Right, it’s the 31st, so the contest is over. The last entries came in yesterday, just under the wire. I didn’t get as many as I’d hoped, but there were some good ones. I will get it all sorted out, post all the entries, and announce the winners next Monday, June 6th.

Thanks, all, for entering!

So cool!

Winona Nelson has sent the Bloodforged prints that I will be giving away as prizes in the Bloodforged art and mini contest, and here they are, with the book on the side to show the scale. They are beautiful, high quality prints on heavy paper, and are signed by Winona and myself.

Man, I almost want to keep one for me!

To celebrate the upcoming release of the second Ulrika book, Bloodforged, I have decided to hold a double contest. Here’s how it works. I am looking for the best Ulrika artwork and best Ulrika miniature conversion, and I will be giving out cool prizes to the winners and runners up in both categories.

Both art and miniatures should represent Ulrika, armed and dangerous, as described in Bloodborn or Bloodforged and shown on the covers. There should be no nudity or excessive violence (this is a family show) but the rest is at your discretion.

The contest will run from now until Monday, May 30th 2011, and I will announce the winners a week later on Monday, June 6th, which is right between the US and UK Bloodforged release dates.

I reserve the right to post all entries, whether winners or losers, on my blog, but make no guarantees that I will show any of them. Enter at your own risk.

Here are the details for each contest:

Art Contest

The medium can be anything you want, pen, pencil, paint, digital, even sculpture or photography. It can be a pin-up, portrait, action scene, comic story, etc. Whatever you want, as long as it features Ulrika. Please DO NOT send original works. Send jpgs of the work to my gmail address and make sure they’re not too big. 700×450 pixels is about right. The decision of the judges (me) is final.

Miniature Contest

The medium is a standard 28mm miniature figure, converted and painted to look like Ulrika. If you want to go nuts and make a diorama, be my guest, but a single figure will be fine. As with the art contest, DO NOT send the actual miniatures. Send jpgs of the finished pieces to my gmail address and make sure they’re not too big. 700×450 pixels is about right. The decision of the judges (me) is final.

Prizes

Prizes for both contests are as follows:

First Prize is a signed copy of Bloodforged PLUS a print of the Bloodforged cover art signed by me and the artist, Winona Nelson.

Two runners up will each receive a signed copy of Bloodforged.

There you go. Any questions, send an e-mail. Good luck and get started. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

And no, Winona, you can’t enter….

So cool! My first sample copy of Bloodforged just arrived in the mail. It looks great! Thanks again to Nonie for a great painting, and to Darius for the design. I love it!

Click on the photo to pre-order it from Amazon!

This is great. I don’t know much about the artist, but he’s done a dead-nuts copy of the old Tintin books I used to read, but with new adversaries. I want to read them!

Yes, this blog is back from the dead, but that’s not what I mean. I did a guest blog over at the Black Library site in anticipation of the release of Zombieslayer. It’s entitled Life and Undeath in the Old World: A Seven Point Traveller’s Guide to Not Being Eaten by Zombies, and it’s a seven point traveller’s guide to not being eaten by zombies. Timely and informative. Click on the image to check it out!

Last week Black Library posted the cover of Bloodforged, the sequel to my first Ulrika the Vampire novel, Bloodborn, so I guess that means I can post it now too. Beautiful, isn’t it? I think Winona Nelson did an even better job on this one than she did on the first one, and the first one is fantastic. I can’t wait to see what she does for Bloodsworn, the third in the series.

Click on the picture to visit Winona’s portfolio site and see all her other work!

Author copies!

Just got ‘em in the mail today!

Check out the cover art for my pal Christa Faust’s forthcoming Angel Dare novel, Choke Hold. Glen Orbik is a fantastic painter – a real throwback to the golden age of pulp cover artists. Click on the cover to visit Christa’s blog and learn more.

Here’s the cover Glen did for Christa’s first Angel Dare novel, Money Shot. Click on it to go to his site and see more of his work.

This is pretty cool – at least I think it is. Lisa Morton, at the Iliad Bookshop sent word to me through my pal Christa Faust that a guy had come in with leather-bound copies of my Warhammer books. Apparently he had done it himself, and they looked pretty good.

Never one to resist appeals to my vanity, I popped over there to see for myself and they did look pretty good – so I bought ‘em. And here they are!

Pretty damn cool, huh? They are, the Blackhearts Omnibus, and the Gotrek and Felix Omnibus Vol I, II and III. Whoever he was, the bookbinder didn’t just do bindings for the G+F and Blackhearts series. There were at least ten other Warhammer books in the collection, all neatly done up in black pleather.

Let me just say right here that this is the sort of thing I highly encourage. If anyone out there wants to make bound, embossed, gold-leafed, gem-encrusted or otherwise custom-crafted bindings for my books, or illustrations of their characters, or miniatures perhaps, I’m all for it, and I would love to see a snapshot or two of the finished product – which I would of course feature prominently on this blog.

Finally, to the anonymous bookbinder, let me just say, thanks! I love ‘em! Keep up the good work!