A much-belated final word

Well hello there. Been a while, hasn’t it?

Okay, I’m aware likely nobody but search engine crawlers will ever read this, but I don’t like leaving things hanging, so: This blog is effectively defunct, as I’m now fully focused on maintaining and updating my Bandcamp, SoundCloud and YouTube pages, where all my new (and old but updated) music will appear from now on.

In addition, partly to limit confusion and duplicate search engine results, I’m taking down all my music posts here and replacing them with redirects to their corresponding pages on Bandcamp, where you can listen to the songs, view their sheet music, and download them in high quality for free (though you can also toss a coin my way if you feel like it). (Update: Turns out Blogger doesn’t allow automatic redirects outside of its platform, and I’m not about to look up how to set up a scripted alternative, so nuts to that. Everything I said about Bandcamp still stands, though.) Not all songs have been reposted at the new places yet, but most will be eventually, along with many more new ones. So I do hope to see you there.

Once done with that, I don’t think I’ll be returning to this place, so you can safely remove it from your bookmarks and RSS readers and whatnot if you haven’t already. I won’t be taking this site down entirely, at least not for the foreseeable future, so this is how it’ll stay from now on. But I don’t see the point in having duplicate, older versions of my songs here, clogging up search results for people seeking out my current stuff, so away they go.

Take care, y’all.

I’m on SoundCloud

Lately I’ve been thinking about ways to get my musical works out there – the only venues I’m familiar with, other than this dusty old place, are YouTube and a couple writing sites that don’t particularly cater to music. But apparently there’s this place called SoundCloud that’s for more than just hosting podcasts, and so I created an account and have uploaded my most recent(ly polished up) songs there. SoundCloud also gives me the ability to embed them with a nifty player, like this:

My only issue right now is my free account can only hold a limited number of tracks before I need to upgrade to a paid version, which I’m less chuffed about. But then, maybe I’ve been spoiled by all these websites that offer unlimited this and that for free.

Feel free to check my stuff out, if that’s your thing. I’d certainly appreciate it. And if you ever hear about anyone looking for custom-made music for a personal project, I’d doubly appreciate it if you pointed them my way. It’s time I broadened my experience beyond revising my own songs for the dozenth time.

(This post was partially cross-posted from Preliator.)

Housekeeping: No more top-level domain redirects

A tiny update: I’ve nixed the top-level domain redirect prevention that forced international blog readers to view this blog at the “.com” domain rather than “.ca”, “.co.uk”, etc. I explain a little more over at Preliator, where I’ve done the same.

In short: Nothing should visibly change, other than the page may load a little quicker for non-US viewers. Please let me know if you notice anything broken.

‘Inhuman’ opening excerpt

This place has been very quiet lately, which really doesn’t reflect the amount of work I’m putting into my various projects, particularly my novel, Inhuman. So as a proof of life, here’s an excerpt, specifically the opening scene. More excerpts may be posted as work progresses.

Phantoms of Old Corinthea

The weak light of the twin suns faded as evening fell over Corinthea Prime, casting the capital city in a shroud of burnt crimson. The low blanket of maroon clouds danced with flickering shadows over the tops of broken skyscrapers, cracked metal and glass facades glowing dimly in the dying daylight and rising flames. A chill wind swept through the ravine-like streets, swirling dust off the rubble and whipping the blaze into a hadean storm that consumed vehicles, blackened storefronts and carried the screams of the damned.

The rumbling echoes of rifle-fire and detonations blended with the screams of thousands as men, women and children stampeded through the streets. Streaks of bluish-purple tore through the air like colored lightning, cratering walls and rending body parts as they cut down civilians beyond count. Driving the chaos were rows of paramilitary troops that steadily advanced, firing volleys of plasma into the fleeing crowd. Armored vehicles rolled about, blasting buildings and residents alike with their canons, thick treads crushing anything in their path.

‘Specter, relax your grip.’

The quiet words pierced Sean’s trance-like focus and he glanced aside, loosening his white-knuckle hold on his rifle. Commander Vasse’s black-clad figure was hunched almost in half to avoid scraping her shaved head on the jagged ceiling of their crow’s nest formed in the rubble of a half-collapsed apartment building. The Commander’s grey eyes were on him, glinting darkly by the fires visible through the gap they used to observe the anarchy beyond.

Still alive, still tinkering with code, still working on music

Just a couple o’ quick housecleaning notes, so anyone reading this doesn’t think this blog’s abandoned or anything.

First, Creativitas has a pretty new favicon (the tiny little “C” thumbnail to the left of the address bar). Just so you know.

Second, as with over at Preliator, I’ve implemented Twitter card functionality, so that anytime you link to this blog from now on from Twitter, the link will be swapped for a snazzy little content preview with a thumbnail and a snippet. Was surprisingly not frustrating to implement … which is a rare thing for me when it comes to trying new things with code.

Finally, I’m working on polishing up a new song (well, more of an old song I’ve cut up and rewritten a bit), so it’ll hopefully get posted within the next few days. Composing is limited to a few hours per day so as to avoid disturbing the neighbors (and composing/mixing with headphones is a no-go), so I’m doing what I can.

‘Inhuman’ illustration: interrogation scene

Years since I drew it, I’m still decently pleased with this illustration from a scene in Inhuman:

Sean confronts captured Black Rider (dated 02/21/11)

Hard to say much about this without spoiling certain events, but long story short, Sean (the protagonist) is paying a less-than-pleasant visit to some captured enemies in the hopes of extracting some information. And extract he will.

Equipment & software used:

Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch graphics tablet

PaintTool SAI

Adobe Photoshop

Aki (from ‘Inhuman’) reference sheet

Here’s a quick reference pose of one of the characters in my Inhuman novel:

Aki pose (dated 03/05/10)

And here’s the full character sheet, which I’ve put below the fold for excessively mild artistic nudity.

Aki from ‘Inhuman’ (portrait, B&W)

I got my first graphics tablet in 2010 and I just had to give it a spin. Below is the result: A digital sketch of Aki, a central character from my Inhuman novel.

Old monochrome portrait of Aki (dated 01/08/10)

There was also a colored version, but it never looked half as good as the original.

Dark Horizons

This is one of the first stories I ever completed and the first I published online (elsewhere), way back when I was 16 or 17. You can guess what that means for the quality of the writing, but hey, we all have to start somewhere. And so, here it is, my first foray into the literary arts (that I’m willing to let anyone else read).

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Dark Horizons

Written by Joé McKen
(Back when he was, like, really young)

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Part One

The Dead City

It was a calm and tepid May night. The moon was shining bright in the starry sky, casting its eerie pearly glow upon the parched clouds and giving the waters and buildings below a surreal, almost phantomlike aura. A low, plaintive breeze made the few trees sway slightly, their leaves tentatively bristling before settling back down to a deathly still.

The massive towers of dark glass, steel and stone that populated the island stuck up like a forest of needles towards the sky. Their windows were blackened, mostly broken, and looked as though light hadn’t shone through them in decades. The buildings’ facades were prominently cracked and crumbling, the rubble from which formed mounds of debris in the city streets hundreds of feet below. Once bustling with life and action, these asphalt pathways were now silent and still, covered in a chaotic mess of rusted-through cars, fallen streetlamps, and other random garbage and debris that would’ve made walking amongst them a true navigational nightmare.

Old artwork

Let’s go back in time …

Drawing/sketching is the very first skill I ever developed, possibly before walking, and eons (comparatively) before writing or composing. I was an absolutely obsessive drawer throughout my youth; I likely churned out enough pieces to fill up a small warehouse, and I’m not remotely exaggerating. (Had to do something to pass all those boring school hours.) And that’s taking into account how I rarely completed a drawing before abandoning it – I probably threw out over 95% of everything I ever drew.

Luckily, my mother hung onto some of her favorites through the years and I figured I’d digitize some of them and put them up here for posterity. The below were all taken with my cellphone camera (I don’t have a scanner) and cleaned up a bit in Photoshop to make them presentable. They represent my rough skill level circa 2003—2007 (or when I was 11–15 years old).

Be sure to click the link beneath each image to get the full size.

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Let’s start off with my favorite:

Dated 07/31/05 at age 13
[full size (1500×1418)]