Artwork

Tourniquet Heart (pdf) is here

2010-09-24T11:54:00.007+01:00

Well, FantasyCon has now been and gone and Chris has published the limited edition PDF of "Tourniquet Heart". As you'll probably know, I did photo-montages as headers for each of the stories in question and, as promised, I'm going to post a couple here just in case you didn't grab a copy at the Con (the pdf was on the 'beermat' CD).

This is for "Teddy Bears And Bloody Towels", by Gary Greenwood. A difficult story, filled with some rich imagery, but trying to find something that a) would underpin the story and b) wouldn't offend just about everyone, was quite hard to do.

"The Cutting Edge", by Steve Lockley. Another story rich in imagery, most of which would have got us all arrested if we'd used it for the photo-header!

"Slug-a-bed", by Brian Willis. This was difficult to pin down and I knew that I didn't want to recreate any of the imagery from inside the house. This was the compromise which, in the end, I think turned out really well.

From "Stan's The Man", by the brilliant Paul Finch. A simple tale, about an ex-porn star making her own photoshoot, this was so rich with imagery that I didn't quite know where to start.

Teasers for "Up For Anything"

2010-08-30T00:52:00.004+01:00

Coming soon, from Pendragon Press, a limited edition PDF sampler of the anthology "Tourniquet Heart", featuring a story by me ("Up For Anything") and photo-montages for each tale.

The following are two 'teasers/tests' - I will post the final image once FantasyCon has been and gone.

Some more "Conjure" cover tests

2010-07-08T23:35:00.002+01:00

I liked the one on the left a lot - the murky image, the breast but then realised that both of those things wouldn't do the book good in the long run. The fairground in the right-hand pic is at Skegness.

Left-hand - I liked this a lot and stuck with it for ages, until I realised that the model is standing on rocks. Ho hum. The right-hand picture had such beautiful colours, but then I saw some Lulu-style artwork and realised that I was going completely the wrong way. But looking at it now, I do like those colours...

Unused "Conjure" artwork

2010-07-08T02:03:00.002+01:00

The left image was the original cover for so long that it appeared on the Rainfall MySpace site. None of the component images were used in anything else. The right image was one that I really liked, for a long time, even though I knew it didn't really work for the book.

Two more attempts, that ended up as teaser ads.

Conjure

2010-07-08T01:58:00.002+01:00

This cover took me ages to come up with and most of the rejected versions I used as teaser posters/ads. The pier is the Britannia at Great Yarmouth (which is apt, since Heyton is, to all intents and purposes, Yarmouth) and I darkened the original picture to make it look more like twilight.

We Fade To Grey

2010-07-08T01:54:00.003+01:00

Emboldened by my success with "Strange Tales" and "In The Rain With The Dead", I asked Chris if I could have a crack at this one too - a five-writer-anthology edited by Gary McMahon. Chris, realising this could be a cost-effective option, agreed and I set to work. Initially, nothing came until I found the hand and then we (me, Gary, Chris) went through about a dozen options for the backing image.

I also did the back cover, which is two images - one of the moon, one of the ruined window (except the window wasn't ruined in the original and was taken in broad daylight).

In The Rain With The Dead

2010-07-08T01:51:00.004+01:00

My first published novel and one which I am still ridiculously proud of. Chris Teague (head of Pendragon Press) asked me if I had any ideas for a cover design and I asked if I could have a go myself.

The cinema is a key location in the film and ouija boards play a very important part. The lady, in the crucifix pose, is from a major set-piece that kind of defines the book (and remains very unpleasant, even now, 5 years after publication).

Strange Tales - the collection

2010-07-08T01:41:00.001+01:00

The final cover for "Strange Tales", complete with chiller text (which I thought was so cool at the time - 2003, when it probably was) and the quote from Brian Keene. John Ford did the cover lay out, I designed the head image.

The Strange Tales head image. It's Alison, in the bathroom of our place at Torvill Crescent in Kettering (smallest room, taken directly under the overhead light, a fan on the bath tray to blow her hair slightly). I then 'jughed' the picture up, using Adobe Photodeluxe software.

Passionfish (never realised project)

2010-07-08T01:38:00.000+01:00

I wrote a song for Passionfish called "The Company Of Darkness" which Alison & Mike really didn't like, so I ended up singing it. Which meant that it never really got anywhere. But I thought it'd make a great title for a new album and put this together.

We have enough Passionfish material for probably two more albums and I hope, one day, that we'll manage to get everything recorded.

Passionfish

2010-07-08T01:25:00.000+01:00

Cover art for the 1st proper CD (ep) from Passionfish - "Past The Wishing Hour". It contained the title track, "Rooms" and "Drive"

This was created long after the original EP (technically, with 10 songs, it was a live LP) was recorded.

artwork and design by Mark West

music by Mike Pateman/Mark West