Tag: drawing

The second book in ‘The Rhythms of Greedom‘ series features stampeding bulls on the front cover. This is a reference to a specific event during the story, but it also has a deeper meaning.

I based the original sketch and the centre bull on the ‘Charging Bull‘ statue that sits in the Financial District of New York City. The sculpture depicts a bull, the symbol of aggressive financial optimism and prosperity. It is one of the most iconic images of New York and symbolises Wall Street and the financial district.

In many ways the bulls on my front cover represent the greed and financial drive that lie in the heart of mankind’s (often bad) decisions. This is a fundamental theme that lies throughout the book series that sees a future world run by corporations tear itself apart and abuse the less fortunate.

I used an iPad and stylus to sketch this illustration, using the app Procreate to draw and build up the layers of texture. Some final tweaks were made using Photoshop before the final cover design was implemented.

The first book in the series (The Kings of the New World) is now just 99p / 99c on Kindle. You can read the first two chapters for free on this blog here. The second book (The Wars that Rage Within) was released this month and I am currently working on the 3rd instalment.

I like writing stories with large worlds, multiple plots and many characters. This presents a big challenge; how do readers remember a character that may not appear again for several chapters? I draw them, the process helps me expand their individualities and give them unique and memorable dimensions.

Sketching your characters out will help you broaden your understanding of them

It’s easy for a writer to skip over describing their characters; they live in our heads so we are already very close to them. The reader however needs to build that connection up, sure they will embellish themselves, but you need to seed some of that persona.

It’s a long process too, each time a character makes an appearance in your story it is a chance for you to layer up their personality and traits. You can’t front load too much of that description otherwise you will overload the reader and they quickly forget.

The next step is to think how you want them to change over the course of your story. What challenges are they going to overcome or slippery slopes that are going to change their personality or outlook over time?

Writing a novel can take a long time and it is important to be able to quickly remind yourself what traits a particular character has without having to riffle through pages and pages of words. Creating character profiles can save you huge amounts of time, prevent you from creating inconsistencies and really help you build upon their individual journeys. I store them on my phone

I also collect images that I feel relate to that characters persona, a quick Google Images search using some of your descriptive words can very quickly help build a mood board for each of the lives embedded in your story.

Sketching The Wailing Banshee for my new book: The Kings of the New World

Once I have a strong understanding of a character I sketch him or her, it doesn’t matter if you don’t think you can draw, you don’t have to show anyone else! And everyone can draw by the way; stick men can be very informative. Drawing your character will allow the creativity in you to thrive; you will suddenly discover new aspects, unique traits, finer details that you can then work back into your story and will help your readers engage with them.

Vin Wignall

Tag Archives: drawing

There’s a dual meaning behind the cover of my second book

How to create a world of memorable characters?
– I draw them.

Science Fiction Author