Day: November 6, 2021

I’m trying to get rock faces down. My general idea is the same as always: Don’t draw shapes; just draw details. But big rocks with sheer faces have nothing but outlines and shapes in monochrome. Instead of drawing texture like trees, I could try shading. I’ll give that a shot next.

The problem fantasy movies have with anti-war messages is everyone runs around deep-voiced talking to each other about how war is bad…until the orcs show up. Then it’s ‘kill them all, show no mercy, death and fire!’

So war is bad. Unless the other side is a race of bad guys.

So, like, if you hate elves, aren’t they a race of bad guys? Aren’t Tolkien’s orcs elves*?

*Yes and no. Yes, if you take the Unfinished Tales and a few other sourcebooks as canon (which most people do). Yes, if you take the movies as canon and assume Saruman wasn’t lying when he told the Uruk Hai the story of orcish origins. No (or maybe really), if you stick strictly to the printed book LotR and Hobbit.

BTW, since the elvish afterlife is a thing in Tolkien, killing them all and letting the Valar sort them out is actually a perfectly valid, in-world strategy.

My point here is that anti-war messages in fantasy stories sometimes don’t make any sense.

You know how sometimes the world decides to remind you of humility?

The most pleasant way it does is by making me work with people much smarter than me.

Thank you everyone who ordered a copy. (A download?) I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Those matter a lot, because more downloads raise the book in Amazon’s algorithm. That controls exposure, linkage, etc. Since I’m working on another, having Mara do well would be a big help. If you have purchased it or read it on Kindle Unlimited, please leave a review. Even just stars would be fantastic.

I appreciate you reading and hope you enjoy it.