So, exciting news

We now have three total character references for my fantasy novel’s paintings. Now we need some more, and if we can get Tumblr users to help it could be freaking amazing. 

Here’s what we still need: 

Rük
Male, 6’3" approximately, dark-skinned (examples: African, Haitian), brown-eyed with thick black dreads and beard. Veteran preferred. Age 40-45, looks like he could take on a bear and win. He probably could. 

Luc
Male, 6’1" approximately, fair-skinned, green-eyed with long hair and thick beard. Veteran preferred. Age 40-45, similar build to Rük. 

Malkeon
Male, 5’6" approximately, olive-skinned (example: most Mediterranean countries), any eye color with long black wavy hair. Age 15-18, toned muscle, similar to a sword fighter’s build. 

Crystal
Female, 5’6" approximately, character is mixed-race (white/Mediterranean), blue eyed with long straight hair, any color as the character has snow white canonically. Age 16-19, toned muscle similar to Malkeon. 

Sapphire
Female, 5’8" approximately, fair-skinned, blue eyed with long straight hair, any color as the character has snow white canonically. Age 22-26, warrior’s build (think Ronda Rousey). 

Let’s see what we can do!!

Adding To The Ranks

we now have a model for the character of Zenti in my upcoming novel Dark Soldier! It’s kind of an interesting story. Now that I’m back in university, I am around far more people than usual. There’s a great amount of diversity at LU. Nonetheless, I told Annika (my good friend and the illustrator) we probably wouldn’t find an exact model for Zenti. She would have to fit a really specific…

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Adding To The Ranks

we now have a model for the character of Zenti in my upcoming novel Dark Soldier! It’s kind of an interesting story.

Now that I’m back in university, I am around far more people than usual. There’s a great amount of diversity at LU. Nonetheless, I told Annika (my good friend and the illustrator) we probably wouldn’t find an exact model for Zenti. She would have to fit a really specific description. Like, REALLY specific. I may do too much detail with character description, I’ll admit.

But as luck would have it, my third day back, I spotted someone who looked exact to her description just walking to class. I was shocked to say the least. She smiled, and I tried to smile back, still in shock. Then she scampered away. It was a bit paradoxical. 

And only two minutes later, I spotted someone who looked just like the main character! He looked at me oddly, frowned slightly and then walked off. This just so happens to be what Malkeon would do. It was a very exciting day for me.

I told all this to the illustrator, who’s immediate response was: “Why don’t we have her be the model?”

“Well,” I pointed out, “It’s a big college. I’ll probably never see either of them again.”

As luck would have it, day four walked around, I was sitting in class, and a certain person was giving her art proposal for the big semester assignment.

I recognized her immediately.

But the simple fact is that I am a very introverted person. Most of my ability with writing dialogue comes from listening, not talking. So it was very unlikely that I would talk to this person, much less ask them to be a model for a book character. For the next week I left it alone. 

Finally I decided it was either act now or get someone who wasn’t as accurate to character.

As it turns out, she not only agreed on the spot but has been wanting to do something like this for some time. And she will probably get to hold that freakishly large sword replica when it’s done. So that’s cool.

Yes, about that size. maybe bigger.

I haven’t seen the Malkeon guy since the first time, though. Here’s hoping…

Now to find Malkeon, Rük, Luc, Sapphire, Crystal, Cedric and Vatrix before the book is published.

That shouldn’t be too hard, right?

Looking for Painting Reference Models

We’re looking for models for Dark Soldier’s characters! Could you be one?

Seriously, we are on the lookout. We’re needing people of every skin pigment to come in for this one. Basically, the illustrator for my upcoming novel is trying to get references for her paintings, and I don’t want to just steal images off the internet. I like to have people’s permission. Sadly, we can’t pay since we’re both poor American college kids, but we will do our best to get your name…

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Looking for Painting Reference Models

Seriously, we are on the lookout.

We’re needing people of every skin pigment to come in for this one. Basically, the illustrator for my upcoming novel is trying to get references for her paintings, and I don’t want to just steal images off the internet. I like to have people’s permission. Sadly, we can’t pay since we’re both poor American college kids, but we will do our best to get your name out. Here are a few characters we could use references for:

Character 1
Gender: Male
Skin Color: Brown / Black
Hairstyle: Ranges from short hair to medium-length braids by end of book, black
Body Type: Athletic
Age Pref: 20-30

Character 2
Gender: Female
Skin Color: Unspecified, implied medium
Hairstyle: Straight, blue
Body Type: Hourglass, Average
Age Pref: 25-30

Character 3
Gender: Male
Skin Color: Fair
Hairstyle: Short fohawk, Red
Body type: Slim
Age Pref: 18-25

Character 4
Gender: Female
Skin Color: Olive
Hairstyle: Curly, Black
Body Type: Pear, Athletic
Age Pref: 18-25

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If you’re interested in joining up even without fitting these descriptions, we can probably fit you in. Trust me, there are a great variety of characters.

Send an email to officialgabrielpenn@gmail.com!

A Bit of Everything

A Bit of Everything

Today I’m going to give you a bit of everything – personals, writing stuff, faith, etc. Mainly, it’s because a lot has been happening. So here goes. This has been a long weekend. Like, a very long weekend. And not too much fun. I was writing for most of it, but that’s not why it was not fun. It was not fun because, throughout the whole weekend, I was tired and stressed. And at first, I thought it…

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A Bit of Everything

Today I’m going to give you a bit of everything – personals, writing stuff, faith, etc. Mainly, it’s because a lot has been happening. So here goes.

This has been a long weekend.

Like, a very long weekend. And not too much fun. I was writing for most of it, but that’s not why it was not fun. It was not fun because, throughout the whole weekend, I was tired and stressed. And at first, I thought it was situational stuff that was dragging me down. Turns out that was not the case at all. Turns out I just needed to start hitting the hay before midnight. For some reason, it did not occur to me to be getting extra sleep for a job I have to wake up at six o’clock for. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. So this is a public service announcement via Gabriel Penn: sleep is good! Even in summer!

In other news, this is what happened in that writing expedition. Forty pages got either written or edited over my weekend. Forty. That’s a lot, and it’s pushing us way closer to getting publishing possibilities way faster than I ever dreamed. It’s such a dream come true, you have no idea. I get emotional just thinking about it – to imagine that maybe someday soon someone’s going to love my characters and world as much as I do. I think that’s pretty awesome.

Lastly with faith – started Pilgrim’s Progress, as some of you know. What a book! It was incredibly intense, even from the get-go, and it just doesn’t stop. As for whether I’ll finish it by the end of the month, maybe not. But it is awesome, and I would suggest it to anyone and everyone. I don’t know if it’s just my version of the book, but it may be hard for some people to get used to the verses that scatter the story. Read them and don’t skip! It’s hard to get used to at first, but they make the scenes so much more intense. Seriously.

A concluding thought! We (the illustrator and I) are doing some model choosing for the novel’s drawings / photos. She doesn’t have as big of a reach for that as I do, though. We are welcoming people of all ethnic backgrounds for this one, as there are many different ethnic groups in the series. I don’t have much money to give because I’m in college, so please don’t expect any extravagant wealth if you decide to do this. Please contact me at officialgabrielpenn@gmail.com if you’re interested at all!

Please like us on Facebook (Novel and Blog) and follow on Twitter! And have a fantastic week!

A Call for Models!

My illustrator friend doesn’t know this, but I’m going help her with the drawings a little for the book I’m working on. She’s done some excellent work with the characters that she’s already drawn, but she’s working without models. Why? Because, as of right now, she doesn’t have any models! Not a one. So here’s what we’re going to do: as she doesn’t have very many models in her circle of friends, we need some POC and WHITE models for some of the characters. I don’t really have any money, as I’m a college student. But you can have the glory of being able to say, “Yup, I was the reference for that handsome / beautiful character.” I’m no professional in the realm of modeling, but I know what I would want as an artist. 

Images are for body reference. No nudes, I beg of you. We don’t need that kind of modeling. 

Contact me at officialgabrielpenn@gmail.com if you have any interest at all. These are the characters she could still use some models for – 

Luk: Longhaired fair-skinned male. Bearded is preferred. Height is approximately 6 ft. Character is a veteran Viking-like warrior. Therefore, he’s got some muscle to him. Ages 30 – 45 preferred for model. 

Ashlin: Longhaired olive-skinned female, model can have any hair color. Character is a wandering druid, and appears to be ageless. She is slightly underweight, but not anorexic. No distinct height listed in canon. Age 30-35 preferred for model. 

Ruk: Longhaired dark-skinned male. Dreadlocks and beard preferred. Like his brother Luk, character is veteran warrior, and very muscular, even more than Luk. Muscle type is closer to strongman than bodybuilder. Height is approximately 6 ft 3 in tall. Ages 25-40 preferred for model. 

Crystal and Sapphire: Due to characters similar appearances, same model can be used for both. Medium-length hair, fair-skinned female. 115-120 lbs. weight class. More toned than muscular. Height is approximately 5 foot 3 inches. 

Cedric: Short-haired dark-skinned male. Like Crystal and Sapphire, more toned than muscular. Height is approximately 5 foot 6 inches. 

Although hair color is unimportant to body references, here are the hair colors by canon:
Luk: Redhead. Ashlin: Blue. Ruk: Black. Crystal: Blonde. Sapphire: Blonde Cedric: Black