just noodling around

I have plenty of other, more important things I could be doing right now; but when I found this interesting image of a sunspot on io9, I got...heh...inspired. So here you go.




Oh, and for the record, I really don't recommend doing a Google Image Search on the word eye all by itself. Yeah, you'll find some cool images, but you'll also some a few things that shouldn't be viewed on a full stomach. Just sayin.'

A Peek Beneath the Duct Tape: A Whiter Shade of Pale

So...A Whiter Shade of Pale has been online for almost a day now, but you might not have noticed because Simon posted this week's update early. He caught me off guard, too, which is why I'm a little late getting this Peek online. But here we go!

Now, at last, you have the answer to at least two riddles I've posed in this blog. The first is the solution to this post, in which I invited you to guess what three out of four pictures have in common.

Actor Jeffrey Combs was the obvious inspiration for the character of Geoff Coen; in fact, Dalila even teases him at one point by "misremembering" his last name as "Combs." Jukebox and I borrowed Amanda Palmer's dress from the center picture for Dalila to wear in seducing Abby (You haven't seen the last of that dress, either!). And of course, the Count was your big clue that the whole post was about my upcoming vampire collaboration with Jukebox - who, as he said in his own Behind the Music blog post, really didn't want our vampires to be traditionally vampiric. That was fine with me, since a certain sparkly blockbuster series has pretty much peed in the genre's pool, anyway. Check out the fantasy/SF section of any large bookstore these days, and practically half the books look like really awful vampire fiction (Half the rest, of course, look like really awful werewolf fiction).

But back to Combs/Coen for a moment. I'm sure you've realized by now that he's the character I had in mind when I said someone had a very obvious "Jukebox" stamp across the forehead. Combs is also the actor I hinted about when I said we'd specifically "cast" one player in our story before we even started writing. It's funny how he turned into such an obvious Jukebox character, considering how equal our input was in his creation.

Let me give you a taste of our collaborative process in action. The dialogue isn't exact, because it's been too long for me to remember everything we said, but this is the gist of the discussion leading to Geoff's creation:

Jukebox: I'd like to have a character who can tell Abby what Dalila is and warn Abby about her. Maybe she's some kind of supernatural detective.

Me: That sounds great, but let's use a man this time. Right now, all our main characters are women. He could be a Harry Dresden kind of guy, a street-smart vampire killer. Having Dalila take him down would show our readers just how powerful she really is.

Jukebox: No, I'm thinking he's just a bumbler who keeps trying and failing to kill Dalila: he uses a stake, but it just glances off her rib, etc. That will make the ending even more tragic.

Me: Oooh, perfect! And hey, if we're going that direction, then let's make him Jeffrey Combs! He always plays the best loonies. [One quick Google Image Search later]. Here, take a look at this picture. Isn't he perfect for the part?

Our whole collaboration was like that: constant back-and-forthing, pushing each other to higher levels of imagination. Every character, every scene, every sentence, is a combination of thrall and Jukebox - even the bits where you think it's all one of us or the other.

And now on to a couple of other sources of entertainment and inspiration. I promised you new pictures, and I try to keep my promises! So first, here are a few more potential Dalilas. My casting post to the contrary, I never really settled on a single mental image of Dalila; she's just too mutable by nature. Before, I used this picture from my collection because I couldn't leave her out, but Mela von Winter is no more "my" Dalila than any of the women below. They all have a certain look, though - a certain essential attitude that is part of my mental image of Dalila. Put all four of these pictures together, and you'll start to see what I think about her.

At left is Kitty Cosmo, photographed by Jennifer Garcia. Next is Ruby True, photographed (wearing Violaceous Latex) by Allan Amato. And on the right is Courtney Cruz, photographed by Michael Helms. Just pretend for a moment that Courtney's tattoos are body paint. ;-)

Now here's one more source of inspiration that I've been dying to share for ages. I just had to wait until enough of the White Album had been published for it to make sense to you. Quite some time ago, I ran across the work of Kimiko Yoshida, a Japanese/French photographer who's even more fascinated with the faceless/voiceless aspect of traditional brides than I am. She takes pictures of herself veiled, painted, and otherwise obscured, so that she becomes less of a person than an object of art. These are just a few of the images I've saved from her website. I chose them because they're most in line with my vision of The White Album, but the website has dozens more - some even tastier than these. Check her out.

Dammit, I've been beaten to the punch!

Simon got the second installment of the White Album trilogy (A Whiter Shade of Pale) online before I had a chance to write my next Peek Beneath the Duct Tape, so you'll have to wait a few hours while I get some sleep, then a few more while I get my brain in gear again afterwards. Fortunately, I already know more or less what I want to say...and what pictures I want to share. You've seen some of them already, but others will be quite new - and quite enjoyable!

In the meantime, go have a look at Jukebox's Behind the Music entry on A Hazy Shade of Winter. It's only because I stopped by his blog just now that I found out the second installment had gone live! Grrr.

This Is That - in White (Album) and Gold

First, just in case you haven't noticed Simon's note at the top of the EMCSA Recent Additions page, the September updates will be on random weekdays instead of the usual weekends. That means Jukebox and I aren't really sure when the next installment of The White Album will debut, but have no fear: I've already e-mailed it to Simon, so it will be in the next update. The only question is what day that update comes out. All I know is that I'd better get the next "Peek Beneath the Duct Tape" written ASAP so I'm not caught off guard!

But in the meantime, here's a bit of "This Is That" which didn't quite make it into my "Hazy Shade of Winter" Peek - and below that, a totally gratuitous second "This Is That" with a piece of artwork I never expected to see duplicated in real life.

At left is the picture I used with my previous Peek. The photographer is Calvato. At right is the gorgeous-but-horribly-named Nicotine, photographed by the almost-as-badly-named Photography Device. Honestly, you'd be amazed how many beautiful models with horrible made-up names you can find out there. One of these days, I'm going to do a theme post on that very subject, and right up at the very top of the page will be an enchanting young thing who for some reason chose to call herself Merkinstache (Don't know what a merkin is? You're better off that way).



And now, for your bonus viewing pleasure, here's what I thought was an incomparable piece of art by Hajime Sorayama - coupled now with a shot of model Curvz by Michael Helms, a.k.a. Pelicanh. Both Curvz and Helms have galleries on Deviant Art, so you can see several more shots in this series by following the Pelicanh link above. In fact, if you want to ruin the magic, you can even see how they achieved the effect by clicking here.

A Peek Beneath the Duct Tape: A Hazy Shade of Winter

The origins of The White Album are shrouded in mystery...by which I mean there's no way I could go back at this late date and find the picture that sparked the whole idea. I'll just have to settle for the next best thing: giving you the image that took me to the next level of the project.

Anyway, I can at least tell you how it all began. As I mentioned before, a longtime e-mail friend shared a picture that started me thinking about a different kind of vampire. The model in this picture was nude and tanned, but her eyes were so pale they were nearly white. It made such a strange contrast that I couldn't help but think about it; and since you already know about my MC-eyes fetish, you can guess what I was thinking! I fantasized that a vampire had drained this woman's will rather than her blood, and that her eyes were the visible symbol of the loss.

Not much later, I ran across the website of a photographer named Calvato and discovered the image above. Now, I know that's just grease on the model's skin; but putting this image together with the one my friend had shared, I came up with a new idea for my vampire. I decided she'd drain her victims by touch rather than bite, and that she wouldn't just leach color from their eyes; she'd take it from their entire bodies. Everywhere she caressed and drained, she'd leave a streak of white that would fill in oh so slowly - and leave the skin just a little paler than it had been before.

The third step in the process was meeting Jukebox last fall at Lady Ru'etha place, offering my still-vestigial idea as a possibility for collaboration, and encountering happy agreement. You can learn more about our general collaborative efforts by clicking the "White Album" tag at the bottom of this post, but I'm assuming you read A Hazy Shade of Winter before you got here, so let's move on to some of the thoughts and questions you might have.

First, yes, I used to be a rabid X-Files fan; however, I never saw the Teliko episode. I'd heard a little about it because I was such a rabid fan, but I really don't think it influenced The White Album. All I knew before starting the collaboration was that the episode involved a color-stealing bad guy, and Jukebox hadn't followed the show closely enough to know about the episode at all. I imagine that's because he was too busy watching Dr. Who at the time (Just try having a conversation with Jukebox that doesn't eventually wind up in Time Lord-land! Just try! ;-P).

Anyway, Jukebox brought all kinds of new ideas to the collaboration - and all kinds of color and humor. Flora is primarily his work (And be sure to ask him where her name comes from; I hadn't read that series, but maybe you have). However, she's not the character I had in mind when I said someone has a great big "Jukebox" stamp across their forehead. You'll have to wait a little longer to meet that individual!

I think Carly's a bit more mine than J's, but she and all the other characters are split pretty evenly between us as far as personality, behavior, and dialogue go. The most interesting thing, to me, is that we didn't plan Carly and Abby's personalities ahead of time.* We just started writing, and it was almost as though they wrote themselves. That's what happens when you're in the zone, authorially speaking. ;-) And when you're in the zone with another person, bouncing ideas off each other in realtime, it can be a pretty heady experience. It's hard work, but also damn fun!...And when you're writing an explicit sex scene with another person in realtime, it can be damn embarrassing, too. ;-/ Fortunately (for me and for you), I had plenty of opportunity to get used to that before The White Album was finished.

So..where do we go from here? In a storyverse where vampires drain will instead of blood, how many of the other classic vamp tropes can you rely on? Is Dalila allergic to sunlight? Stakes? Garlic? What happens to Carly and Abby now? Who (or what) are the harajuku gang? And how does Renata figure into it all? Obviously, I'm not going to answer these questions yet, but I'd love to hear your speculations! Yes, I know most people online prefer to lurk rather than post; but this is a loud, clear call for you to make your voices heard. Authors love feedback, and Jukebox and I would be tickled to know where you think everything is headed. So please, drop a comment. We'd love to hear from you!


*Yes, I know Abby's personality isn't as well developed as Carly's...yet. But it will be! She's just naturally more demure. ;-)

We have liftoff! I repeat: we have liftoff!

Save a little space in your weekend for "A Hazy Shade of Winter," the first installment in Jukebox's and my collaboration. Each of the three stories/chapters will have its own title, and though you can probably guess the name of the third one already, I'll keep the second title to myself for the moment. ;-) I will, however, tell you that we're calling the series as a whole The White Album - and that I've made a tag of the title so you can trace the progression of our collaboration more easily, if you're into that sort of thing. I am. ;-) Of course, I'll also have a "Peek Beneath the Duct Tape" for each chapter/story; and I'm sure Jukebox will have a "Behind the Music" or two...or three.

In the meantime, you can consider this post to be your final tease before the big event. I've blogged before about "casting" my stories with real people on occasion, and The White Album was no exception. In fact, Jukebox and I actually wrote one character with a certain person in mind right from the start. After awhile, I had so many players running around in my head that I decided to make a special post about it, all by itself. And here it is.

Three notes before you meet the players: 1) This is not everyone I've cast, just the ones who show up in "A Hazy Shade of Winter." 2) Not all the characters below are equally important, and you can't assume anything from the order in which the pictures are arranged. I just put them in what I thought was the most attractive layout. 3) You should not take these images as canon. I have no idea how Jukebox imagines any of our characters except for the one we agreed would be "played by" _____ _____. This is just how these people look in my imagination.

A few days ago, I was browsing through the Hedony Design website when I ran across the picture at right and said to myself, "Holy crap, that's Carly!" Not that I think Carly would be into latex, but I do think she'd wear a halter top like this if it was made of some other material. I've always pictured her as a Coyote Ugly kind of gal, though not as traditionally gorgeous as the actresses in the movie. And to be honest, this model (Elyther) is a bit too pretty, but she has the right body type, the right hair, and the right attitude.

On the right in this picture is Naomi Watts, whom I cast in A Tenpack of Trixies. Today, however, she's Sir Not-Appearing-in-this-Story. But Ann Miller somehow became my Flora very early on. That probably gives Jukebox fits, since he wrote the description of Flora as looking like she's just stepped out of a Tom Wolfe novel. As for me, I've never read Tom Wolfe, but somehow I get the impression his characters don't dress much like this. Unfortunately, I can't control my subconscious. It gave me Ann Miller in Mulholland Drive mode, and I'm stuck with her. ;-)

This is Parminder Nagra as Abby. I browsed through a lot of pictures of this actress before finding just the right one to convey Abby-ness, and this is definitely it. Plus, she's wearing a winter coat here, which fits the setting of the story...but that's just gravy. It's Parminder's overall look that I like in this shot.

Dalila was almost impossible to cast, but once I decided to write this blog post, I hunted through my collection until I came up with a shot of Mela von Winter (great coincidence with the name, eh?) by Silent View. I have a lot of pictures of Mela looking Dalila-ish, but I chose this one because of the whole scene.

Last but not least, here's Tilda Swinton as Renata. She's another character I cast very early on, so it was just a matter of finding the right picture for this post. The photographer is Craig McDean, and yes, this is the way he wanted the pic to be viewed: greenish and sideways. Works for me! ;-)

These Are a Few of my Favorite Things: When Animals Attack

For this this post in the "My Favorite Things" series, I've tried to pull together some pictures of animal-themed MC - or, at least, pictures that could be construed as animal-themed MC by the right sort of fetishist. Oddly enough, though, I didn't find as many pics in my collection as I thought I would. I suppose that's probably because most models don't like to work with animals. ;-) But there's always artwork, right? So enjoy these images and take comfort in the fact that, in the process of browsing for animal-MC shots, I came up with a boatload of images to use for my "Supernatural Seduction" post somewhere down the line!

Above is an illustration by the delightfully warped stuntkid - an illustration large enough for you to use as desktop wallpaper, if you're that delightfully warped. Now here are a few more by stuntkid:

Next, here are some tentacular delights from (left to right) DVS, Hajime Sorayama, and Ashley Stuart. Oh, and if you think I've posted some of these images before, you're right...but you can't tell me you really mind, can you? ;-p

Lastly, we have two shots by Draconian Artworks flanking a shot of Angela Ryan - the one bigshot fetish model who isn't afraid to pose with scary-looking animals! And yep, you might have seen this pic here, too. It's by photographer WDR.

EDIT: Oh, and how could I possibly have forgotten this mind-blowing shot of Nastassja Kinski and the luckiest snake on the planet? Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.