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Hello my fine feline friends, the Daemons in the Mist Virtual Book Tour kicks off tomorrow Saturday June 9th and runs through June 23rd. We’ll be joining a lot of fabulous bloggers, so be sure to check out the blogs below on their tour dates to find some awesome Daemons content!
How could this get more awesome?
By visiting the tour stops below and participating in the fun, you will go into the drawing to win the grand prize giveaway. A signed print edition of the book, a Marked Ones art prize pack and a custom portrait of yourself transformed into a daemon, complete with awesome horns!
Date: June 23rd
Time: 12pm PST
Location: Twitter hashtag #daemons or Tweetchat for easy use.
At the pre-wrap party I’ll be answering reader questions live on twitter so come join the fun! You can ask anything from what’s Patrick’s favorite manga to how I get my ideas.
Hello my fine feline friends, Guess what releases today? If you said Daemons in the Mist, you’re correct! That day is finally here! The second edition of my debut novel is now out there in the world complete with new editing, new design, new cover, but featuring the same fantastic story! So without further ado [...]
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At my good friend LM Preston’s awesome virtual book launch party for Explorer X-Beta this past weekend, (you may remember the cover I did for the book last October) I unveiled the cover and trailer for the second edition of Daemons in the Mist. For those of you who missed the party here is the cover for Daemons in the Mist Second Edition.
The first edition of Daemons in the Mist will become discontinued in May to make way for the launch of the new edition which features new editing, internal layout & design and this shiny new cover. If you were one of the luck peeps who purchased/won the book this past year, congrats you will have a collectors item.
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Finally getting the girl of your dreams; what could possibly go wrong?
Seventeen year old Patrick Connolly has been hopelessly infatuated with Nualla for years but he is all but invisible to her. Until, that is, he rescues her from a confrontation with her ex. Little does Patrick know he’s just set off a dangerous chain reaction that will thrust him into a world of life altering secrets and things that shouldn’t exist, because the fog and mist of San Francisco is concealing more than just buildings.
A deliriously captivating and exhilarating romantic rollercoaster full of unexpected twists and an ending you won’t see coming.
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Second Edition releasing May 2012
New editing, new design, new cover, same fantastic story!
There are plenty of NaNoWriMo prep guides and blog posts out there but this is how I do it in 5 easy to follow steps.
Step 1: Sign Up
Go to http://www.nanowrimo.org/en and sign up. Then go to your My NaNoWriMo page and fill out your info (or in my case update it). Some features aren’t unlocked yet (like the writing buddies and word counters) but they will be in a few days. I’m KatGirl_Studio if you’d like to add me as a writing buddy.
Step 2: Know What You are Going to Write
Some people like to make it up as they go but I wouldn’t advise starting the month off with no idea of what you are going to write about. If you need help deciding what to write about these posts I wrote for The Graphic Novel Challenge may help you. They’re both about making a graphic novel but should be relevant to writing non-illustrated novels as well. Picking Your Project Developing Your Story
For me it was just a matter of choosing which project to work on since I have about 15 story ideas in queue. I decided to go with the sequel to the book I wrote last year for NaNoWriMo.
If you’re writing a sequel, for your own sanity read the previous book beforehand. As you’re re-reading your first book take notes of possible things to explore with the sequel. Look for plot elements and loose ends that can be tied up, walk on characters that you can have make a second appearance, or new ways you can throw a wrench into your characters lives.
Step 3: Make an Outline
Outlines are like blue-prints for your story. They help you quickly map out the bare bones of your story so you don’t write yourself into a corner. You don’t have to have a very detailed outline but you should be able to at least answer these 5 questions.
Who?Who are your characters? What are they? What are they like? Where & when?Where does your story take place? Another planet? Another time? An alternative reality? What?What do they do? Why?Why are you telling they’re story? Why do they do what they do? How does it go?Do they succeed? Do they fail? Does everyone make it out alive? How did they grow along the way?
Scrivener allows you to construct outlines in a more visual way much like how some authors use index cards and move them around on a table or bulletin board. In fact they even made it look exactly the same in Scrivener, just paperless.
I start by picking an arbitrary number, 30, and creating new pages and numbering them accordingly. I take the notes I made while re-reading my first book and start filling in the 30 note cards to make my outline.
Once you have your outline done and your story broken up into chapters take 50k and divide it by the number of chapters and you will get your required word count for each chapter. Doing this will help you break down the daunting task into more manageable pieces. As you move forward you can easily adjust you chapter word counts to accommodate longer or shorter chapters or extra chapters you added in.
Step 4: Make a Playlist
Most of my stories are inspired by the music I listen to. When I listen to music I see stories; like small movies playing in my head. Because of the music magic I actually make playlists for every project I work on. If you have iTunes it’s relatively easy to make one from your music collection. I myself seem to own a lot of movie soundtracks which are great for this sort of thing. Another thing you can do is visit free for use music sites like
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Due to various delays the production time of the Daemon in the Mist visual novel is taking a bit longer than expected.
Books bring worlds to life through word but translating that world into a visual medium is a whole different thing entirely. When I wrote Daemons in the Mist I never imagined that I would then have to visually create the world of The Marked Ones. It’s no easy task but I hope in the end that you will be able to enjoy a game that is just as carefully crafted as everything else you have come to expect from KatGirl Studio.
Defining a Style
Nualla
Here is an early concept design for Nualla. I captured her other-earthly quality but she looked a bit too soft. Also the production team decided this anime style looked a little outdated. So I went back to the drawing board for a second go.
This was the next concept design for Nualla which got the green light.
But after a few more meetings we decided to go with this more refined design. It’s a bit more work but we only want the best for this visual novel.
Patrick
With Patrick it was all about the eyes, let me tell you black brown eyes are really hard to translate into anime form.
Coming up next time
A look at defining a world, the backgrounds for the visual novel
Hi viewers and KatGirl Studio fans, guess what came out today?
If you said Daemons in the Mist then you are correct! My debut Young Adult novel Daemons in the Mist is now available in a paperback book edition for only $14.99.
That’s right you can now enjoy this story in both print and e-book form. The book is currently only available from Amazon and the publisher’s website but we will have Indiebound options soon and Signed Editions as well.
She could have been a perfectly normal, albeit a breathtakingly beautiful girl, but she wasn’t, for I knew there were secrets hidden behind her eyes.
Seventeen year old Patrick Connolly has been drawn to Nualla ever since he first saw her, but as the years pass she seems to take absolutely no notice of him. Until, that is, he rescues her from a confrontation in the school hallway. Little does he know that he’s about to be thrust into a world of life altering secrets and things that shouldn’t exist, because the fog and mist of San Francisco is concealing more than just buildings.
Deliriously captivating and extraordinarily soulful, Daemons in the Mist beautifully weaves together two voices to tell the story of what happens when life leads you down a not so normal path.
Hi viewers and KatGirl Studio fans, guess what came out this weekend?
If you said Daemons in the Mist then you are correct! My debut Young Adult novel Daemons in the Mist is now available in e-book form for the Kindle and Nook for only $2.99. That’s right, you can enjoy Daemons in the Mist for less than the cost of a cup of coffee. You start exploring the mystery of The Marked Ones by download a free sample at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. For those of you who love the feel of the printed book, don’t worry, the print edition will be out in early June.
Don’t have an e-reader? No problem, you can get the Kindle or Nook app for free for the following devices: PC, Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, BlackBerry, Nook, NOOKcolor, NookStudy, NOOK kids, Android Tablet and Android-based phones.
She could have been a perfectly normal, albeit a breathtakingly beautiful girl, but she wasn’t, for I knew there were secrets hidden behind her eyes.
Seventeen year old Patrick Connolly has been drawn to Nualla ever since he first saw her, but as the years pass she seems to take absolutely no notice of him. Until, that is, he rescues her from a confrontation in the school hallway. Little does he know that he’s about to be thrust into a world of life altering secrets and things that shouldn’t exist, because the fog and mist of San Francisco is concealing more than just buildings.
Deliriously captivating and extraordinarily soulful, Daemons in the Mist beautifully weaves together two voices to tell the story of what happens when life leads you down a not so normal path.
We started production on the Daemons in the Mist Visual Novel this past week. The novel engine was designed by the fantastic team at CWS Software and with their help I will be creating the vast majority of the Visual Novel myself.
Yes you heard that right, I will be the writer, artist and coder for the visual novel version of Daemons in the Mist. This means I had to learn the game engine that CWS uses for their games. So I spent the better part of two days reading the manual and working with one of the lead programers. I was able to walk away with a least an understanding of how to code the visual novel. I’m not saying I’m an expert or anything, and I’m sure that once I actually start coding the VN I may run into some problems. But that’s true of learning any new computer language or engine (trust me I know four already).
Aside from learning the needed coding I also started breaking down the book similarly to how one would break down a book that is being translated into an animated film. Because other than movement visual novels and animated Features are pretty much the same. Good thing I have all those “art of” books right? The text all has to be broken down into script form since the text will be similar to close captioned shows and movies. And just like an animated show or movie I have to figure out how many backgrounds will be needed, how many expressions for each character is needed and how many outfits they all wear during the course of the story.
On a side note, because Daemons in the Mist is a long YA novel (over 90k words) we have decided to release the visual novel in serialized sections. We are still discussing whether to release the 55 chapters individually or in chapter bundles.
Though I can’t show you the text I can show you were it is going to go. One of the tricks in illustrating a picture book is the leave space for the text without leaving a gaping whole in your illustration.
When I plan out an story illustration I always have a layer with the text on it in the size the publisher has said it will be. This way I don’t have to guess and hope it will fit in the end. This also goes for book covers. Where the text is going to appear you also want the colors to be low contrastThis means that the value of the colors in a particular area are relatively the same value so either dark with light text or vice versa.
Zooming in for Effect
When illustrating a picture book you don’t always have to have crazy angles for every shot. Take a queue from the film industry and go in for some close ups. If your working on a computer you don’t even have to re-sketch your scene just use a free-transform tool to expand your image. I wouldn’t advise doing this with a painted image in most cases because of pixelationPixelation is when you blow up or expand an image and the pixels, the bits of color information that make up your image, become jagged and much more visible..
Digital Tool Tip
When using the free-transform tool in Painter or Photoshop remember to hold down shift while moving the arrows on the box the tool creates. This will ensure your image scales proportionally.
This concludes the fourth segment of The Making of a Picture Book. Thank you for joining me on this journey and I hope you will join me again for further installments.
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