Lukas Online

Amazon shop for: Kindle Touch, Kindle eBooks

I recently discovered how easy it is to own a Kindle Touch despite the fact that they are not officially available to Australian consumers yet. The Touch is the latest in Amazon’s Kindle range of e-book readers and was released in the U.S in mid November 2011 but unfortunately for enthusiasts down here in Australia, Amazon makes us wait. I am not even sure what the scheduled release date for the Touch in Australia is.

Anyway, I am probably a bit slow on the uptake here but it turns out there are websites where you can register for a package-forwarding service that will allow you to access items that are either not yet released in Australia or, for whatever reason, Amazon or similar vendors refuse to ship here. Has that ever happened to you? You go to buy something from an online vendor only to come up against a notice saying ‘does not ship to your country’?

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Amazon shop for: The Flight of the Eisenstein, Horus Heresy Novels, James Swallow

Synopsis (contains spoilers)

The Flight of the Eisenstein by James Swallow is set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe and is the fourth book in the Horus Heresy saga. Warmaster Horus, leader of the Imperium’s vast armies and chosen son of the Emperor commits the ultimate betrayal. In what will be his first open act of insurrection against his father the Emperor of Man, Horus sets a trap in which whole companies of Space Marines loyal to the Emperor will be massacred.

Caught in the rapidly unfolding series of events is Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro of the XIV Legiones Astartes, otherwise known as the Death Guards. Witness to the treachery and madness of the Warmaster’s actions, and stunned by the revelation that Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guards has also turned traitor in support of Horus, Captain Garro flees the massacre of his brethren on Istvaan III. Accompanied by a small command of Death Guard marines and a number of civilians, Garro sets out to warn the Emperor of the rebellion.

Narrowly escaping into Warp space in the badly damaged frigate Eisenstein, Captain Garro and his men come under attack by an unknowable and seemingly supernatural enemy. Capable of reanimating fallen comrades into a gruesome parody of life and driving crew members insane, the phantom powers from the warp are the embodiment of chaos and are like nothing the hero or his comrades have ever encountered before. Garro is forced to question the secular doctrine of his Space Marine training which has no explanation for the unnatural forces that assail the ship. Garro experiences further turmoil as his previously secular loyalty to the Emperor increasingly takes on the form of a religious faith, seemingly protecting him and giving him a divine purpose.

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Anne Corsair fights off a lesser giant squid as it tries to drag her small pirate dhow to the depths.

According to legend Anne raided the secret lair of the King Squid, stealing away with Neptune’s Pendant, a talisman giving any who wore it the power to command the ocean winds. The lucky sailor would never again be stuck in the doldrums without a wind to sail by. For years the enraged monster pursued Anne accross the seas determined to seize back it’s lost treasure, and almost succeeded in sinking Anne and her crew on several occasions. Finally Anne was forced to confront the King Squid and after an epic battle in which half her crew were cast overboard Anne triumphed by firing the ships magazine, the resulting explosion sending the monster and the remains of Anne’s 21 gun sloop to the bottom of the ocean. Anne and her surviving crew escaped on a raft to fight another day, but Neptune’s Pendant was lost to the seas where it lies still, guarded jealously again by the denizens of the deep.

This is the first page of a 5 page comic I made about the adventurer and pirate Anne Corsair. The story is fairly Asterix inspired featuring an all in melee and a jokey tone.

I’ve only coloured it in greyscale at this stage but I’m planning on colouring it fully as well.

One of Kate’s ancestors: Anne Corsair, an English pirate captain whose fleet terrorised shipping lanes of Old Earth from the Mediterranean to the Malacca Straights in the 18th Century. Under her captaincy the pirate fleet became so successful and powerful that even naval vessels feared to encounter them. The fleet was eventually cornered and wiped out by a naval force sent to deal with them. Anne Corsair escaped and disappeared from history leading to much speculation about her fate. One story has it that she married her first mate, raised a large family and lived out her life peacefully somewhere in Indochina.

Kate is a space adventurer, explorer and treasure hunter. Working for private collectors or major museums she explores unknown planetary systems and ancient alien ruins looking for artefacts of archaelogical significance. While most of her work is above board, Kate has extensive links to underworld figures involved in blackmarket antiquities trading. It is rumoured that she was previously a member of one of the many pirate gangs who operate along the remote Indigo Trade Route capturing trade vessels for ransom, although this has never been proved.

Here I have drawn Kate with a bionic arm as an experiment.

Below is a walkthrough of the process I used to make this image.

1. Pencil roughs. Kate’s first head wasn’t too good so I drew a new one and scanned it separately.

2. Lineart. Done digitally using a wacom tablet. Because I am ultimately developing work for print I convert the linart to a two tone image, then delete out the white.

3. Flat colours are added. I tweaked the lineart too. I decided that the way I had originally drawn the tentacles of the alien monster interferred too much with Kate, so I redrew the offending appendage. I think the final picture benefited from this decision.

4. Colour detail. All the shading, highlights and colour details are added here.

Heres the coloured version of some panels I posted awhile back of my graphic novel concept. I have a 10 page sample coloured, just trying to establish a colouring convention etc.