Art And Dystopia

So I’m sick.

And haven’t been to college. 

It’s sorta good and bad because: 

1) I feel horrible but am happy that I didnt have to submit that horrible assignment.

 2) I made a new picture 

3) I wrote a little more

 4) I’m getting time to comment on my followers’ pages.


So check this picture out. This is also story-inspired but I will NOT be posting anything at all about this story because this is my IT project, the one book I will be taking no chances on, the one book I will be going the traditional print route with. It’s my big-dreams book. It’s dystopia, but it has a beautiful romantic background and a very nice bunch of characters.

Let me thank TwiggXstock on DA for the beautiful model, and NebelDarkened for the partial background. I’ve played with the model’s hair and given her eyes a different color, and am so pleased that I got someone who looks almost the way I want my heroine to look…

Thrilled!

New Artwork

.So it’s been a while.

A long while.

My absence from blogosphere and the internet in general can be attributed to a lot of things, the chief of which being exams, a motherboard crash that had me running for backing up all my files (unsuccessful and unfortunate) in vain. So now I’ve ended up with no large collection of stock photos, no ebooks, no fonts, no PS brushes and no anime  videos. Blank slate, fresh start, tragedy…you could call it anything.

What did I learn?

Buy a pen drive. Buy an external hard disk. If you have no money for both, well then find some way to get backup for all your files.

Backup, as they say, is of vital, vital importance.

There’s new artwork coming up  and this one is themed JUST BRUSHES

As I lost my stock photos I ended up with only a saved collection of brushes and custom shapes, using which I created these…All of them are urbanscapes. The buildings are done using the sets Vector Megapolis and other buildings CSH from www.allsilhouettes.com

You can find these stuff on www.obsidiandawn.com (thanks again Stephenie) www.brusheezy.com, and sometimes www.deviantart.com….

A rose picture for bg, paint splatter brushes, color overlays, a custom made color action, blending and voila!

 

Basically smoke brushes, filters and the distortion feature

 

Basic PS- a stock photo for reference, some CSH, some hi-res brushes, curves, replace color, shear and pinch

 

Book Review: Torment (A Fallen Novel)

 

Torment by Lauren Kate

Back Blurb:

Hell on earth.

That’s what it’s like for Luce to be apart from her

fallen angel boyfriend, Daniel. It took them an eternity

to find one another, yet now he tells her he must go

away. Just long enough to hunt down the Outcasts—

immortals who want to kill Luce. He hides her at

Shoreline,a school on the rocky California coast with

unusually gifted students: Nephilim, the offspring of

fallen angels and humans. At Shoreline, Luce learns

what the Shadows are, and how she can use them as

windows on her previous lives. Yet the more Luce

learns, the more she realizes that Daniel hasn’t told her

everything. He’s hiding something—something dangerous.

What if Daniel’s version of the past isn’t actually true?

What if Luce is really meant to be with someone else?

 

MY REVIEW:

Plot and Characters

Torment by Lauren Kate has to be one of the most awaited books of the year. Fallen was popular for a lot of reasons, including the awesome cover, and some people compared it with Twilight and some even gave the verdict that it was better than Twilight. Somehow I could never get into Fallen, totally. I found Luce infinitely boring, and hated Daniel for the way he treated her. Cam and Arriane were the only characters I even liked. Somehow I managed to get through that book, and couldn’t find anything that special about it. So picking up Torment was sort of a half-hearted thing.I have to admit that this book was way better than I expected. The author finally brings out the sizzle and superpowers of the fallen angels, not to mention a dash of history. Torment, at least, isn’t all about Daniel and Luce and gives some amount of character to Luce, to make us like her at least a bit. Daniel, sadly, is still too irritating according to me. At least Luce has a brain in this book.Again, it’s nice knowing she can do things- she’s not just sitting around waiting for her immortal boyfriend to get rid of all the (legions of) bad guys. She’s not blindly following all the rules (?!) that Daniel set her, and she’s even admitting to herself that she may (and I do) like the sweet new guy Miles. We learn more about Luce’s past lives with Daniel, and there’s some impressive and original kind of supernatural stuff in the book. Written elegantly, the book satisfies the hardcore Fallen fans and gets a vote of passability from those who really couldn’t get into Fallen. But it just doesn’t make sense that we should like the sweet new dude and not the scary, cold and super-secretive Daniel. He simply annoyed me, and I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t just stop treating her like a child. Shelby and Miles are both very interesting characters and Arriane, Gabbe and Cam keeps being impressive in Torment as well. Luce finally starts asking questions, a common and frightening enemy is discovered and there’s plenty more fantasy elements than we ever saw in Fallen. The ending is pretty great too, Miles playing a curiously big part in saving the day (go, Miles!) and the last part through Daniel’s eyes (perhaps to prove he’s a great guy, I don’t know) is very interesting. All in all, much better than its prequel, although it really does nothing to improve my iciness to Daniel. Let’s hope the next installment gives him some tenet to really turn my opinion of him.Verdict? I’ll be picking up the next installment, which is more than what I would have said after reading Fallen.

 

Cover:

absolutely rocking. Not as great as Fallen’s, but still eerie and captivating. Full marks!

First Line (s):

Daniel stared out at the bay.

His eyes were as gray as the

thick fog enveloping the Sausalito shoreline, as the choppy

water lapping the pebble beach beneath his feet. There was

no violet to them at all; he could feel it. She was too far

away.

Website:

The author’s website, here:

 

 

Book Review: Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles#2)

 

 

Book Review: Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

BACK BLURB:

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena’s family of powerful supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen.

Sometimes life-ending.

Together they can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan’s eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there’s no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town’s tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems.

MY REVIEW:

Beautiful Darkness is just what the title suggests. Beautifully written, entirely atmospheric, eerie, enchanting yet sweet at the same time. The elegance of a Southern small-town setting and the plain sweetness of the romance is more evident in BD than in the first book, Beautiful Creatures.

Ethan and Lena have been through a lot together, already. So Ethan is rather hurt and confused at the way Lena seems to be pulling away from him after her Uncle Macon’s death. He has a feeling she isn’t telling him something, which only intensifies as each day passes and Lena keeps pulling further apart from him. The “Kelting” (or mind-speak between them) seems to have shut down too.  When Lena gets into trouble with her Dark Caster mother, Sarafine, it’s up to Ethan, his best friend Link, a British bookworm (and interesting new character) Liv, and Lena’s cousin Ridley, the “good” Siren to go deep into the strange and eerie Caster world and save her.

PLOT AND CHARACTERS

Some people may comment at this point that they find a male point of view too strange in a paranormal romance. In fact, what I would give Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl credit is for pulling it off so well. Ethan is real and believable completely. Every feeling of his is well-written, and he’s a very lovable character- the kind that would make you stick to finishing a book even if the story sucks, although BD is a beautiful book in terms of plot too.

The Caster universe is way more exciting than the first time. Every character gets a deeper look-into, including Ethan’s dead mother, Lila Jane. Amma remains her indomitable yet lovable self, but I found myself sort of annoyed at Lena for the first half of the book. Truth be told, I liked the girl Liv too much. It’s not just Ethan who has a new girl in his life- it’s Lena too, and this other character is called John Breed.

Beautiful Darkness does go a little predictable with the introduction of these two complexities- John and Liv- and we all knew that something was different about Ethan too, so no surprises there.

What’s best about BD is the world-within-world thing that’s written so well in this book. It reminded me a bit of Percy Jackson, jumping headlong from one troubling situation to another, although this had an all-different strange specialty about it.

Thought Sarafine was badass? Welcome Abraham Ravenwood. The new villain promises to be exciting as well.

All in all- a wonderful, totally-worth sequel to the lovable BC, with the same Southern setting (loved and hated Gatlin at the same time…) , the same wonderful characters and the much-improved description of the Caster world.

COVER:

First of all, I have to admit that even if the cover had totally been awful, I wouldn’t have cared. Because the first book was called Beautiful Creatures…and it just sounded really weird. Beautiful Darkness is so, so much a better name that I’m relieved beyond an overwhelming level.

The cover is just so-so. The font looks good, the background too strange for my liking, maybe because I never liked photo negatives anyway.

FIRST LINE:

“I used to think our town, buried in the South Carolina backwoods, stuck in the muddy bottom of the Santee River valley, was the middle of nowhere”

WEBSITE:

Author Website here

November is Nano month!

Yes, it’s here again….National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is back again, and it’s time for all you writing addicts to type out those 50,000 (phhoey!) words and enjoy fast-paced writing!
I’m in this year too (there’s nothing more motivating than having won the past year and I’m totally looking forward to an awesome November!)

Are you IN?

To join NaNoWriMo check out their website

Book Review:Forget You

 

BACK BLURB:

There’s a lot Zoey would like to forget. Like how her father has knocked up his twenty-four-year old girlfriend. Like Zoey’s fear that the whole town will find out about her mom’s nervous breakdown. Like darkly handsome bad boy Doug taunting her at school. With her life about to become a complete mess, Zoey fights back the only way she knows how, using her famous attention to detail to make sure she’s the perfect daughter, the perfect student, and the perfect girlfriend to ultra-popular football player Brandon.

But then Zoey is in a car crash, and the next day there’s one thing she can’t remember at all—the entire night before. Did she go parking with Brandon, like she planned? And if so, why does it seem like Brandon is avoiding her? And why is Doug—of all people—suddenly acting as if something significant happened between the two of them? Zoey dimly remembers Doug pulling her from the wreck, but he keeps referring to what happened that night as if it was more, and it terrifies Zoey to admit how much is a blank to her. Controlled, meticulous Zoey is quickly losing her grip on the all-important details of her life—a life that seems strangely empty of Brandon, and strangely full of Doug.

 

MY REVIEW

 

I read this book purely because the cover was captivating. There was something about the cover that seemed attractive, but truth be told, I was rather disappointed by this book.

PLOT AND CHARACTERS:

 

“Forget You” is about Zoey Commander, everyone’s best friend, swimmer and pretty blonde, who loses her memory after an accident.

Zoey is in some serious trouble after her mother attempts suicide and her father tries to cover it up. Then there are the two boys in her life: Brandon and Doug. Brandon, her supposed “boyfriend” is exactly the kinda guy Zoey should know better than to call her boyfriend. I don’t even get the reason why she keeps telling Doug, who’s much more interesting, that Brandon is her “boyfriend”. That makes her look incredibly stupid.

Again, the writing did not do much to impress me. It was just so-so, with a good deal of amnesia thrown in. I read this book expecting that some complicated stuff might have happened during the time Zoey did not remember after she lost her memory. In that aspect I was disappointed: nothing really complicated had happened.

Good point of this book? The guy, Doug. Strangely enough, I sort of liked him even though I really didn’t like Zoey and the way she thought. The end seemed to be some kind of patched up thing with everyone and everything suddenly falling over them to make everything all right in Zoey’s life (except her father, thank God) – a miraculous recovery, a rescue from drowning…I just found everything undeveloped and lacking direction. Except for some rare good scenes in the book, it was just another book you might read on a flight and then decide not great enough to grace your bookshelf.

Verdict: Read it, and then decide if you want to buy it.

COVER:

 

There’s something soft and appealing about the cover. I prefer soft and tender to racy in books. There wasn’t enough softness or tenderness in the book.

FIRST LINE:

Every strong swimmer has a story about nearly drowning.

 

WEBSITE:

Author’s website here

Book Review: Before I Fall

BACK BLURB: (From Goodreads)

What if you had only one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life?

Samantha Kingston has it all—looks, popularity, the perfect boyfriend. Friday, February 12th should be just another day in her charmed life. Instead, it’s her last. The catch: Samantha still wakes up the next morning. In fact, she re-lives the last day of her life seven times, until she realizes that by making even the slightest changes, she may hold more power than she had ever imagined

MY REVIEW:

PLOT and CHARACTERS:

This book was so awesome!

Usually I don’t gush about any book, but in this case, I can’t help it.

“Before I Fall” by Lauren Oliver has everything I like in a book: a tangled, complicated plot, great characters, focus and a lovely style of writing. The book is absolutely wonderful from the start, written elegantly and exploring many kinds of relationships. Samantha as a character is refreshing from the noble-hearted heroines we get to see these days: willing to accept her mistakes but never hiding the fact that it hurts to accept them. There’s some kind of ease in the way the relationship of the four girls- Sam, Lindsay, Elody and Allie- is portrayed, a kind of no holds barred familiarity that I could empathize with, having similar girlfriends. The loveliness of the book lies in the fact that we read about the same day, and the same sequence of events with the same cast of characters again and again but each time, the author manages to tweak the plot enough that our interest is piqued. Each time, we understand a little more about each character that is in the book, even the smallest of them who’s in Sam’s life on the fateful day. The complication lies in the fact that what Sam knew about each character in the beginning of the book changes completely by the end of it.

This book is utterly delicious, completely un-put-down-able.

Sam and Kent are both wonderful characters, and I especially loved the tenderness in the writing, a sort of beauty that is vary rarely seen in urban chick-lit these days.

The verdict is simple: highly, highly recommended. Go buy this!

COVER:

Pretty. Could have been better; people like me who don’t really read much of romance might mistake this cover for something mushy- which this book is NOT.

FIRST LINE:

“They say that just before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that’s not how it happened for me.”

WEBSITE:

Author’s website: here

 

I am so looking forward to reading Lauren’s second book “DELIRIUM”. It seems so special. Stated to release on Feb 2011.

Check out the book here

 

Book Review: Some Girls Are

Blurb from Author Website:

Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard–falling from it is even harder. Regina Afton used to be a member of the Fearsome Fivesome, an all-girl clique both feared and revered by the students at Hallowell High… until vicious rumors about her and her best friend’s boyfriend start going around. Now Regina’s been “frozen out” and her ex-best friends are out for revenge. If Regina was guilty, it would be one thing, but the rumors are far from the terrifying truth and the bullying is getting more intense by the day. She takes solace in the company of Michael Hayden, a misfit with a tragic past who she herself used to bully. Friendship doesn’t come easily for these onetime enemies, and as Regina works hard to make amends for her past, she realizes Michael could be more than just a friend… if threats from the Fearsome Foursome don’t break them both first…

 

My Review:

This book by Courtney Summers was the first I read which belonged to non-paranormal romance after a long line of other books which actually heaped my plate full with werewolves and vampires and in one case some unnamed creature (better not mention the name of the book).

PLOT

The story revolves around Regina Afton and her fall from popularity/bitchiness courtesy of a drunken-party aftermath and a group of utterly despicable friends. From the beginning of the book I found Regina’s relationship with all her friends to be pathetic, and I couldn’t really believe that anyone could so utterly not give her a chance to explain what might have actually led to the misunderstanding.

Poor Regina. This book actually made me feel sad at parts; I just really wanted Regina to stop suffering so much. I felt a lot of her pain, and I could empathize with every feeling she had going through her head. Sharing the lunch-table with the “emo” boy whose life she herself had help ruin, and being saved by the ex-best friend she herself had destroyed socially must have hurt.

What I loved about Courtney’s book is that it was so real. The high-school tradition of open fawning of popular people was well recorded.

CHARACTERS:

Her characters were all in shades of grey, and that was a nice change from the goodie/baddie stuff that’s tending to overwhelm the written world these days.

Regina is not a pathetic loser who considers destroying herself at any point. Yes, she does feel hurt, but she fights against the bigger losers who went about punishing her for no fault of her own.

The male hero, Michael, was also likeable with his cool detachment from the world.

There was no melodrama in this book, which was the reason I read it in one go. The writing style too is fabulous, not too descriptive yet not amateurish either.

COVER:

The color of the locker and the girl depicts the drama of high school. The color of the locker has an explanation in the book so I won’t talk about it here.

Good cover image.

FIRST LINE:

“You’re either someone or you’re not.”

WEBSITE:

Courtney Summers’ website