Hendra's World
Hendra's World
Fantasy Novel: Introduction, Synopsis & Artwork
INTRODUCTION
Hi Y’All!
This is a special edition of my newsletter, focused entirely on the fantasy novel I’m working on, which is called Hendra’s World. I know that this topic is not everyone’s cup of tea, and that 99.999% of you signed-up for this newsletter to see pictures of food, not to read about Dwarves & Goblins, so if you’re not interested, I apologize, please disregard this Newsletter, there will be one about food coming your way soon!
In the meantime, here’s a quick breakdown of what Hendra’s World is about, including some links for you to click if you’re interested in reading an unedited manuscript, and / or seeing some illustrations I’ve been working on to accompany the writing.
SYNOPSIS
Hendra’s World is about a Dwarven Queen named Hendra and her troop of Dwarven warriors, who are locked in conflict with the Goblins and Humans that surround them. On a routine outing to exterminate an incursion of their enemies into their country of D’Waivlin, Hendra and her group are separated, and have multiple adventures that culminate in a battle for the heart of her world, which is a large volcanic mountain called Hel.
LINKS
Here’s a link to a website that has several unedited chapters posted for reading, and some of the artwork I’m working on as well: HENDRA’S WORLD by Stu Helm
Hendra also has her own Facebook Page: Hendra’s World on Facebook.
ARTWORK: MAIN CHARACTERS - HENDRA
Below is a typical illustration for the series that I’m working on for the book. This is Hendra, presented nude, with her armor, false beard, weaponry, and kit around her. If you can’t read the words on the illustration you can read them HERE.
ARTWORK: WORLD-BUILDING - IN PROGRESS
I learned quickly that in order to do logical world-building, ie”: keeping track of where the heck all the characters are in relation to each other, and knowing how far apart different areas of Hendra’s World are, I needed to literally BUILD a world.
It started out as a simple map of just one region, but that wasn’t enough, so eventually I had to make the whole dang planet, with thousands of features (ie: mountains, lakes, rivers, coves, capes, towns, cities, etc) plus the two moons and all the stars! Now I have to assign names to all that shit! O _ O
Along the way, I also decided that I wanted Hendra’s world to look very different from ours, so I made the water purple, the land masses charcoal gray, and the ice and snow blue, and changed the forested areas from light to dark green. I don’t know if it will stay this way, but for now, Hendra’s World is a dark planet with no sunlight, only the light of the millions of stars in the sky, which is amplified & reflected by the closest of the two moons.
I use Adobe Illustrator exclusively to make art these days and haven’t touched pencil to paper in years. I love the clean look of vectored artwork, the fact that you can zoom in to see teeny tiny details. I will eventually make these pieces of artwork available to purchase as PDF files that anyone can open in a graphics program to examine in super-fine detail and even pick apart to look for hidden images & messages,!
I will reveal more deets about Hendra’s World, as well as the characters, and the story in future newsletters, that will be clearly marked as “Hendra’s World,” so that those of you who are not interested will be able to distinguish them from my food related newsletters, which will still be called “Good Morning, Friends…”
FAQ
If you have questions about Hendra’s World, please ask by leaving a comment, and I will use your questions to build a real FAQ. Thanks!
— stay tuned —
UPDATE
Since making this post, I’ve decided to start a separate newsletter / blog / possible podcast for Hendra’s World. Please sign up for a free subscription if you’re interested!
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