My First Kickstarter Project - A Hardcover Version of Supermage!

One hundred fifty thousand books later, and I have finally reached a point that many creators only dream of: My first Kickstarter project launch! The project will begin running on June 12th, so if you want to contribute, please visit this link here. 

I've been a bibliophile my entire life, and the fantasy genre has always held a special place in my heart. I remember every trip to the library or bookstore as a child. The smell, sound, and feeling of walking into one, even to this day, still brings a smile to my face. I can remember being greeted as a child, by row upon row of stunning and colorful books and wondering if mine might be among them one day. The one format that Amazon doesn't offer is hardback books, the type that lasts forever. The ones you can read over and over, without the cover bending and never sitting straight again (you know what I'm talking about)!

Supermage came to me one night as I was lying in bed. I had previously tried - and failed - to self-publish a book, and for about two months, I refused to write. But finally, as the book continued to bounce around in my head, I had to give in and at least try. I saved for three months to have enough money to afford a good cover and editor, and after hundreds of hours of work, Supermage was finally published.

I resonate with the main character, Morgan, very well, as I'm a bit of an outcast and don't have many friends. His story brought me strength and the freedom to pursue a career in writing.

Supermage is an Epic Fantasy GameLit book. That means it is set in a fantasy world, with aspects of a role-playing game incorporated as part of the plot (think Ready Player One, only less futuristic). The plot follows Morgan, a powerless street orphan suffering from memory loss, malnutrition, and poor treatment by the city's guards. His only friend is Sarah, the daughter of the city lord, and when Morgan finally discovers how powerful he truly is, the story really takes off!

As an avid collector of hardback books, it's been my dream to see a book of mine published in that format. So, I turn to you, the fans of fantasy—those who can spend an entire day perusing a genuinely epic novel to help me realize my dream. Thank you for your consideration, and I hope to see this book published soon!

The options available are as follow:

1. Special Hardcover Edition of Supermage (with dustjacket): $27

2. Special Hardcover Edition of Supermage (with dustjacket) and Supermage bookmark: $30

There will also be limited and special editions, in limited quantities:

1. Special-Edition - Signed Hardcover Edition of Supermage (Limit: 100)

2. Limited-Edition - Signed Hardcover Edition of Supermage and Signed Special-Edition Supermage Bookmark (Limit: 75)

3. Collector's-Edition - Everything in Limited-Edition package, plus Three 8x10 prints of the Full-Cover Art, Concept Art, and the Ice-Bristle Wolf (Limit: 40)

4. Superfan-Edition - Everything in Limited-Edition package, plus Three 11x17 posters of the Full-Cover Art, Concept Art, and the Ice-Bristle Wolf (Limit: 20)

5. Supermage-Edition - Everything in the Collector’s- and Superfan-Editions, plus a Personalized Message on the Cover Art Poster (Limit: 5)

I hope to see you guys there on June 12th! Thank you all for your tremendous support!

Light: Buryoku: Book 2 - Releasing January 30th!

Hey there, super-people!

I wanted to provide you all with an exciting update on the second book in the Buryoku series, which is a series of fantasy, cultivation books! For those of you who haven’t read the first book in the series, it’s an absolute must-read. You can pick up Power: Buryoku: Book 1, here.

The second book continues following the adventures of our protagonist, Roy, and his friend and accomplice, Aika. Powerful forces are gathering on the continent of Buryoku, which is never kind to the weak. Faced with this impending doom, Roy will have to make a monumentally difficult choice.

You’re definitely not going to miss this one! Light: Buryoku: Book 2 is available for pre-order now, and it will be released on January 30th! You can pre-order the book by clicking on this link here!

Additionally, there’s more exciting news on the horizon! To celebrate the upcoming release of Light, Power, the first book in the series, will be available at a steep discount! Starting on January 29th and running until February 1st, Power will be available for a mere 99 cents! Now is the best time to jump in!

Think about it. For the price of a bag of potato chips at your local gas station, you can pick up a fantastic book from your favorite author. Does a bag of chips enthrall you with a thrilling and fantastical tale, filled with great characters, world-building, and suspense? I didn’t think so.

And for all you audiophiles out there, there is further good news. Audio recording will begin next week for Light, and the release of the audiobook can be expected in either late February or in early March. The recording will be done by the uber talented Mare Trevathan, who also did work on Power.

I hope you guys are as excited about this release as I am! For now, I’m signing off! I’ll see you on release day, which to reiterate, is January 30th, 2020.

One last thing: I’m including a look here at the full cover art of the book so that you can bask in all its glory! Enjoy!

Roy and Aika fighting a Savage Buck, a fantasy creature from Aaron Oster’s Light: Buryoku: Book 2

Book Cover Announcement! Power: Buryoku Book 1

Hey everyone! I’m incredibly excited to present to you the book cover for Power: Buryoku Book 1!

Buryoku is a brand new series of Martial Arts inspired fantasy books, and “Power”, the first book in the series, will be releasing on August 29th! The pre-order link should be up early next week, so stay tuned!

You’ll be introduced to Roy, a person who has very little, and is treated horrendously by those around him. In Buryoku, Martial Artists cultivate the essence in the world around them to perform incredible feats, beyond your wildest dreams.

However, Roy does not have the Power needed to cultivate the essence around him. Coupled with the fact that he was adopted into the clan, it makes for a miserable existence for him. Not only is he seen as a freak and an outsider, but the members of his adoptive clan never let him forget what he is.

But, one day, Roy is given a once-in-a-lifetime chance that will change his life forever. You’ll just have to read the book in order to find out what happens!

The cover for the book details one of the most important and pivotal scenes in the entire book, but I won’t be giving anything away here.

Richard Sashigane, my amazing cover artist, really worked hard to bring the world of Buryoku to life. Everything, from the atmosphere, to the Asian lettering and architecture really brings a sense of realness to the world.

I really hope that you guys enjoy this new series! It has definitely been a blast writing it, and the response so far from the beta readers has been incredible, with them praising the world, the story, and the characters!

Have an amazing day! Remember to mark your calendars for August 29th!

As always, if you liked this post, please like, leave a comment, and share it with your friends!

The Sonic-Cerberus Chicken: From Idea to Creation

I’m very excited to present our second beast feature from Rise to Omniscience. If you weren’t aware, we have an amazing artist, Daniel Simon, who’s been working on character and beast art for RTO. The last time, we covered the creation of the Ice-Bristle Wolf. If you haven’t seen it already, then you can check it out here. Now, please join us as we take a deep dive at the creation of the Sonic-Cerberus Chicken!

Some of you may remember the Sonic-Cerberus Chicken from Starbreak, as it was the first creature that Morgan got to try his signature “Starbreak” move on. It's a chicken approximately 7 feet tall, with three heads. Each head is a different color, and that color carries down the rest of its body, giving it a three-toned appearance. The left head is black, the middle one is light tan and the left head is deep red. It's feet are bright yellow and have a set of wickedly curved claws. It also has a smattering of scales throughout it's feathers, and they extend in a line from their crests to their beaks, providing a sort of crude armor for their heads.

As you can imagine, there is zero reference for a three-headed chicken in the real world, so it’s in cases like this where an artist really has to use to their imagination and creative vision. Daniel started off with a preliminary sketch that looked like this:

Sonic-Cerberus Chicken Preliminary Sketch

Even the preliminary sketch for this beast took a bit of time, as figuring out the positioning of the heads, as well as the effect it would have on the proportions of the body, was quite time-consuming. After this sketch was made, Daniel changed up the pose a bit, to make it look more sinister and aggressive.

Sonic-Cerberus Chicken Sketch 2

I really liked the positioning of the heads in this one, it gave the chicken an almost prehistoric vibe. It sort of reminded me of a dinosaur. (Which is accurate as modern birds are their closest relatives.)

Once we settled on this pose, the lines were drawn on more finely, and the line-work of the chicken became more prominent.

Sonic-Cerberus Chicken Final Line Work

After the lines were completed, Daniel moved on to coloring. He had to play around a bit with different variations of color to get one that looked the best.

Sonic-Cerberus Chicken Preliminary Color

Sonic-Cerberus Chicken Colorwork 2

Daniel and I decided that although we did like this look, it would look better if there was some variations in the color of the wings. It would provide some much needed contrast.

Sonic-Cerberus Chicken Colorwork 3

By changing up the colors of the feathers, it gave it a more natural, chicken-like look. After we settled on this pattern, Daniel made a background, and added some finer details and shading work.

Sonic-Cerberus Chicken with Cave Background

As you can see, Daniel colored in the scales, as well as adding some more shadows and texture.

Sonic-Cerberus Chicken with Cave Background 2

He then added highlights and shadows to the scales of the chicken. He also played around with the coloring of the wings, so one color bled into the next, to give it as much of a natural look as he could.

Sonic-Cerberus Chicken with Cave Background 3

The coloring was nearly complete but Daniel decided to change the color of the underside of the left wing from red to yellow. This was done to provide more contrast, as the leftmost head was blending into the wing too much and was becoming lost.

After this change was made, Daniel sent us the final version of the Sonic-Cerberus Chicken!

The Sonic-Cerberus Chicken, from Aaron Oster’s Starbreak: Rise to Omniscience Book 2

In this final piece, Daniel changed up the color of the eyes, added some effects, and tightened up the lines and colors.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this weeks deep dive look into the creation of the Sonic-Cerberus Chicken! Please stay tuned for the next one! If you enjoyed this post, please leave a like, comment, and share with your friends!

Book Update - Power: Buryoku Book 1

Hey everyone! I’m super excited to announce that Power: Buryoku Book 1 is currently in the editing stage!

Buryoku is a departure from Rise to Omniscience, my previous series in several ways. Buryoku is a fantasy, cultivation series, and it’s going to be truly awesome!

 In it, you’ll travel along with the protagonist, Roy, as he embarks on a fantastic journey. Along the way, he’ll encounter many fantastical beasts and hilarious characters, as he tries his best to amass the power he needs to survive in his world.

I sent the book out to some beta readers and the response has been tremendous, with many of them praising the character development, magic system, and world building.

In this post, you’ll also see a picture of Aika, one of the main characters, whose role has yet to be revealed! There’s also artwork of Roy on the way, so stay tuned for that as well!

Look out for Power: Buryoku Book 1 when it launches in September! I hope to have a concrete release date soon!

If you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment and a like, and feel free to share it with anyone else you think might enjoy it! Keep on being super!

Best,

Aaron

Aika, a main character in Buryoku, the upcoming series from Rise to Omniscience author, Aaron Oster

The Ice-Bristle Wolf: From idea to creation

So for all of you who have read Supermage, you know that one of the defining challenges for Morgan was his battle with the Ice-Bristle Wolf. The wolf was technically at a rank that Morgan couldn’t possibly hope to beat, yet despite that immense challenge, he persevered and overcame it. In addition to being such a defining moment, the wolf is also among the coolest beasts visually in the series. In the coming months, we’ll be doing a series of posts where we describe the creation of new beasts in the Rise To Omniscience series! The awesome artist behind the artwork is Daniel Simon. His work is really awesome, and you can check out his work on his website, or follow him on Instagram or Twitter. Now join us as we take a deep dive into the Ice-Bristle Wolf’s creation. Enjoy!

The description for the wolf is as follows. It’s a massive wolf, with icy blue and white fur, and ice-like teeth and claws. Its body gives off a blue aura, and it’s able to harden the fur on its back, making it sharp enough to cut steel. So, initially, we started off with a preliminary sketch on paper.

Ice-Bristle Wolf Paper Sketch

After the sketch was done, we moved on to the line work for the wolf. It went through several revisions, filling in the finer details of the wolf, trying to make it appear as lifelike as possible.

This was essentially the final line art of the wolf…

… but we just wanted to change the positioning of the fangs so they were more inline with the face.

After we settled on the final line art, we began the process of coloring the wolf. Since there wasn’t really a real-world creature to reference, Daniel just went with his imagination and creativity.

We took the basic line art of the wolf, and added blue shading, as well as darker shading on the snout.

We then added light gray shading on the main body of the wolf to give some contrast.

We then colored the eyes, claws, and fangs, and also added more colors to the body of the wolf.

At this point, the coloration of the wolf was almost complete. We added glow effects to demonstrate the icy aura of the wolf, and added shadows to the underside to make the effect more prominent.

Finally, after all adjustments were made to the coloration, we added a wintry background, some shadow work, and the wolf was complete!

We really hoped you enjoyed this deep dive into the Ice-Bristle Wolf’s creation! You can look forward to the next piece in the series, the Sonic-Cerberus Chicken, in the coming weeks! Please like, share, and comment below if you enjoyed!