http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:Dhanne&section=today deviantART RSS for by:Dhanne en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:29:24 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/25373387/ http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/25373387/ Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:10:06 PDT

I'm lucky to inform that I have two awesome artists who are willing to draw some of the main characters for me. Jarahle is the first made by Calmari [link] The portrait truly looks like the legendary bearman or manbear Jarahle, whatever. The character has now that ancient and natural feeling of threatening and majesty that I wanted for the picture of him to look. Just brilliant! I felt releaved because now I can direct most of my efforts on writing, although, I'm still planning on drawing some of the characters. Complete version of Lenne is just few clicks away from my DA page.

I'm a bit stumbing on the character letters that I wanted to write on the last pages of my novels. I'm still figuring out if I should write them on a perspective of said character or should I use a third person teller instead. Excluding the three letters of Dhanne, Galed and Kerianna the novel is complete and ready for send to the publishers.

There will also some other graphics that needs to take care of, most notable is the Chronicles of Andaya -logo that will be placed on the front covers.

I printed the first time a preview version of some pages of my book and it truly seems good, almost a bit flambouant to me even if that was a sample version. I'm really hoping to get the novel published now. I will tell you more when I get this more done. Stay tuned.

]]> ~Dhanne http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/24995856/ http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/24995856/ Thu, 28 May 2009 11:32:13 PDT
There are still some minor details that need attention like three letters of the main characters, words of thanks, adjusting general alignments, and of course finding the right places for commas. So there is a bit work left before I can send the complete manuscript to publishers.

I also need to complete three portraits of Dhanne, Galed, and Kerianna. Luckily, I found an enthuastic and skillful artist who can draw at least some of them for me thus I can concentrate more on writing the next part of my series. I'm really grateful for her.

It will take 4-6 months to get a decision from a publishing company whether they want to publish the novel or not, so the novel might be published in December 2009. I suppose that is the best case scenario.

]]> ~Dhanne http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/24583484/ http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/24583484/ Mon, 04 May 2009 12:49:34 PDT
I studied a lot of InDesign and various of possible styles and design for my novel series - some styles where quite plain and simple and the others were elaborate and laborious - and I picked one style at last. It looks like this:

[link]


Design Highlights:

1. Theme - The whole book will be published in the same distinctive theme, although, there will be 3 different setups that are: first pages, main text, and the Heroes-section.

2. Colors - The whole book will be published in full colors. Mostly it looks like an old pergament.

3. MOVING background maps - There will be a map of Andaya (world) on the background of the pages that moves along as the story evolves. You can always check on the center of a double page where the characters are at the moment, and it moves when the characters move on to the next place in the world of Andaya. The movement of the background map happens normally at the end of chapter if the characters are moved enough to make a difference.

4. Map of Andaya - There is a whole map of Andaya as well, and it shows all the continents and seas around the known world.

5. Heroes - After the main story there will be a part for Heroes. There are the portraits of all main characters and every character tells shortly something by himself/herself in the letter.


There is a lot of things to do before I'm satisfied and ready to send the final version to the publishers. I'm concentrating my efforts on character portraits thus I'm sure there will be some new pictures coming soon.
So I hope you'll be prepared!

]]> ~Dhanne http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/22668775/ http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/22668775/ Mon, 19 Jan 2009 08:42:31 PST
The page count is 650 and rising, so I decided that I divide my first book into two separate novels. Writing project is not advancing as fast as it could, because I'm focusing more on layout of the pages. I want those pages to be colored to make my novel as unique as possible, and I needed to get a picture of what I have to do to accomplish that.

I started to study InDesign that is a desktop publishing program. First, the program felt really difficult, but fortunately there was good tutorials with videos on the net that helped me a lot. I was very pleased for the results of InDesign, the outcome looked very professional, clear, and the program is quite fast to use if you have a template, so I decided to use it later on.

I still stumbled on two annoying problems that are color conversion, RGB to CMYK (procedure is a must for printable media), and high resolution demand. Luckily, the conversion problem is not that troublesome, because you can just send the files to the publishing company and they do the dirty work for you.

Okey, it is really going to piss me off! That is the quality requirements for publishing illustrations and graphics. I almost gave up when I first realized that the printable image needed to be a very high resolution to meet the quality stamdards. Some publishers want to their printed pictures 200-300 dpi to 1200-1800 dpi! If I got this right, if you have normal Full-HD picture (72dpi), you have to change it somehow to 1200 dpi, and that means your new pixel dimensions would be 32006 x 20004 pixels, 1667 x larger than normal 72 dpi picture.
That's just INSANE! There are no possible ways to tool images in those resolutions with my computer. I guess I have to install Windows XP 64-bit, and buy 8 gigs of ram to meet the system requirements for tooling such large amounts of graphics.

Luckily, I used higher than 72 dpi to my digital art and saved only pspimage-files. That alone saved me for drawing everything again. *sigh* But there are still a lot do. The map employs me the most because I wanted that to be as sharp as it could be, because I have decided that it will be on every page, behind the text of course, and the center of the map will change at the same time the story goes on. That will still need a tremendous kind of work.

]]> ~Dhanne http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/21177717/ http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/21177717/ Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:48:55 PDT
I have decided to bring lots of stuff from known mythologies. There will be lots of allusions from Roman and Greek mythologies, customs and traditions, as well as indications from related to Celtic, England, Finland, and Norway in the first novel. My opinion is that bringing something from the mythologies is a good thing and it suit well in the storyline. For example there are some pagan traditions in The Messaia Empire that will relate the actual heathen "vine festivals" that Greeks had during the ancient times. The kindom of Seyruun have a knightly order that relates the Arthurean Knights of the Round Table (there will be no such table in my novel, just a knightly order). The mountainous kingdom of Urboria is like Norway. The inhabitants have lots of aspects from Vikings and they worship unforgiving God of Oceans and Death. The Urborean God has even his own Valhalla (called Gäelmare) and a valkyrie (there will be only one valkyerie called Gjelldarie who rides her mighty wolf called Helfreyr). There will also be the world tree (Yggdrasil) and something from Kalevala too.

The page count is now 550, and there will be about 70 pages more to come. There are considerably more work to do before the first novel is finished, like error fixes and syntax corrections. I'm happy for progression even now, because it is only a question of time before the novel is complete.

I have already made a prologue for the sequel novel that will be my next challenge in writing. The novel's name will be Noitakuningas (Witchking) or Moitakuningas ja Ritarikuningatar (Witchking and Queen of the Knights). I haven't decided yet which one it is. The name of the third novel will be Kohtalo (Destiny).

There are lots of illustration tasks that I must make before I'm satisfied when I'm ready to send the manuscript to all the Finnish publishers.

]]> ~Dhanne http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/20792736/ http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/20792736/ Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:42:53 PDT
First of all, I have now a map for Andaya that is a must for my novel. The novel needs a world map of Andaya, though I suppose it has to be black and white only. I should make that one too, but it should be quite easy now, because I already have the colored map. Those 2 maps need still better borders that have the pictures of four Gods of Compass: Suzaku (south), Seiryu (east), Byakko (west) and Gembu (north). Making those pictures takes some time and I'm not sure when I can complete it.

The other pictures are the front illustration of the novel and the portraits for every six main characters of the story. Now I have two portraits of Lenne and almost finished portrait of Kerianna. I suppose put three portraits into my first novel - Lohikäärmemalja (The Golden Chalice of Dragon God), the world map, and the cover illustration. The next part of the trilogy will have the rest of the six portraits.

The cover illustration for first novel is still open. I'm not sure if I want Shendilavri to be the illustration for the cover or I'm not sure if I have any interest in completing it (it takes tremendous of time to finish it). There is lots of different kinds of ideas for the cover, but I'm not sure what is the best option.
- First idea is a panorama picture from the slopes of Mount Jarahle where the group (everyone else, but not Lenne) rests and gazes at the magnificent sights.
- Second idea of picture is from the jousting tournament where Kerianna and Dhanne tries to keep away the approaching armored knight and archbishop Daruk, who wanted to kill the princess.
- Third idea is a picture where Dhanne drink water from the golden chalise of dragon god.
These three ideas are very laborious so I can't make them all. If you have an suggestion of the cover, please make it even if you haven't read the novel.

Besides of the illustration of the novel, I have to write the story too. I have written almost 500 pages of A5's and I have many pages to go before the first part of the trilogy is ready. I guess the first book consist of over 600 pages. After the actual writing of the story there is still a tremendous work yet to make, spelling errors and flaws of storyline need correction.
Afterward, I have to begin calling for publishers and so on.

For the Animemize Me! project... I created the first model of an anime character and it was quite successful for my first picture of that style. But because the procject is not as important as the portraits to me, I closed the project for the time being. I guess it would be a nice picture (a bit different style that I normally make), so I guess I complete it when I get the other projects finished.

]]> ~Dhanne http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/20536582/ http://Dhanne.deviantart.com/journal/20536582/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:21:51 PDT
First I like to inform you that I have two hobbies: drawing and writing. Many years ago I liked only to draw pencils, but after I tested computer drawing I fully addicted to draw with it. There are so many positive sides of computer drawing that I don't even know where to begin if I have tell you the benefits. Shortly, modification tools and layers are perfect equipments for me and my time-consuming and detailed pictures. I use Paint Shop Pro 9 to draw (I also have Photoshop, but I never have like it some reason.).

My latest and most time-consuming project is Chronicles of Andaya that is fantasy novel series of three or more books. My first book, named Lohikäärmemalja (The Golden Chalice of Dragon God; written in Finnish, but I might translate it in English), is almost complete. The novel consists of 700k words and it's over 400 pages long of normal A5-papers.

Nowadays, I'm trying to combine both of my hobbies, so because the novels need covers and additional illustrations I liked the idea of drawing those for myself. The first book needs cover illustration (that might be completed Shendilavri picture or another one still upcoming in my mind) and a map of Andaya.

I'm not very focused to make Shendilavri whole, so I guess I might draw another picture when I'm certain the actual size needed to illustrate a cover. A paper version of a map of Andaya lies on the table corner and it is relatively complete, though I will make it much more better looking and maybe colored version.

I have even more ambitious plans to draw a portrait of every main character in my novel. There are 6 main characters which consist of an orphan human boy rogue "Dhanne", rogue's friend "Gavyn" (likewise an orphan), cleric-princess "Kerianna Somaire Uldavon", highborn elf fighter "Zann", legendary bear that can choose to change human form "Jarahle", and evil and mischievous succubus "L'verthayenne 'Lenne' Marloch". The first portrait (Kerianna) is almost finished, it lacks only some details and color.

Spin offs to my Andaya Project are (relatively) fast projects where I'm trying to improve my drawing skills by experimenting with different kinds of drawing tools.

The last picture of Bruenor Battlehammer(dwarf-king from R.A. Salvatore Forgotten Realms Series)was formed in conjugation of seeing photorealistic speed painting video from snotr.com. [link]
The result of the drawing informed me that I'm not really that good at drawing, but still my skills are improving. I gained some valuable tricks of drawing fast some highly detailed objects like beard or helmet.

The latest tool that I'm trying to get into (päästä sinuiksi)is Pen Tool (really?) in PSP. I'm practicing the Pen tool with drawing anime character (my other hobby). The Pen tool is ideal equipment for making detailed characters with accurate and constant lines. After first test picture I'm starting a major picture from an idea: Animemize me! (that also will be the name of the work).

***************
* ANIMEMIZE ME! *
***************

Are you bored with normal life? Do you want to change?

ANIMEMIZE YOURSELF!

Now what you get from changing?

Highlights:

• Big and irresistible eyes
• Long fluffy hair that flows all the time
• Relative immortality
• Cartoon-like phenomenal survival instinct
• Quickly changing temper
• Cool signs that shows your emotional state
• Ability to eat a LOT

Hindrances:

• Big and irresistible eyes
• Long fluffy hair that flows all the time
• You gain lots of enemies – even from space or other dimension
• 2-D body
• Gain fox ears when lie
• Sexual harassment
• Inability to change clothes normally or at all

]]> ~Dhanne