"Draw" Sketches - Part two

A few more, keep an eye out for the finished versions!

Magazine Pages - Recharge

Just a few magazine pages I made. The magazine itself is supposed to be aimed at teenagers, but also focused on technology.

Front Cover

Contents

Double Page Spread

Recharge - Double-Page Spread

Didn't know if it would be better to post this sideways seeing at it's two pages. Oh well! If you want to read it, you can always click the image for the original size.

Recharge - Contents

Obviously I made all these articles up, and i'm not any of the people in these photos.

Recharge - Front Page

I quite like this front page, I even paid for the dominant image!

Site Font

Something was up with blogger the past few days, and this meant that all the font on this blog changed to some random squiggly rubbish that you couldn't read. Sorry about that!

Now that we're back in buisness, I have a few things I will be posting in quick succession for a change. Someone very nice has taken it upon themself to use one of my images and try and make it look even better for me, and I have a few magazine pages I want to post too.

21A Lowlands - Part Two

Part One


            As much as he enjoyed his sprint for freedom (for you must remember, this was the kind of disturbed man that took pleasure in minor near-death experiences), he soon tired and fell to a slow jog till he reached his looming saviour. As he crawled the final stretch, rasping, Louis reached out and touched his guardian angel’s foot as if it were from heaven itself. As his greasy palm rested on the worn boot, a thin layer of some form of membrane slid away with his desperate hand. Louis scowled and placed his hand on the boot again; only this time to receive more wafer thin sheets of what seemed like dried skin. His hands travelled up the stranger’s leg, until tiny white flakes trickled down upon his head. His hand gripped tighter, this time the flaky skin crackled away and revealed a think trunk of bone.

Well, Louis thought it was a trunk; the closest to describing the strange anomaly would have been a tree. What Louis had once seen as boots revealed to be roots grown from a dark, muscular tissue. As he gazed at the tree, the first thought that came into Louis’ head was:

Bone-sai.

As this was the wittiest thing he had come up with for months, he decided to stick with it. The Bone-sai tree’s trunk was comprised of twisted muscle tendons, dried skin and of course, bone. The three elements gracefully fused in a twisting pattern that twirled towards the sky in a majestic manner, leaving a magnificent yet horrific sight.

            Louis turned around and collapsed to his knees once more; before him, stood an entire forest of these trees. The floor itself seemed to pulse as one giant, living organism. Blood ran in putrid, bubbling streams past the trees, where their muscular roots drank greedily. It was then that his other senses began to fall back into place, which left him gagging at the vile odour firstly coming from himself, and then of fresh corpses.

 

 

*        *        *        *

            Louis looked up at the sky as a dark shadow crept over his vision and a crow the size of a motorcycle swooped past his head, screeching as it ripped at the trunks of bone that shielded Louis from his twisted talons. Louis had been following a vein-like pathway for the forty minutes now; of course, he didn’t know the exact time he had been travelling and to him it felt like hours. He had learnt to savour the brief cool intervals from the giant bird’s shadow. Louis’ clothes were soaked in blood below the waist from wading through the rivers which intersected his path. As he approached another clearing in the forest, the shadows that flickered above Louis grew more frequent. When he looked up he saw a mass swarm of giant crows circling him, a cloud of black shifted and wavered as hundreds of crows glided above him as one, dark entity. They clawed at any other bird that came too close and picked fights over scraps of meat that a few ripped from the trees. Louis quickened his pace, unsure how long the trees would be able to provide a suitable defence against so many foes.

            Louis had grown languid; he was fed up with this place. After walking briskly for a few miles he realised that the birds seemed only interested in following him, granting the occasional attempt at attacking him but failing thanks to the unnatural strength of the tree’s branches. He no longer noticed the smell or touch of the blood, sweat and vomit that soaked his legs. He had entered a state of mind where nothing existed but the road of blood. A crow flew too low and clawed against the fleshy trees, the power from the crow’s attack resulted in a tree crashing to the ground and knocking Louis to the ground, leaving him dazed. He roared in fury at the crow, which had now glided off and back into the cloud of black. He cursed the trees, the sky, anything that came to mind that was related to his prison. He bellowed at the top of his voice, straining his vocal chords till they cried reprieve. He stood, breathing heavily as his ears pricked to the silence that had fallen over the forest. A figure strode between the trees across Louis’ vision with unnatural speed. Louis squinted, trying to focus on the shape of what seemed to be another man. From the shadow of a nearby tree, a man stepped forward wearing a worn trench coat and clutching a bottle of cider. Louis’ mouth tightened through no will of his own, his eyes widened as the man raised his bottle and it twisted into an hour glass. He shook the hour glass and sand began to trickle down into its base. The man raised one finger to his lips, then stepped into the dark shadow of an approaching crow and vanished.

            Louis’ lips relaxed and with no time to reflect on what had just happened, it seemed as if all the sky demons in hell screamed and swooped down, intending to break past the barrier of trees and rip Louis apart. Louis spurred into action, adrenaline replenishing his energy reserves. Trees came crashing down around him and a crow swooped down and missed his eyes by an inch, clawing his shabby jacket-turban of instead, it had proven useful for fighting off the sun’s glare, but now its usefulness had come to an end. His assailant screeched in frustration when it saw that it had been cheated out of its prey. More and more birds flew down attempting to maim him, but the trees provided sufficient cover whilst he ran along the veined road. Louis looked ahead and saw a clearing opening up in the forest. In one final push, he dashed to the edge of the forest, leaping over fallen trees and ducking from the beaks and talons of the birds above. As he approached the clearing, a crow scraped its talon down the calf of Louis’ left leg; in agonic response, he dived towards his reprieve and soared into warm, gritty sand.

Part Three Coming Soon

21A Lowlands - Part One

Back
         



            It was a dull autumn’s morning when Louis stepped onto the 21A to Lowlands Street. A thin mist surreptitiously crept across the road as he watched people going about their daily business.  When he saw the mist, he shivered and hastily stepped onto the bus which had just arrived. As his foot lifted above the ground, the mist engulfed the bus in a shallow pool of the dullest of silvers, and was swept away as the bus pulled away from the shelter. The forecast that morning had been reported to be bright and sunny all day long, but since when could you trust the weather man?

            Louis relished sitting in the bus, during its voyage little mattered to him except for his instinct of self preservation which gripped him like a chain around his chest. This was due to the protesting groans of the gear box as the driver shifted into third gear. Always third, the first and second gears were like the brief calm before a storm; the moment where almost the whole world seems still, then the force of nature unleashes its true power. He would grip the worn railings every time this happened, hanging on for dear life. The world would simply melt away into a melancholic blur as Louis focused on the single task of staying upright; this thrilled him none the less, a computer salesman doesn’t get much excitement in his life.

            An elderly man violently spluttered behind him, the stench of alcohol and rain wafted past.

He’s probably homeless.

Immediately after thinking that, Louis scowled at himself and silently apologised to the poor man for his callous assumption.  Although Lark Ridge had a large population of tramps (and was well known for it too), Louis thought it was wrong that he should make such immediate assumptions about anybody. He brushed his greasy mid-length hair sideways, and went back to enjoying his bus ride. Soon after, the bus slowed to a painfully loud halt and the man rose from behind Louis and stumbled down the aisle, gold grains of sand caught the light as they trickled from his worn trench coat as he took a deep gulp of cider from the bottle that draped from his loose clutch.

      

            The bus launched off again, rattling and churning as before. It was going to be a long ride to Lowlands Street, and the rhythmic hum of the engine and the clatter of some no-doubtedly important part of the vehicle made Louis drowsy, he soon found himself submerging into the fluid limbo of sleep.

*        *        *        *

            Louis’s eyes snapped open to the sound of the bus horn blowing, his eyes frantically scanned for solidity and eventually focused. “End of the line, buddy”, the bus driver said as he swung from his seat and out of the driver’s door. Still dazed, Louis stumbled out of the bus and fell to the ground.

            Sand was everywhere; Louis rose from his knees and shielded his eyes from the sun with his arm. He searched for the bus driver, but he was nowhere to be found.

This isn’t Lowlands Street… this isn’t even Lark Ridge… This is a desert!

“Hello?” Louis cried, “Hello? Is anybody there?” there was no reply. Then, as if in response to his cries a familiar groaning of metal and rubber roared behind him. Louis span around only to see the 21A speeding off into the distance possessing irregular speed for a bus in the middle of a desert.

Louis Rennings, computer salesman of Lark Ridge, was alone. He took off his suit jacket and wrapped it around his head like the turbans he had seen in the movies; it didn’t help much, but it made him feel better.

*        *        *        *

            Louis marched for what felt to him was probably hours, his entire body was drenched in sweat; exercise wasn’t exactly his favourite pastime. The desert had formed a perfect equilibrium of sand and sky after the dunes had evened out into a flat plain. Now all he could see was a seemingly limitless span of barren land, hosting nothing but searing heat. After wiping the sweat from his eyes, Louis gazed blankly into the distance once more. His heart leapt when he spotted a tall silhouette resting upon the thin line separating gold from blue. For the first time in his life, Louis ran as fast as his little porky legs would carry him; and he relished every stride, for each meant one stride closer to salvation.

Part Two

Short Story - 21A Lowlands

I know this is classed as a "short" story, but I will be posting it in installments due to it's length on the page. I've always had a number of short stories floating around in limbo in the form of notes and opening pages, but as i've said before, I tend to dabble with a little and then move on.

This is the first short story I ever fully completed to a level that I was satisfied with. It's a horror (although I hope that's not just because you think it's bad!), and hopefully something original.

The one thing i've always disliked about the horror genre is that a lot of it seems to be taken from the same stock storylines. No doubt something similar exists somewhere because it's almost impossible to come up with something that hasn't been done at least once before considering how long the human race has existed.

Either way, I hope it's at least new to you, and that you can enjoy this story knowing that the author hasn't taken inspiration from anything other than his own sick and twisted mind.


Part One

Part Two

Part Three Coming Soon

Part Four Coming Soon

Part Five Coming Soon