Jeff Doten's Venusian Blog

A quick update that answers the crucial question of just what a Paijoma looks like under it's clothes. This also is my design that incorporates a more upright stance. The Paijoma can still crouch in the manner that I've illustrated them before, but it looks pretty ungainly for just walking around. And buying groceries is just crazy when you can't even reach past the spread of your legs....

Morning Star - the human village on Venus. Yup, a little heritage style town, and no I'm not going go say why. To the right is one of the largest buildings in Morning Star, the Hunter's Hall. Sort of a ranch house. The shield shape hanging off the balcony is the skull of a Curvim, the beastie that the Hunter's hunt. The buildings of Morning Star are built in as familiar a form as possible to create a familiar homey environment. The major exception to this being the roofing material, a shell like form that protects from fiery Draf Falls.

I freaked Super Girl out. So this last weekend I went to the Calgary Comic and Entertainment con. I'd never been, and was really impressed. There were lots of people and it was really well organized. I had a few prints to sell and lots of promo stuff on The Fire Gods of Venus. It was kind of a 'pre-pimping' the book. It was an excellent change to talk to a lot of people and give out a lot of promo cards. I did learn a couple of things. Saying that The Fire Gods of Venus was 'kinda like John Carter of Mars meets the Doors' means squat to anyone under 30. So my catch phrase of the book as 'A Psychedelic, Post Modern, Interplanetary Adventure' means about the same. Granted, I really like that phrase, and perhaps combined with an actual book description, it might work. I can't believe I didn't have one, but I wasn't really ready to write the back of the book blurb. But a lot of people asked, 'what's it about ?' So this is what I came up...

Okay, I always knew that I wanted to rework this. The guy was good, but didn't stand up on image 40 " tall. And the logo needed to be reworked. This version not only has a new logo and such, but COOL iridescent colors around George and the psychedelic googlies. This is intended for trade show attention ( but did scan fine ) so it's kind of fun how the image suddenly glows from certain angles. Later on a little more work will go into updating the alien to the latest design and around the swordsman. But I've got other stuff do now, I'm kind of late. - Jeff PS - I'm sort of thinking of this project now as John Carter meets the Doors. I probably shouldn't....

Told ya I wasn't going to post regularly. But now I have something new. It was time to nail down the appearance of my Venusians, the Paijoma, and to do a sculpt of one. The painted version shows flares/fins on the lower face which did not end up on the final sculpt. That didn't surprise me much as the sculpt was intended as further refinement of the design. A couple elements of note - the back shapes are part of it's respiration apparatus and the black eyes rotate on the stalks as if magnetically attached. The somewhat artificial design of the skin is part of my choice to not use typical terrestrial textures on the Venusian creatures. The sculpting material was Super Sculpty Firm, which gives a lovely surface. The acrylic on top goes down with a rather pearlescent sheen. The really shiny parts are FW Pearlescent. Other news, I have just complete the 3rd complete rewrite, some parts have many more the 3 rewrites, and expect once my readers are finished with it to have the f...

Planetary Adventure. Interplanetary Romance. Sword and Planet. My favorite genre or venue. And an out of date one. When I decided that “I wanted to do just what I wanted to do”, which was to create a heavily illustrated novel, I followed my heart to the sword and planet venue. I entered the field through A Princess of Mars (1911), which is where it really started. ( I am STILL not over the movie shelving ) I promptly fired through Burroughs by the bucket load. Burroughs created the bulk of of the genre with his Mars and Venus novels, but he was not alone. Otis Adelbert Kline, Lin Carter, Michael Moorcock and Leah Brackett have all worked within the field, but Burroughs was the template, and most original of them all. Reading these old books again ( or some for the first time ) I find a wonderful freedom from the modern conventions of science fiction and fantasy. Romanticism and chivalry,a hint of exotic mysticism, pseudo-science, exotic worlds, and lots of sword play all wrapped up in...

There is no way I'm going to blog everyday, but since I just started this and I have some new art, I thought I'd get it up here. This morning's offering is set in the wilds of venus. The geography of Venus is characterized by lush tropical plateaus (which are the populated zones ), surrounded by the low rocky deserts of the Jora Zi, a hostile environment that is visited, not populated, by those of the plateaus. The dwellers of the Jora Zi are creatures of tale and myth, the Zadiya. Those that venture into the Jora Zi will attest to the presence of what they call Zadiya towers, or Draw towers. Draw towers collect vital energy from the local environment, which is then pulsed west through conduits to the processing plant at the base of the Fanged Mountains. Okay, enough freaky explanations. I had a blast creating the tower, and ramping up it's psychedelic factor. More freakiness to come. - Jeff