I am not responsible for the content of any of the sites linked to below, only for the content of my own site! Please note that those links below are a selection of my personal favourites, and the comments to go with them are my own.

Recommended links

• Forbidden Fruit - an original slash fiction online magazine I regularly illustrate for.

• Vanilla Elf - The most boring life of Master Erestor of Rivendell. Actually not boring at all, witty, funny and unusual and hours of entertaining reading!

• The Joyful Molly - Master Erestor's Pirate and Royal Navy slash fanfiction. Great background info - and lots of interesting links for the curious.

• Emma Collingwood - Love, Suspense and Sarcasm in the Age of Sail. Be sure to check out Emma's book "Samuel Blackwood", which I illustrated under the nom de plume of "Amandine de Villeneuve", as well as her upcoming books!

• The Blue House - L. E. Bryce's site. She describes her work as "homoerotic fantasy", but the truth is that she has created an amazing world and weaves more than one intricate web of stories. The attention to detail and the richness of cultural background of the characters alone is wonderful, and if you're looking for more than just the average PWP you really should check out her work!

• Alyx J. Shaw's site - a collection of original writings and short stories, among them a few of those previously posted on ForbiddenFruit and illustrated by me.

• Adventure and Romance - the novels of Alex Beecroft, definitely worth a look for AoS fans!

I used to have a "Sketchbook" page on my old site, and tried (not very successfully) for months to put up an art tutorial for interested people... never managed to get it all up and running, and never got around to actually upload explanatory pictures to go with it ~ at least I have learned my lesson. So here you won't get a half-finished art tutorial. Instead, I give you a list of really awesome books by some amazing artists. I have them always handy, I constantly refer to them, and I'm not afraid to admit that they're a great help and inspiration. Art is not something you learn, and then do it. It's a constant process, and it requires hard work more than anything.
Remember though - no book will teach your hands how to hold a pencil, or how to move. Only you can do that... but be prepared to spend hours at it, always practising, getting better, but never perfect. And if you're like me, you'll always see the flaws first, and be surprised to hear how good your work actually is from others.
Anyway - if you'd like a peek at where I get my knowledge from, have a look below:

Book recommendations ~ Art

• George B. Bridgman - "Constructive Anatomy" - An interesting approach to the human anatomy. Of course, I speak as a medical student ~ so for the untrained artist it might be a bit too much info and too many details to look at. Without some background knowledge the explanations might be more confusing than helpful... but if you're hoping to work from memory rather than with a model, Bridgman is a great teacher.

• George B. Bridgman - "The Book of a Hundred Hands" - After I bought the first book by G B Bridgman, I couldn't very well ignore this book: dedicated solely to hands. Literally hundreds of hands, man's most fascinating appendage (sorry Chris!). I have a not-so-little obsession about hands, so this was a must-have.

• Ron Tiner - "Figure Drawing Without A Model" - As said above - there comes a point (actually, this is what it's about from the first moment) where you want to draw people without having to pose your best friend. Learning how the human body works is crucial - and this is a great guide to understanding the man machine.

• Anthony Ryder - "The Artist's Complete Guide To Figure Drawing" - For advanced artists... and I don't consider myself one of those, if looking at the artwork in this book. Let's face it - those aren't pictures to explain something, they're ART. Worth staring at, which is the main reason I bought this book.

• Burne Hogarth - "Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery" - This might come as a surprise - there are actually rules to fabric folds, even if the result looks like a messy pile of cloth. Lovely pictures, great explanations, awesome style. I got this book from friends who were most likely sick and tired of my gushing about this man's books. :)

• Ken Hultgren - "The Art of Animal Drawing" - One thing I suck at is drawing animals. I always work with reference pics, and even then my dogs look like goats, my cats like hamsters and my birds like rabbits. Luckily, there's people who write books with simple exercises on how to improve things.

• Jack Hamm - "How to Draw Animals" - I don't know which animal book I prefer, this one or the one mentioned above. They're both great, and helpful. Jack Hamm uses skeletons to demonstrate his point, Ken Hultgren prefers to divide animals into portions ~ both works for me, as does Google picture search... ;)

• Human Anatomy Pictures for Artists - a great collection of art class books by Andrew Loomis can be found and downloaded as *.pdf files here. Very useful for interested pencil-wielders, and amazing to look at even if you don't feel the urge to pick up a pencil yourself... though seeing this, you might. ;)

• Eric Hebborn - "The Art Forger's Handbook" - When you are interested in art, and in history, there invariably comes a point when you ask yourself: "How did people draw in times past?" Eric Hebborn, known as an art forger who fooled a lot of specialists with his work before being found out, wrote a book that answers this question - and gives valuable advice on how to produce decorative fakes. Having tried a few tricks myself, I can really say that both the book and the tricks described in it are much fun, and very informative.

Linking to me

Want to link back to me? Please do so, and tell me about it.

The correct address to link to is

You might want to use one of the banners below: