Some Stills From The Minimalist Intro/title Reveal Video I Created For The Kickstarter.

Monu-mental.

Escher-Lance. Well, today marks the 100th post of my #expoart series. Since I've started this project of making some sort of design every day, there have been numerous times I've thought that I had exhausted all possible ideas, that I would just be doing repeats. And yet, every time, something new would spring forth. (Like the above drawing.) A lesson for me in not giving up, I suppose. There will be more to come. Thanks for looking, and have a good one.

Final Week!

The Kickstarter is winding down, and I’m full of gratitude for those who’ve backed my vision for this independent dark science fiction project. Of currently-active Fiction Publishing projects on Kickstarter, “Color of a Mirror” is the 9th most-funded. In the world. That’s absolutely incredible to me!

Why, then, is the project not yet funded?

Well, largely because I’m not content with producing a hardcover or softcover book as cheaply as possible. I want this book to be a work of art in and of itself, to feel like it came from a big-name publisher, despite me being just one person. I want to work with a printer that strives for that same type of quality in the options they offer, that gives me the ability to customize this book in a way that makes it sing.

Beyond that, however, I’m also trying to do a limited pressing of a vinyl for the soundtrack. All my metrics for how big a run to do of these various items to make them cost-effective, cross-referenced with a feasible amount of money to raise, has landed me on the $15,000 mark.

(I’m encouraged that there’s currently a novella project from an established, published author that had a goal of $10,000, making me feel like my higher goal was not so far off.)

This may be a bit of a ramble, but I hope it’s an honest look at how I’m thinking about this project, and what I’m trying to achieve.

There’s still time to back! No matter the tier you choose, every little bit helps. It’s going to take a mega-surge this final week to get to fully-funded, but I whole-heartedly believe we can get there.

Ends the day after Cyber Monday, in celebration of the cyberpunk story that it is.

Now, let’s go get higher on that most-funded list!

-Dan/ArtificeLux

Kickstarter

Color of a Mirror: Dark Science Fiction Novel and Soundtrack

A cerebral, slow-burn narrative about mental instability and the lies we tell ourselves, coupled with a cinematic dark ambient score.

Glow-wave.

Main Title Design: Lesson 3.

For this assignment, we were tasked with creating six narrative frames with typography using only a limited set of 40 images. The film is a documentary about the Apollo mission. I used only 6 of those images, in my effort to create a set of modern minimal titles.

Instead of going for the sepia-faded, old-film look, I really wanted everything to have a strong black level, to make it feel more modern, (perhaps more like how the movie Gravity made me feel about outer space). However, I didn't want to completely do away with a nod to the past, to the "Golden Age" of space exploration, so the opening frames are very warm as the sun breaks around the edge of a hidden planet. It evokes a more mysterious energy, more like a sci-fi movie, speaking to discovery and unknown worlds.

As we begin to pan across the planet, we see the Command Module hanging in orbit around the planet. It's moving towards us slightly, even as we pan further to the left of it. As it grows larger in our field of vision, preparing to pass by on the right side of the screen, the camera pulls back through a window, and we realize we are in the Lunar Module, seeing through the eyes of one of the astronauts.

The camera pans away from the first window, settling on the smaller "approach" window. At first the view through that portal is blurred, focusing instead on the numbers on the glass. But once we move beyond that glass, the moon is passing by, filling our vision, until finally, we settle on the final frame. This last shot mirrors and inverts the first frame, contrasting the warm glow of exploration and expectations of 1960s space exploration with the colder, harsher reality that is outer space.

As for why I chose the "side" view of the moon, instead of putting it at the bottom of the shot... simply put, it's not a view we see as much in film and other media. And the truth is, there is no up or down in space, so the views aren't grounded in the planet's surface being beneath your feet.

The font is "Impact Label Regular." I chose it in an attempt to replicate the old-style label machines that created the raised labels for technical systems and buttons back in the 60s and 70s. The font also evokes the feel of classified documents, riddled with black redaction marks. The Apollo missions were all part of the space race and NASA's battle with the Soviet Union (not to mention the strong undercurrents of the Cold War). The science and research documents behind the rockets and computer systems were highly classified materials, and so I wanted to make sure to include an homage to this atmosphere.

(via Homework - 3. A Controlled Experiment)

@ashthorp

COLOR OF A MIRROR

Can’t believe I’m finally revealing this project... feels like I’ve been working on it forever. But yes! Here it is! I wrote a dark science fiction novel--and what’s more, is it has an original soundtrack thanks to the ever-talented Josh McCausland!

After a year of trying to find my way into the realm of traditional publishing, I have decided to pursue self-publishing through a crowd-funding model, because this project extends to more than just the writing. It’s about the aesthetic and the music, and all of it together... publishing in this less-traditional way allows me to craft the final product I’ve always envisioned and really showcase the vision in my head.

I’ll be talking more about it in the coming days, and posting some further insights, but for now, I’ll leave you with this: if you like the lyrical writing style of Patrick Rothfuss that lingers on language and character, plus the brooding futures of William Gibson and movies like Blade Runner... this book might be for you.

Coming to Kickstarter on Nov. 01, 2022. I hope you’ll join me on this journey.

Back with a fresh post about the book! These here are the opening sentences, mixed with a bit of my minimal numerals/font design. Loving playing with the layout and formatting for the text on this!

Check out the fiction section of my website artificelux.com to see a longer excerpt and to find out a bit more about the project!

Looking forward to sharing more over the coming days and for the launch of the Kickstarter in a month on Nov.1

Crumbled Courtyard.

(A bit different… Trying to apply a minimalist style to an isometric environment drawing.)

Still one of my favorite images of the surface of the moon. The contrast, the austerity… it speaks so strongly to my minimalist self.

This image features on the custom endsheets of the COLOR OF A MIRROR limited edition hardcover, providing a really cool shift from the black of the cover to the white of the pages.

Only 100 hardcover copies printed. Find it here:

colorofamirror.net

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Image credit: NASA & Project Apollo Archive

Custom Edits/Formatting: Me/ArtificeLux

Initializing... chap1.exe

(this blog has lain dormant for quite some time, but I have been quietly working on new stuff. maybe someone out there is interested in where this all leads.)