Death Knight from Hell

Death Knight, concept art of one of Hell's denizens by David Hudnut

Another one of my concept art illustrations for my upcoming book project. It's got all sorts of cool devils and stuff. Demons too. Really scary, but in that awesome sort of way you get from playing Dungeons and Dragons late at night while consuming huge amounts of Skittles and Coca-Cola (not that I'd advise such an activity, nor will I confirm or deny my own participation in such junk food binges whilst playing D&D in the past).

The guy pictured above is a Death Knight. He lives in Hell. He kills people. Enough said. Don't rile him up. You've been warned.

Urban Fantasy gets a kick in the pants from Hell's Denizens, David Hudnut style.

More concept art will be forthcoming.

Devil concept art

Devil concept art of evil Succubus by David Hudnut

My next self-published book project in the works will feature loads of nasty devils, demons, and various other denizens from You-Know-Who's ultimate inferno. And I don't mean Dante's Inferno. That place was pansy-ass. The place in my tale is far worse...

Pictured on the left is concept art of a pissed-off succubus who will be appearing in my serialized novel. 

You don't want to get on this girl's bad side. It's all spiky and stuff.

My hellacious tale will be an urban fantasy with lots of devils and demons who do fiendish things to unsuspecting mortals.

I'll be posting concept art of the various infernal characters and hellish locations featured in the story here on this blog as I finish them.

If anyone is interested in beta reading part one of my novel when it's ready, send me an email:

davidhudnut at gmail dot com

SEE YOU IN HELL!!!

Urban fantasy will never be the same...

Fat Ogre Goes On A Diet

Fat Ogre by David Hudnut. Look at him suck in his gut.

Do you think ogres are insecure about their weight? As a species, I think we all assume ogres are a fat lot. Fat and happy, as the saying goes, to an ogre. But are they happy?

The fat ogre pictured above looks to me like he's sucking in his gut. Like maybe he's embarrassed to have such an obvious over-hang. And he's got that nifty club handy to smite down anyone who makes cracks about his less than svelte figure. How many quick-tongued slim-boned elves do you think have been on the business end of that thing?

Do you think this guy secretly wishes he wasn't such a fat ogre? Has he tried every gimmicky diet in the realm, yet none have worked? And we all know who sells gimmicky diets in the realm: half-elves.

Stupid elves.

No wonder ogres hate elves.

The next time you seen a fat ogre, give his (or her) wide berth a wide berth. Otherwise, you'll be talking to the club. And that club has some pointy-ass teeth.

You've been warned.

Stay away from the club-wielding fat ogre!

Ionia Martin and her Readful Things Blog kicks A$$

Once again, Ionia Martin over at Readful Things Blog proves she's a font overflowing with generosity.

She listed my blog amongst other good blogs as worth checking out here:

http://readfulthingsblog.com/2013/04/15/awardstime-managementmy-mad-crush/comment-page-1/#comment-3749

So check out Ionia's blog, show her some love, and read a bunch of her great articles and book reviews!

I will be at Crypticon Seattle 2013

For all you horror fans in the Pacific Northwest, I will have a booth in the Vendor Room at Crypticon Seattle 2013, May 24th thru May 26th.

I will be selling and signing copies of my novel Night Walk and my short story collection The Nose Knows & Other Stories.  I will also be selling art prints, giving away shwag, and displaying my art.

Here's the official press release from Crypticon:

"Hey All!

            We just wanted to give everyone a heads up that we will be appearing at the quickly approaching Crypticon Seattle 2013, on May 24th thru 26th. We've reserved booth space in the main Vendor Room where you can all come say hello. Crypticon Seattle, along with being the largest Horror convention in the Northwest, has a ton of awesome events, like; Zombie Speed Dating, Prom of the Dead, Live Action Role Playing demonstrations, an amazing Film Festival, the Hauntipede,  18 of the horror genre's favorite actors, artists, prop masters and so much more! Don't miss a chance to come see us and have some fun in the process!"

Hope to see you there!

Zombie Aliens

Zombie Alien by David Hudnut

I'm a big fan of alien zombies. Specifically, zombies in space and astronaut zombies. You now the kind I'm talking about:

A crew on a space ship or space station is invaded by some alien microbe, and the next thing you now, everyone is dying of a mysterious space sickness.

Then POW! The dead astronauts reanimate as undead astronauts. Wearing space suits.

Does it get any better than that?

Only if the zombie aliens are not simply undead, but also have the ability to grow monstrous body parts and transform the modern sci-fi technology aboard their ship into weird steampunk inspired gear. If you have a hard time picturing what I'm talking about, take a gander at my concept illustration of exactly this sort of zombie-astronaut hybrid pictured at right.

If anyone wants to read a story about the character pictured in my illustration, shoot me an email.

Now I'm off to watch Dead Space: Downfall on Netflix streaming!

SPACE ZOMBIES!!!

"The Nose Knows" a new cover

The Nose Knows by David Hudnut

As any self-published author knows, marketing is as big of a part of being an author as the writing is. I've spent a lot of time researching the marketing ends of things lately, and I decided it was time to re-position my novella The Nose Knows.

Why, you ask?

I'm realizing that by today's standards of horror (think of the Saw movie franchise), The Nose Knows isn't remotely gruesome and gory enough. It's more like a humorous episode of The Twilight Zone. It even has a love story. It's more of a paranormal romantic comedy. I would even venture to say it could air on prime time television without needing to be "toned down" for the masses.

So I whipped up the new cover on the left with an electric mixer and Photoshop. (I did a bunch of preliminary sketches in pencil, on actual paper. If anyone wants to seem them, let me know and I'll post them here on my blog.)

I also changed my book description on Amazon to try and catch more of a humor comedy audience. Like a good boy, I tried to incorporate as much SEO terminology as possible and did some Google Adwords searches for key phrases.

Here's the new text:

Imagine a romantic comedy combined with the humor of Family Guy, The Simpsons, and Mad Magazine, with a little King of the Hill thrown in, and a dash of Robot Chicken.

Calvin Dunkley has trouble meeting women. But he desperately wants to find true love. Luckily for Calvin, every Friday the beautiful Claudia Aranda comes into the grocery store where he works. He's been planning to ask her out for months. It took that long to get his courage up, because Claudia is gorgeous.

Unfortunately for Calvin, the mutant nose hair he discovers sprouting from his nostril like a rabid rattlesnake has other ideas...

Relive the frustrations of young love. The laughs always come with a few tears, but everyone knows romance comes at a price. If you like schadenfreude humor and giant squids, this is your bag.

We'll see if this generates any traffic and sales.

In the meantime, The Nose Knows is free today and tomorrow on Kindle. You can download it here:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Nose-Knows-ebook/dp/B0079OXCE6/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1365807048&sr=1-2&keywords=the+nose+knows

Violent Violet Volkswagen in the making

Illustration by David Hudnut of the Violent Violet Volkswagen described in Stephen King's novel The Shining

Some of you may recall an article I posted last year about the Violent Violet Volkswagen. In brief, the Violent Violet Volkswagen is mentioned in the novel The Shining by Stephen King. It's described as a model kit by Ed "Big Daddy" Roth of Rat Fink fame. As far as I can determine, such a model kit never existed. Neither did any art. So I illustrated my own version of it. You can read the full article here.

The plot has now thickened.

When I was at Emerald City Comicon in March, one of the people who came up to my booth suggested I try and get an actual model kit of the Violent Violet Volkswagen produced. Since this is a gray area in terms of copyright, I thought I'd start by emailing the estate of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. I wanted to make sure that they were on board with the idea.

Here's a portion of the email I sent them on March 6th:

"Greetings-

I'm a big fan of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's art. So much so, that when I recently read a description in Stephen King's novel "The Shining" of Ed Roth's model kit of a Violent Violet Volkswagen, I had to look it up. I could not find it anywhere on the internet, nor do I know if such a model kit ever existed.

Because I couldn't find one, I designed and illustrated an image of it myself, as an homage to both Ed "Big Daddy" Roth and Stephen King.

I posted the art and an article about it on my blog, which you can find here:

http://davidhudnut.blogspot.com/2012/05/violent-violet-volkswagen.html?showComment=1340835611757

I showed the art to a number of people, and everyone seems to like it.

What I want to discuss with the estate of Ed Roth is whether or not you guys have any interest in seeing the Violent Violet Volkswagen turned into some sort of product.

My feeling is that if the estate of Ed Roth were to authorize this, and Stephen King were to authorize it as well, there would be an interest out there for such a product. Whether it's a model kit, a resin-cast sculpture, or prints, t-shirts & decals, I know there is a niche market for this idea. I'm sure it's small, but I know that for me, as a fan of both Ed Roth and Stephen King, I'd pay $200 for a 1/12 scale replica of such a piece, if it was of high enough quality. I would also buy a print-on-demand T-shirt for $30, or a print for $20.

But before any of this can happen, I want to make sure that everyone at the Ed Roth estate, including the spirit of Big Daddy himself, would be on board with such a product. If you guys like the idea, the next step would be talking to Stephen King.

Thanks in advance,

David Hudnut"

So far, I haven't heard back from the Ed Roth estate. That doesn't mean they aren't interested. Who knows.

But what I want to find out from all my faithful blog readers is the following:

Are YOU interested in seeing the Violent Violet Volkswagen come to life in the form of a sculpture, T-shirts, prints, etc.?

As a big fan of both King and Roth, I know I'd love to see it. But what about you all? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Thanks everybody!