I'm much more of a writer than an artist, but I've long enjoyed drawing. The purpose of this page is to show you where I began as an artist when writing became a serious undertaking, and how far I've come since then. I started with pencil drawings and continued to develop my skills until, one fateful day in 1998, I brought my computer in to a Langley computer store for service and a program called Poser 3 caught my eye. I asked about buying it, thinking that it would help with the anatomical problems that plagued my drawing, but the store manager told me that it was his wife's copy and wasn't for sale. The following year, I picked up Poser 4, and since then, I haven't done very much drawing at all.Garrick and Brenna 
The image is badly faded, but this is my
original drawing of the couple from 1983! There were many things
I found difficult about drawing this, but the part I spent the most
time completing involved the foreshortening of Garrick's left
shoulder. I didn't draw this using models, so there are some
anatomical flaws glaringly evident, particularly with placement of
eyes. My sweetheart thinks that Brenna has too much of a tummy,
but given the two dimensional curvature of her spine (she's leaning
back and turning toward the viewer) I think she's fine. I
have a lot of difficulty drawing expressions, so my drawings tended to depict
people looking rather serious. This expressionless kind of style characterized most of my early art.
Original Edge of Justice Cover Concept 
This is my feeble attempt to create a
"younger" Garrick. He's supposed to be in his teens, but I think this
makes him look more like he's 12, and Brenna, who is supposed to appear
very similar in age when they meet, looks like she's in her mid '20s. I wanted
to clothe the characters like they were dressed for cold weather, which was--at that time--a lot easier to do with pencil than with Poser. I've always
liked Brenna's sweater in this picture. She's wearing a collared
shirt underneath, with a high-collared flannel shirt under that.
It didn't scan very well, so that detail makes her under shirt look
more like a necklace or choker. This image comes from 1995.
The Evolution of a Cover Image  It's awful, I know! But this represents the state of my skill back when I was using Poser 4. I created the background for this image
in a free program called Terragen, then imported it as a background image into
Poser, placed and posed the figures I used for Garrick and Brenna, rendered the image, then did a lot of
post production work in Photosuite III to clean it up. Male hair in Poser has been awful for a long time, so in this case, I painted over it by hand.
Brenna's fingers around the dagger took forever to pose. (I can do it quickly now, but at the time, the learning curve was very steep!) Her right arm looks funny because I didn't pose her correctly. (Her collar is down, while her shoulder is up.) I thought the
image looked a little strange, but when I submitted this idea to the artistic staff at
AuthorHouse, the company who published the first edition of The Edge of Justice, they said my render was simply wonderful. I don't know what they were smoking . . .
Cover Image Redux
I didn't get Poser 5 because other artists were complaining that it was full of problems. I waited until Poser 6 came out before I bothered upgrading. Moving to the newer program meant that I had to create newer figures, based on the P6 people, Jessica and James. (Jessica is much maligned in the Poser community. She's got HUGE shoulders, a bulging forehead, and the world's UGLIEST hands, but she was the best I could do at the time.) Much of what makes this image an
improvement over the previous version has to do with using higher-
resolution characters, the use of dynamic clothing (I love the way Brenna's sweater fits!), more skillful
application of texture maps, an
improved rendering engine in the program, and a better understanding of how light works
in Poser. This is my November of 2006 version of The Edge of Justice cover. The only post rendering work for this
image involved adding the glow to Brenna's blade and a lens flare in
Adobe Photoshop.
Second Edition Cover 
One of the biggest problems I've experienced using Poser over the years has been that whenever the program is updated, older figures are no longer supported. That makes it hard to find clothing props and keep up with advancements in materials. I stayed with Poser 6 for a very long time, but eventually, my image quality began lagging so far behind I felt pressure to upgrade. I bought Poser Pro, then upgraded that to Poser Pro 2010. Additionally, I stopped using the older P6 Jessica and James and switched to the DAZ Millenium 4 people, Victoria and Michael. The Mil 4 figures aren't perfect, especially at the joints, but they're a lot better than the P6 people! Laura Haskell, a talented artist who is also a kindly and patient woman, created the new Garrick and Brenna skins, body and facial morphs for me. You will also notice that I've learned a thing or two about posing since 1999, when I first began working with 3D figures. Garrick and Brenna Everyone loves a handsome hero and beautiful heroine. Whether or not you think my characters fit that description is a subjective judgment. There's a certain "look" that I like, and these two fit my personal ideal of what human beauty looks like. Everyone else I've created and rendered represents either a variation on that theme, or an effort to create a character who looks different. Original Garrick Drawing 
I don't remember exactly when I drew this picture. Judging from the style, it's probably from 1982 or 1983. Prior to this era, I'd been writing a science fiction story that I dropped in favor of
developing fantasy ideas. Garrick, Brenna and Algernon all
started out in a milieu without guns, and because I'd practiced with
swords in order to effectively write about them, I drew Garrick using this "underhand"
technique that European swordsmen developed for wielding very large weapons.
Every link in his mail shirt is an oval, drawn by hand. It's a little hard to tell the difference in the scan between body hair and shading, but I think most people are intelligent enough to figure out which is which. Most of
these early drawings were done while working graveyard shift at a telephone answering service, and since I had
to stay awake, I had a lot of time to draw. Garrick, the Dork 
This
is my P4 Garrick. He's based on the male figure those in the Poser
community call "The Dork." I painted his hair by hand because P4
hair, especially male hair,
is so awful that it should be a crime to display figures wearing
it! (Although, many of the self-checkout machines in retail stores that feature 3D figures use the P4 woman and her pasty hair for their demonstrations.) However, the facial structure and features of this figure are
remarkably similar to what I'd been drawing for several years. P6 Garrick 
When I started using Poser 6, I had to develop new characters. This is the P6 James version of Garrick, who bears little resemlance to my original drawing of the character. I
tried to duplicate the P4 face I'd developed using P6 James in the Poser Face Room, but
didn't have the skill and patience to effectively pull it off. So, I settled for what you see here and used this version of Garrick in my artwork for several years. In this image, I was trying to work with light. In my view, lighting is the most difficult aspect of using the program, as it's not an intuitive process to get good results. The rather extreme highlighting of Garrick's hair shows that I still had a long way to go at this point. Garrick and Brenna Redux  It's embarrassing to look at this image now, but at the time, this was the best I could do. It's a render based on my original drawing of the two characters. The scale isn't quite right, as Brenna is a smaller woman than is pictured here. The date stamp on this image is 24 November 2005. The New Man 
Image by Laura Haskell After working with me on developing an update for Brenna, Laura Haskell agreed to create a DAZ M4 figure to replace my P6 Garrick. This was the first completed image she sent to me. I've been using this character in all my Garrick renders since March of 2009.
Original Brenna Drawing
This drawing is dated 7 April 1982, so it's probably the oldest drawing in this collection. She looks very Asian in this picture, and quite a bit broader in the shoulders and neck than I drew her later on. Readers may notice the scar on her neck, which she received at the Casa Matados in Crisis. That should indicate how long I've been thinking about these characters and what happens to them! Brenna and Pony 
I
found this image so frustrating to draw that I never finished it.
This is a 1987 drawing. Although her face and upper
body are pretty complete, I was never happy
with the shape of Brenna's face, I hated her hands, and abandoned the
image before I finished the horse. Posette Brenna 
This is my Poser 4 Brenna. There's
something very special about her, even though she's been displaced twice, first by
the higher-resolution P6 Jessica, and then by the DAZ Victoria 4. I've always
liked the proportions of Posette, as she's affectionately known in the
Poser community. Working with Posette is a little bit
like remembering an old girlfriend. I think of her with
wistful remonstrance until I remember what a pain it was to get her to
do what I wanted . . .
P6 Brenna 
This is probably my favorite P6 image. It was created in September of 2006, by which time I'd been using dymanic clothing for awhile and knew enough about light to avoid complete embarrassment. I created the outfit Brenna is wearing in a vexing program called Virtual Fashion Basic, but that program gave me so much trouble, I abandoned it within a year or so. The background of this image is a photograph I took at the Othello Tunnels, just outside of Hope, BC. We Mean Business 
If this image looks familiar, that's because it's buried in the upper right-hand corner of my web page banner. I rendered this in May 2009, and it was one of the first images I created using the DAZ V4 and M4 figures that Laura Haskell made for me. I've been quite happy with these two ever since! Jhiran Vell 
Garrick and Brenna were not the only characters I was drawing back in the mid 1980's. This is an unfinished Jhiran Vell, from 8 June 1986. In the books she uses a sling, not a bow, and is dressed in ratty clothes. I didn't draw her wings because I didn't know how to make them look good. I don't render her with wings for the same reason. Aiko 3 as Jhiran 
This used to be the image on Jhiran's page, but I've since stopped using her. The picture dates from September 2006, which means this is a P6 render. Aiko 3 was the DAZ figure many artists used for anime. There are two things I didn't like about her. The first is that most of the clothing for Aiko 3 was fetish-oriented, which didn't suit my purposes. Secondly, I didn't care for the way her limbs bent. I've since changed Jhiran to a diminutive V4 based figure who may not be as cute, but renders better! A Brief History of Algernon
This is a 1982 pencil drawing of Algernon. He's wielding a weapon called the Dakkah (emphasis on the second syllable), that was supposed to be the characteristic weapon of the Temple Elsbireth monks. I abandoned that idea long ago! P6 Algernon 
The background for this render is courtesy of my friend, Julian Gray. I've always thought that the P6 version of this character looked very lean and mean. M4 Algernon 
Algernon's unkept hair created many problems. The hair prop in this image is from Kozaburo, but it's intended for P6 James, not Michael 4, so it never really fit properly . . .
Creatures, the Original Map and Other Characters
The Glacier Gull
 One of the
early permutations of my story involved fantastically large birds who
lived on the cliffs overlooking Broken Wing Lake. These flight-capable birds
were large enough to be ridden by a petite human, so their riders were
often small boned females. (Of which there are very few in
Tamaria!) I wrote an exciting encounter between a Tamarian scout
riding one of these creatures who battles an Azgaril dragon in midair
during the early story sequences, but later cut that entire
section out.
Though I've not yet brought these birds directly into my stories, they're mentioned a couple of times as large and fearesome. They're supposed to be about 9 feet tall, with a 30 foot wingspan.
Devera
This is the original map of
my created world, drawn in March of 1982. Like much of my artwork
from that era, it's badly faded. This is a freehand drawing
showing the outline of the continent, the computerized, colored version
of which appears on the " World of Devera" page. I drew every single
mountain as a tiny triangle, which may give you an idea of how many hours of work went into this
image. For you Rush fans, the archipelago on the top of the map
is named "Pegasus", and a tiny island at the very top, left hand side
of the map is named "Lyra". That should tell you what I was listening to at the time!
Blade Girl
I felt rather
proud of this drawing when it was completed. The date on the image is 10
October 1982, and it was probably the most anatomically perfect female figure I've ever
drawn by hand. The blade seems ridiculously big now, but I drew this in
the era of the Conan films, and large swords were in vogue back
then. This girl has no name, she was just a study in anatomy and
sword design.
The Truth
Hurts
One
of the things I'd intended to do with my Poser images involved using
them to illustrate excerpts from chapters in the novels. This is very difficult to do because what I'm capable of imagining and what I can actually pull off as an artist are often quite different. This is a September 2006
render of Kira (on the left) and Astrid (on the right) having a
difficult discussion about their relationship. Though it's
compressed and a little jagged (something that doesn't appear in the
original image), this render is pretty faithful to my
original concept of the scene. By the time I posed the two
figures, worked on their expressions, simulated their clothing and
worked on the lights, I'd invested about 30
hours into its completion. Now, I can create renders in less than half that time.
I hope you've enjoyed this historical
foray into the art behind the World of Devera.
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Justice" and "The Long Journey"
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