Skull Tears

•Duality•

Dark Alleys. Bright Shadows.

Prismatic.

Some stills from the minimalist intro/title reveal video I created for the Kickstarter.

Had a lot of fun learning about After Effects while working on this, and I hope to make more abstract art videos like this in the future!

Within the first 48 hours, the project was already past 5% funded, which I’m super pleased with! Still a ways to go, but it’s a great start.

(If you wanna check out the full video complete with 75 seconds of the epic soundtrack, follow this link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/artificelux/color-of-a-mirror-dark-science-fiction-novel-and-soundtrack )

Experience Junkie

                I fell in love with an experience junkie.

You know the expression, “Those who burn twice as bright, burn half as long”?  Well, that was her.  She got off on always doing something a little better, a little crazier, a little more dangerous than what she did the day before.  Immediately, I knew I was in over my head; if I didn’t keep up the pace, she would get bored and move on to the next guy, hoping he could fulfill her insatiable thirst for experience.

And yet, I’m not the kind of guy who just throws in the towel when the going gets tough.  Especially not with a girl like her.  She might have been wild, but to me, that was a good thing.  There was something exceedingly special about her, an untamed quality that had long been extinct in the human race.  She intrigued me.

So keep up the pace I did.  For almost eight months I kept up the pace, working tirelessly to find something new and exciting for us to explore.  I never would have admitted aloud how worn down I was from keeping such a frantic, unpredictable lifestyle, but the fatigue was definitely beginning to creep in.  I was certain it would only be a matter of time before it all caught up with me… or before she noticed my inability to keep up any longer and drifted away.

Then, and only then, did I make the jump from normal thrill-seeking to something new—crime.

Doubtless, our actions had always skirted the edge of the law.  Driving much too fast, skipping through skylane levels like they were green-lighted intersections, polluting the regulated-atmosphere by smoking cannabis down in the bowels of the Dive, brightening up the dour metal walls with colorful, if not entirely appropriate, graffiti… we’d even gone so far as to get some unlicensed body modifications.

But never once had we actually committed a crime of force, an aggravated assault per se.

“You wanna rob a bank tonight?”

She rolled over lazily until she was on top of me, heart beating achingly against mine.  Her skin was warm, slightly sticky with sweat, just like the walls of the dingy flophouse room, and her movement was tired.  Despite the languid motion, however, I could see the fire that had suddenly sparked behind her eyes.  Taking the hand-rolled joint from between her lips, she let a thin streamer of blue smoke trail out of her lungs.

Silence, other than the slow whisper of her breath.  It was something we had come up with, something just between the two of us.  Silence was often the best answer, when you couldn’t trust words to express how you felt.  I suppose it also could have been the worst sort of answer, when anger or hatred was too strong to speak… but I knew that wasn’t the case here.

So, without a word, I knew she’d said yes.

Then, voice hazy with smoke and the thought of a smile, she raised the stakes a little higher.  “An oxygen bank.”

404. Not found.

A brief excerpt of the main character in my upcoming novel COLOR OF A MIRROR.

Now on Kickstarter. Check it out below!

Kickstarter

Color of a Mirror: Dark Science Fiction Novel and Soundtrack

A cerebral, slow-burn narrative about mental instability and the lies we tell ourselves, coupled with a cinematic dark ambient score.

Black and Chrome

// Launch Day // Welcome to The Dive //

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A few days ago, I launched my debut novel COLOR OF A MIRROR. Written, designed, and published by me, it’s my vision of a dark, cyberpunk future. No galactic stakes, no one person saving the human race… it’s a cerebral story of very human characters trying to carve out an existence in a near future city that will crush them without a second thought. If you like Blade Runner or the writing of William Gibson, I think you’ll find something to love in this book.

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And I’m so excited to announce that the softcover novel is now available exclusively on my website! (Please note, I absolutely will ship internationally! If you’re having trouble with an order, just send me a message through the site and I’ll work to fix it.)

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So if you’re looking for something a little different this Black Friday/Cyber(punk) Monday, here’s the link again, in case you didn’t click the one above: colorofamirror.net and I hope to see you all in The Dive!

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(And be sure to check out the soundtrack for the book on Spotify and other streaming services.)

Seeing as this one is sorta time-sensitive, I figured I'd go ahead and post up today's design as a bonus. 10/31

Subversive

“Hang on. I wanna see something.”

He glances in either direction, checking for traffic. Looks both ways again as he crosses the street, more furtively this time. Her footsteps follow, slowly, then quicker, as she jogs across the deserted side street.

“Somehow, I’m thinking this is going to be illegal...”

“Oh, don’t worry... it most definitely is.”

Around the backside of the crumbling wall--perhaps at one point it had been a room or enclosed courtyard of sorts, though now it’s little more than chewed gravel and a sparse collection of weeds even more insistent than the winter chill cutting through his gloves--a simple linework teddy bear, five feet tall and quite pudgy around the middle, sits with his back against the corner. The bright orange spray isn’t even faded. “Hah! Yes, it’s still here.”

“That’s so badass! And completely adorable at the same time!” She chuckles. “I’m feeling like this must have been you?”

“Feel like it might’ve been,” he grins back.