Fisheye.

Tempest.

Trying out an ultra-minimal style.

This Creeping Suspicion.

Vocalbox of the robot Vox...

Transfiguration Shadow.

Hello Again. (Yesterday's was the last of the "out-of-chronology" entries. Now we're back to newer stuff.)

Golden Kill

Visual artists do sketches... I'll sometimes sketch scenes.  This is just a rough something I came up with today...

        A pair of cool blue dots lit up on the bracelet about her wrist, mirroring the pair of lights just above the trigger on the gun.  Just as she’d ordered it… the weapon recognized her touch.   Only her touch, as it were.  She could almost feel the life beneath her finger, coursing through the palm of her hand, urging her to squeeze the trigger.  If anyone else tried to wield the heavy-automatic rifle, the chamber feed would seize, effectively locking all function of the gun until an authorized user attempted to use it.  But for her…

        Carefully, she set it back on the table, and both pairs of lights were extinguished.  The bracelet was just a bracelet again, and the gun was now little better than a heavy club.  For a moment, she considered how effective the vastly expensive hunk of metal would be as a simple blunt force weapon.

        She looked up and across the table.  “You do impressive work… for a doctor, that is.”

        “You are pleased, then?”

        Her silence was as much confirmation as if she’d actually spoken.  If she’d been displeased, she would have been sure to let him know, and in none-too-eloquent of language.

        Yes, silence was good.

        “About payment, then…” he began.

        She held up a bullet, one that glimmered in the dim light like gold.  In fact, it was gold, solid all the way through.  “Do you know how much this is worth?” she asked.  She tossed it to him, allowing him to weigh it speculatively in his hands.

        “Maybe ten-thousand?  At the shiest mark, at least… it could be even more.”

        “Exactly,” she said.  “That’s more than half your fare.”

        “What about the…?”

        Before he had even able to finish, she had whipped a small, silenced pistol from the small of her back, and fired a second bullet straight through the man’s forehead.  “There’s the other half,” she growled.  “Plus a little extra.”  As he slumped forward over the table, blood leaking down between his eyes, she stood to leave.  “Keep the change,” she tossed over her shoulder.

        The lights on her personalized rifle were already lit as she exited the back room of the bar, the live weapon nestled in the crook of her arm.

        Maybe silence wasn't so good after all.

One year ago, I was at Dragonsteel 2023 launching my noir science fiction debut novel COLOR OF A MIRROR.

Such a fun time, and I met so many cool people there. Crazy to think it’s already been a year.

Thank you to everyone who’s purchased a copy of the book, listened to the soundtrack, or left a review or a kind word somewhere. The support has been felt and much appreciated, and I love seeing other people enjoying this unconventional story!

It’s been a great first year, and I’m going to keep pushing to try and get the book out there through the coming months.

Also Book 2 🤐 Still a ways off on that, but it’s cooking. Can’t wait to share more!

-Dan

Bowler.

Another linework sketch for possible graffiti art. This time, went for some Phantogram fan art. Just let my imagination run wild while listening to Voices (and Nightlife and Eyelid Movies). It’s straight crazy, but I think I could pull it off on a wall with some practice.

(I really like the idea of graffiti being a coded language of sorts, where only the artist, and the people who know how he or she works, can read their letters. Kinda what I was striving for here.)