Filed under Works in Progress

As always when my blog goes quiet, I’m doing stuff; stuff that I either can’t tell you about, or which I’m doing too much of to get around to telling you about it.

This is probably an example of that second case.

I mean, if it was the other one I couldn’t tell you, right?

Before I start wondering about that myself, then, here’s Grace Keaton on her aged but serviceable Aeroflite flying scooter; it’s a work vehicle, standard issue for couriers in the Retropolis Courier Service. Grace makes her deliveries on the notoriously dangerous Route X and she’s the longest-lasting (in fact, the only surviving) courier on that route.

Route X couriers make four times the wages of normal couriers and Grace works half days. That’s a comfortable living for a graduate student. Unless you weaken.

But somebody has to deliver along Route X. How else would the denizens of Retropolis’ Experimental Research District get their ‘mildly’ toxic chemicals, their suspiciously glowing minerals, or their generally illegal biological specimens?

I’ve meant for years to model a flying motorcycle. It’s just recently that I understood that a motorcycle isn’t really what you’d want: you need something much more like a Vespa. So this one’s about done (though it still needs a little trailer for those more cumbersome packages).