Book Trailer Unleashed!

July 19, 2012March 9, 2022 | mlatimerridley

20120718_610 — Ridley and Latimer have been turned into chibis! Ridley: I only need one eye, like Sauron… Latimer: Takoyaki (octopus balls) anyone? No.. I didn’t think so.

Well, the book trailer is done! Here it is, as we promised! It’s all our own work (animation and art).

Hope you like it!

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Product description of Legend Unleashed

When an infamous criminal is unleashed from his prison, it has consequences for everyone in Carwick. Temperance Levinthal in particular…

Temperance is satisfied with her ordinary life. Dealing with her eccentric, childlike parents is all the excitement she needs. That changes when Alastair Byron returns home.

After a failed matchmaking attempt by her father, sparks fly between her and Alastair-just not the good kind.

They are forced together though, when they are implicated in a grisly murder. Their search for the truth leads them to a secret world beneath Carwick, filled with werewolves, wizards and other magical faey.

However, uncovering the truth is far more dangerous than they’d ever imagined.

There are secrets within secrets.

Even Alastair may be more than he seems…

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Ridley: It’s a stop motion animation with black silhouettes, kind of in the style of Lotte Reigner. Here’s some of the pictures below that I took while making it- and when I remembered to take them!

From drawing rough sketches of the different scenes and characters.

From cutting out the silhouettes.

From recording the animation.

The animation was carried out in my garage room (as you can see from the clutter! Go look back at the picture of the camcorder, do you see the empty Tayto box from many Christmases ago? Told you we love crisps in Ireland-see the post Irishisms, if you’re now going ‘Huh?’) Despite the chaos, this was the darkest place in the house, so the best room for animation creating! In a way, I made the light box. It’s a long frosted glass table that I got second hand (at an excellent price) and I went to Woodies (local hardware shop) to buy a light, which I placed underneath the table. It beat paying a 100 euro plus for an official A4 light box. The tripod and the camcorder aren’t mine, they were borrowed!

Latimer: At this point, please imagine me texting, and viber messaging Ridley, saying ‘how’s it going? yeah, yeah? Harder, monkey! Work harder!’, sipping my tea, crackin’ the whip. Editing on the side 🙂 (as Ridley bled real blood, I bled metaphorical editing blood).

Ridley: I recorded the frames of the animation with the programme ‘I Can Animate’, then I used Windows Movie Maker to gather the clips and create the video. Audacity was a programme I used for the music and sound effects. It’s fantastic to use, quite simple once you learn the ropes.

Latimer: I wish I could have strapped a camera to Ridley’s head while she did all of this. Because I would have loved to hear the, ‘oh dear god, noooo! what happened?’ moments. Next time, I will- I’ll document it!

Ridley: Latimer and I collaborated on it all (Latimer: she’s being nice, the animation is Ridley’s brain-baby- I was a sound-board for the story-board, music and descriptions- but really props to Ridley for this!), deciding on what worked in the animation once it was recorded, the font used on the slides and the type of music we needed to create the right ‘feel’ for the trailer.

For the parts like the chains behind the clock and blood drops, I used Deleter screen, which is used all the time by manga artists. The paper has grey tones and designs, which can be cut out and stuck onto your picture. It’s great stuff. I bought it with the trailer in mind when we were in Tokyo after we found one of the best art shops there, Sekadio in Shinjuku (Latimer: working holiday, the only way to holiday! Haha!).

We were in heaven, except for the fact it was packed and all the aisles were really narrow! And I am a browser, I wander the aisles, which you couldn’t really do there! (Latimer: yeah, poor shop design really too narrow! and claustrophobic!)

Overall, I had an absolutely fantastic time making this. It’s my first ever video, though I’ve always had a love for animation, second only to writing! Most of my favourite movies are animated. Aardman, Pixar, Blue Sky Studio, Dreamworks-I love all their stuff. In Ireland, we’ve Brown Bag films, Boulder Media and Cartoon Saloon to name but a few of the companies here, all of which are making waves in the animation industry!

So as you can see, I relished the chance to create this trailer and join my two great loves, writing and animation. I just really hope people like it!

Book Cover Unleashed!

July 15, 2012March 9, 2022 | mlatimerridley

We are absolutely thrilled to share the cover for our new book with you!

It’s called (as you can see!); Legend Unleashed.

On the back of the book we have the blurb:

“Temperance Levinthal is in danger. She’s been dragged in Alastair Byron’s deadly world. Before she met him, everything was normal. Now she’s fleeing from werewolves, fighting wizards and finding that some secrets are best left untold.”

Our cover artist, Collette was absolutely fantastic! She’s an industrial designer, working in Australia and she also happens to be the sister of one of our best friends. It really is a case if you just look around you and ask, you already know some amazing people who are more than willing to help when you start to chase your dreams.

We provided Collette with a brief (perhaps one that was a little too detailed and long!! Haha…) on what we wanted in terms of colour scheme, images and our over all general idea for the cover. We’ll be the first to admit, we’re both perfectionists and hard to please at times, but we were delighted when this winged it’s way into our inbox. She even gave us quite a number of options to choose from, after much debate between us though, we decided the above cover was the one for us, it was our cover. We’ll show you some of the other options below though!

Sometimes it’s a pity you can’t use every option, isn’t it?

Ridley: We really wanted a black and white theme (as you can see). I’ve always found black and white very striking. A cover like that has never failed to make me double back and pick it up (or click on it, if I’m online). Having done its job to stop me and tempt me, it’s then the blurb’s duty to hook me into buying! So unfortunately, I do judge a book by its cover, I like pretty things, so sue me! Haha! I can’t wait to hold this book in my hands and then slide it, pride of place, onto my bookshelf. It will be a fantastic day. Even if no one else ever buys it, I’ll be extremely proud of all we’ve achieved! It’s an exciting time to be a writer….

Latimer: We love silhouettes, this will become a theme I think 🙂 This is certainly a very exciting time for us. We’ve spent years writing and it almost seems unreal to now be standing where we are, pushing our own machine forward, so to speak! It really is a great time to be a writer.

Also, if you are interested in hiring Collette to do your own book cover, we can pass on your query to her! Just sent us an email. We’d be delighted to share her with the world, she’s fantastic at what she does and extremely helpful! She listens to what you want and makes it a reality.

You’d be hard pressed to find a better designer!

Thanks again Collette! 🙂

MLR

Also finished and coming soon is our book trailer! Stay tuned!

Recharging Batteries in Barcelona

May 11, 2012March 9, 2022 | mlatimerridley

20120507_7 — So many sweets&so small a mouth

Ridley: I was in Barcelona for the bank holiday weekend. It was three days away, but it felt like a full week. Sometimes what you really need is to get away from the drone of your everyday existence and see new, distant lands! You come back all the better for it. And also sunburnt, in my case!

While I love the sun, my pasty Irish skin might as well belong to a vampire it burns so easily. My arms, neck and chest looked like I’d dumped a bucketful of pink blusher powder on them. Thankfully it didn’t hurt, the holiday snaps are just a bit dire.

20120507_2 — The food stretched for miles

Also on this trip, apart from the cooking of my skin, I took the always worthwhile open-top red bus tour, ate loads of ice cream (blue bubble gum flavour from a sprawling market place, yummy!) and faced one of my fears: heights!

We went up along the side of the mountain to the fortress of Montjuic via a gondola box thing that trundled along a rope and swayed with the breeze. Once at the top, I got these lovely photographs of the view. Worth it? Perhaps…. 😛

20120507_217 — Barcelona in all its sprawling splendor

Throughout the trip, I took quite a number of pictures of all the artistic elements of Barcelona. I thought I’d share some of them with you.

20120507_139 — It’s-a-me, Mario! Er…Toad I mean

I travelled with people who were more interested in the city’s fine cuisine and shopping opportunities than the art it holds. Despite this, they were good enough to let me drag them round to one or two places I wanted to visit. I, unfortunately, didn’t insist on visiting the various museums though, one glance at their bored faces was enough of a deterrent! I’m certain they thought I was strange taking pictures of the graffiti on the walls, but I thought the pictures were unbelievable.

20120507_140 — Whose hand is that though?

20120507_152 — It’s cooler than my actual name

Another strange picture I took was of my empty coffee cup-guess who probably won’t be invited on any further holidays!! Haha.

Here’s where I was asked to give my name in Starbucks so they’d know it was my order. Though I’ve never had to do this at home, not that I minded but I think it confused matters. When he kept saying my ‘name’ with the cup in his hand. I kept telling him ‘No no, I ordered a frappuccino café, not a Reg-whatever.’ Eventually we battered down the language barrier between us and I realised it was my order. And he was repeating some weird version of my name. Oops.

Now while I know there is a Picasso museum in Barcelona, for me the one man that really represents Barcelona and kept reappearing during our time there in all sorts of places was Antoni Gaudi.

He was a Catalan architect and artist in his own way. He seems to have had the most influence on the buildings, parks and even the lampposts of Barcelona. He drew a lot of his ideas and designs from nature to create beautiful organic pieces.

Casa Batlló

One of the buildings he designed and built, that we saw, was Casa Batlló. It is located on a main street, Passeig de Gracia. It was absolutely magnificent and really arresting. There were flowing lines and vibrant colours throughout the building, he took a lot of inspiration from the ocean.

The roof alone is beautiful, the glossy colourful tiles covering it are meant to represent the scales of a dragon.

Nothing is conventional or boring about the house, there’s something unusual to see everywhere- in the windows, doors, handrails and the ceilings.

Even it’s roof space-the loft or attic- whatever you want to call it, was also different. With the whole house filled with colour, it’s a surprise to reach the top room and find it’s completely white and sparse. The joists jut out, enclosing the small space. They are meant to represent the bones, possibly the ribcage, of a large animal.

Their website is here, you’ll be able to see better pictures then mine.

Lamp posts

He also designed many of lamp posts that line the street. He was commissioned in 1878 by the city to create them. They are really quite stunning; though sometimes street lights are so a part of the background, they can go unnoticed. It would be a shame to miss them, don’t let them hide in plain sight if you ever visit Barcelona!

The Park Guell

20120507_202 — Looks like it lifted its head from drinking

The other major attraction we visited was The Park Guell. It was originally meant to have 60 luxurious houses build on the large expansive land for the rich to live in and enjoy the amazing views over the city. In the end only two houses were built and Gaudi lived in one of them with his family.

Gaudi’s work fills the park with all the mosaics and ceramic work lining the walls. There’s even a beautiful green mosaic dragon fountain, where we had to wait a good ten minutes to be able to take a picture of it. The place was swamped with other tourists.
The two buildings at the entrance to the park really reminded me of a gingerbread house, like something straight out of a fairy tale by the Grimm Brothers. They were really different.
There were also numerous colonnaded pathways in the park. They supported the road above with sloping columns, many of which were designed to look like pine trees. Really unique. It was the attention to detail that was so impressive.

Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família

The other place that Gaudi designed was the magnificent Basilica. It’s construction was started in 1882 and it’s still ongoing.Gaudi devoted his last years to it, when he died it was only a quarter of the way to completion. Now donations and the visitor entrance fees are what are used to build it.

I’m ashamed to say we ran out of time for visiting here. I would have loved to go inside, but we left it too late. I saw the façade at least and it was impressive. It was almost like something out of Mordor or Isengard really!

20120507_145 — I will build an army! Mwhaa…

Anyone else been to Barcelona recently? I’m sure I missed out on a few fantastic places. The ones I did see though were pretty spectacular, so I’m not complaining! I also, of course, had to get the picture of this giant book on my camera:

20120507_36 — Pretty, but with blank pages.

I wish I had a giant book in my garden…..*sigh*

Sleep vs. Book: the cost of addiction

April 11, 2012March 9, 2022 | mlatimerridley

Latimer: Two nights in a row I’ve been up until 1.30am. And that’s not good when you have to get up at 7am!

I ended up watching episode 2 of Game of Thrones on Tuesday night. It was pretty crap actually- too much talking and gratuitous sex. My flatmate (Orbie) made a very good point about the sex, “why is it never the ones we want to see naked?”

“Fair point,” I said. “Like Robb Stark.”

Orbie nodded, “And Jon Snow- the hottest things in the show.”

Silently, I nodded, this is true, but then I chirped up, “And Jaime Lannister?”

She didn’t reply. Is it just me? I’m going to wait for Ridley to shoot me down on that (I don’t expect her to, but the heart of a woman is a fickle thing. We find beauty in strange places at times and expect others to loudly declare they are sisters in arms with us, when in actuality they look at us with scorn and reproach! But then in turn, we’ll do the same thing when they come forward and admit their guilty pleasure!).

Anyway, so we watched Game of Thrones.

Then, I headed to bed to finish reading Book 2 of the Hunger Games (it wasn’t my intention initially to finish it, but that’s what happened- like a crack addict I OD’d on reading). I stumbled, bleary-eyed to the bathroom at 1am (1 chapter left at this point). As I passed Orbie’s room, the light was on (this was weird). “Hmm,” I thought. Then shrugged, stumbling back to my room to finish gobbling down Book 2.

I woke up the next morning in a hazy half-dream state. I thought I was in the games for a minute, in some weird trippy after-effects of late-night reading. I shook my head and struggled off to make my breakfast. It was a while before Orbie materialised, clawing her way out of her room like a drunk, doped-up koala. She stood blinking in the kitchen, “I’m so tired!” she moaned. “My eyes are burning! I can’t keep them open!”

I nodded, munching my toast. “Hmm, I know what you mean I was up last night reading.” Pause. “What time did you go to bed at?”

“2am!” she cried, using her fingers to hold her eyes open.

“What were you doing?” I inquired. My mind connecting the dots… I wondered….

“Reading.”

“What?” I pressed.

“Hunger Games Book 2!” she said with a sheepish smile, as if I would shoot her down.

“I knew it! Me too,” I squealed.

I told her I’d been up the previous night too. She asked if I had the one’s with the crap, horrible, garish covers (yes).

She scowled, “Those covers make it look like you are reading a kids book about aliens.”

I told her about how Ridley and I had gone to the bookshop after the movie (I’ll set the scene: movie ends, Ridley turns, a knowing smile on her face; “bookshop” she asks, but it’s not really a question. I squeal like a child on too much sugar “YEEY!”- she knows me too well).

Orbie levelled a knowing look at me, “I told you, you would like it” (she had seen the film the previous week and told me, “you’d like it; it’s very good”).

I sigh, “Yeah, yeah, you and Ridley!”

Then, Orbie and I stumbled off our separate ways to work.

I’m saving Book 3 for the weekend. I have it under lock and key. I have to, I need sleep!