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1. What is the origin of your nom de guerre?

I read comics as a kid and then abandoned them in my teens, as a lot of people do. But part way through university I rediscovered them. My kid brother had to bug me about this because that's in the kid brother job description. So he hung the name "Dangerguy" on me to insult my renewed affection for stories about people in spandex. But like many repressed minorities subject to prejudice and cruelty, I took that pejorative name and wore it as a badge of honour! Plus it reminded me of the characters Chris Elliott used to portray on the early David Letterman Show like "Fugitive Guy".

2. How did you get your start as a writer?

I started writing as a kid in junior high. What can I say, I was precocious. I remember writing a story in grade seven about a young detective who also happened to be in grade 7. I actually had my dad's secretary at work type it up for me (yes, this was back before computers when dinosaurs roamed the earth, kids). Not only that, I sent it into Playboy for publication because I heard they paid the best. Got my first rejection letter, surprise surprise. For better or worse, it didn't dissuade me.

3. What led you to expand your creativity into 3D artwork?

I blame Deviant Art for that. I started posting my fiction on D.A. and then I began commenting on some of the artwork I liked. I think RenderPretender was the first D.A. artist to respond to that by creating a couple of images featuring Duster. That was like giving a couple of free hits to a potential junkie. I wanted more but I didn't want to beg and my Scottish heritage makes me too cheap to indulge in commissioned work. Rather than sitting around with fingers crossed hoping someone would post artwork of one of my heroines I decided to take matters into my own hands. I think the clincher was when I found out that the core Daz Studio software was free. Again, the first ride from the dealer always is…

4. How and when did your affinity for the superheroine in peril genre develop? When did you decide to pursue writing in that genre in a more adult/explicit context?

I read comics as a kid and when my pre-pubescent self first began to realize that girls weren't entirely icky, far from it, my first sexualized females were superheroines. I mean they're all drawn to be immaculately beautiful, for one thing, and they wear clothing that's tight or revealing or both. Some of those old comics would feature Wonder Woman or Batgirl or Supergirl getting captured and tied up and those were often my favourite stories as I began to fantasize about what went on "between the panels".
I decided to write my first superheroine-in-peril story back in the early 2000s. It was definitely a case of "write the story you want to read". It was the early days of the Internet and content of that type was just starting to appear, but a lot of it was of poor quality and it didn't feature the kinks that appealed to me. So I wrote "Wonder Woman versus the Plant Mistress" and sent it to be posted on Mr. X's old web site. It got a very good response. I remember people especially appreciated the quality of the writing. You can still find it at the Wizard's Lair.

5. You’ve mentioned in the past that created Duster, but what inspired you to want to become her primary storyteller?

Go look at Vladi's first image of Duster (it's the oldest image in my Favourites/Duster on D.A. folder) . Then Google "Candy Loving", Playboy's PMOM for January '79 and their 25th anniversary Playmate. She was and still is my favourite Playboy Playmate of all time.
Okay, I'm gonna really date myself, if I haven't already. I'm in my 50s. For my generation, with no Internet and cable TV still in its infancy, there weren't many options available for erotica or porn (whatever you want to call it). Playboy was one of the few ways available to see bare-naked ladies before you got old enough and developed the mysterious skills needed to convince them to get naked for you. So Playboy was a big deal. And every guy had a favourite Playmate that came to dominate his fantasies. In my case, with my love of fiction and story-telling, those weren't limited to just sexual fantasies, either.
So there I was as an adult still with a fixation on, first, Candy, and second, superheroines. Then I see Vladi's artwork and I'll be damned if someone hasn't taken my favourite sexual icon and combined her with my strongest fetish, that is, superheroine costumes. (Vladi later told me he had a different model in mind, but that doesn't matter; the effect on me was the same.)
Now the reason my attention was initially drawn to this image was because Vladi was holding a writing contest at the Wizard's Lair. You had to write a story based on one of three heroines he picked from his past work. All he said about my girl was that her name was Duster. I couldn't NOT write a story about her. I didn't win the contest but Duster was now alive in my imagination and demanded that more stories be told about her.

6. How has Duster evolved as a character since the first time you wrote her and since the first time you portrayed her in 3D artwork?

She's aged about six years, for one thing, even though I've been writing about her for a lot longer. She's in her mid 20s now. She's graduated from college and is working as a research scientist. The big difference, though, is that she has more experience and maturity. That makes it more challenging to write peril stories for her, frankly. I've gone to great lengths to portray her as intelligent because, frankly, I think smart women are HOT. But that means she can't keep falling for the same old traps. So I have to get more creative about how she still winds up in peril despite her intelligence and experience.
Another big difference is that I've made her into a team leader. At first she was operating on her own, then she gained a lover and partner in the Black Phantom, but now she has a whole crime-fighting team she works with. Which also makes it tougher to get her in trouble, but somehow I manage!
In terms of the artwork that's harder to say because a lot of the images of Duster are one-offs of situations that pop up in my imagination. Even the serials featuring her, aside from Raiders, were intended to be one-shots but they more or less spontaneously grew into stories. So unlike the books where I really try to consider what she's gone through previously and how it affects her in this situation, the images are meant to stand by themselves for the most part.

7. Are there any “side characters” in your coterie who you are planning to develop more?

Part of the advantage of D.A. is being able to gauge fan reaction to different characters based on things like views, favourites, comments, polls, and so on. Once I started making Whirlwind more of a nerdy character I noticed that fan response to her started taking off. Plus she's cute so I will do more with her.
I really think, though, that of my female characters Midnight Avenger is the most underappreciated. I'd like to think that's not because she's African-American. I have a few image ideas in store for her so I will create and post those in future. Partly to attempt to increase her popularity, partly because I just really like the character and think she's sexy so I want to see more of her.

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8. What are you better able to do with prose than with 3D art? What are you better able to do with 3D art than with prose?

I have more freedom with prose because I'm not limited by the content in my digital library or by my own skills. I've been writing for decades whereas I've been creating digital art for just under a year. In prose I can also dive into my characters' thoughts and feelings a lot more, though I try to restrain myself there and follow the "show, don't tell" rule as much as possible.
With digital art if I'm on top of my game I can tell a whole story, or at least a whole chapter of a longer story, in just one image. If I include and balance enough visual details then the viewer's imagination will fill in a lot of what happened before and also what happens next.
And the other thing I can do better with digital art, to be blunt, is attract a bigger audience. TV and the Internet have shortened our attention spans. It's easier and faster to look at a picture than to read a page of prose. I had a few dozen watchers as a writer; since I've been doing digital art that number has exploded. I do think it has had a positive effect on my book sales, though, as people who are hungry for more of my stuff go and give the novels a try.

9. Do you write stories or create image serials from detailed script and/or outline, or is it more of a stream of consciousness approach when you decide to be creative in either of your genres? Describe your creative process.

I always outline my fiction. I want to have at least a rough idea as to how I'm getting from point A to point B and then C and so on. I remain open to changes to the plot happening organically as I write but I want to at least have a general roadmap I'm following. A couple of key things I have to include are, first, if Duster is so smart and experienced how do the bad guys manage to capture her, and second, if the bad guys are so capable that they managed to capture a smart, capable heroine, how does she get out of it?
In total contrast to that most of my digital art is completely spontaneous. I'll just get an idea for a visual and execute it. Sometimes an idea comes from a new piece of content, free or purchased. For example the entire Test Lab serial came about because of a free Sci Fi containment tube I found at ShareCG.com. And I didn't intend for it to be a serial, it was supposed to be a one-off image; I liked it so much, though, that I wanted to do more with it. But its spontaneous origin is why it lacks a proper beginning—how did Duster wind up in that lab, anyway?—and also why I haven't continued it yet, because I never plotted the rest of the story, I was flying by the seat of my pants the whole way through.
The one exception to this usually-spontaneous process for artwork is the Raiders of the Lost Eye serial. That I outlined from the start as a big, long fantasy epic.

10. You recently polled people on dA about their favorite image serial, but what is your favorite? And why did you choose that one?

My favourite shifts based on my mood. Usually my favourite is Raiders of the Lost Eye but I'm taking a bit of a break from it right now. I'm really enjoying getting back into the Reap the Whirlwind serial—so many guest stars! But at the same time I'm anxious to wrap it up so I'll have more time for Raiders, among other things.

11. You recently began taking commissions ( fav.me/dak37uz) , what has been the strangest request you’ve received so far?

Probably a request that was inspired by the Busted! series that LordLard commissioned. Someone contacted me about commissioning an image of a woman with super-large breasts. They wanted to know just how large I could get them. I pushed all the dials to the max and sent them a sample render and never heard back. I guess they weren't big enough! I know these characters don't really exist but I felt sorry for the woman with the over-inflated mammaries who's living in that person's imagination…

12. How easy (or difficult) was it for you to collaborate with and on the multipart epic, Super City Heroines story fav.me/da0ejp0? What kind of planning and coordination had to take place to have three writers create such a coherent storyline with so many different original characters?

There was a fair bit of coordination but not as much as I expected. I think it was because, first, we're all pretty experienced and felt up to the challenge of taking over where someone else handed things off. Also we treated it as a bit of a fun competition between us, the idea being that rather than fully collaborate you had to accept what the writer before you handed off and run with it.
The main thing we did was lay down the character traits of the OCs we used and set limits (of which, you might gather, there were very few) as to what could be done with and to each character.

13. What motivates you to produce art/serial images for your Blog ( dangerguycave.blogspot.ca/) as opposed to your dA gallery?

My blog images fall into one of two categories. The first type is explicit adult content. Or, at least, content I don't think I can get away with on D.A. I usually won't create a blog post until I have one of those to post because I like to make it the centerpiece of the blog entry.
The other type of images on the blog are experiments—test results. A lot of them are just one of my characters—usually Duster—in some costume I've found or bought and thought that even the test render looked sexy enough to share, though not necessarily interesting enough to do a full render and post on D.A.

14. A few questions about your stories on Smashwords.com ( www.smashwords.com/profile/vie… ). Are your stories there strictly prose or do the stories contain artwork as well?

Aside from the cover art there is no artwork included. The reason being that while Smashwords is very open-minded about prose content, they are strict about not allowing any adult visual content. , who does all my book covers, has even had to re-render some of those to make them more acceptable (no nipple shadows or camel-toes allowed!).
It's interesting that you ask about this. If you browse through my D.A. gallery you'll see that I have created artwork directly drawn from scenes in some of the stories I have for sale. I'll usually create a special PDF version of each book for myself (and a select few) that includes any and all artwork created for it. EXitZero and I have been kicking around the idea of selling that sort of a "special edition" of the book on eBay. I may try that for my next novel, Game Theory, especially if Amazon blocks it like it did several of my other books.

15. How do you decide what to price a story that’s posted on Smashwords.com?

EXitZero and I went back and forth on this back in 2014 when I was about to publish my first novel for sale there, Open Season. EXitZero felt that the quality of the book was much higher than typical self-published fare, a testament not just to my writing but to his editing. He also argued that the book was significantly longer than other superherone-in-peril novels. (Open Season is over 50,000 words, making it novel-length; most SiP novels are less than half that.) He convinced me that the price should reflect these signifiers. So we settled on $4.99 US, which is more than most SiP novels but still less than most self-published mainstream books.
For the collections of previously-published stories I felt obliged to reduce the price to $2.99 because the bulk of the material had previously been available for free. Essentially readers were paying for a new chapter shoe-horned into each tale, as well as a relatively short new story added to the collection.

16. Smashwords provides word counts for your stories, but how would those word counts translate into page counts if you published the stories in paperback format?

The industry guideline for the approximate number of words on a paperback page is 250. So using that as an estimate on my three novels:
Open Season: 52,050 words = 209 pages
Arena: 75,930 words = 304 pages
Harem: 88,840 words = 356 pages

17. What are your strategies for dealing with artists’s/writer’s block?

I find artist's block is pretty easy for me to conquer. I have a spreadsheet full of ideas I can choose to work on. On the rare occasions when none of those are appealing, I'll look through my now-extensive content collection and pick a clothing article or another prop to inspire an image.
Writer's block is tougher. It takes discipline to overcome it. Everyone is different but I find I can get going by re-reading the most recent stuff I wrote. I'll start to get back into the zone by tweaking some of the prose, then I'll dive right in and start writing what comes next. I keep reminding myself that I can always go back and change it, in fact that initial bit of editing is an effective reminder of this fact. The important thing is to start putting the words down and worry about quality later.

18. What did you like to read when you were growing up? What are you currently reading? Aside from the Ken Follett series, what other book(s) would you recommend?

I read pretty extensively across a lot of different genres. My favourite genre, though, is historical fiction. I love big, thick novels where fictional characters cross paths with real ones in the context of significant past events. Hence my recommendation of the Ken Follet Century Trilogy. Currently I'm reading Ernest Hemmingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is set during the Spanish civil war.
I have three other book series I love and still reread every now and then.
One is David Gemmell's Troy series. Gemmell was a fantasy writer but he sticks largely to realism in his series, in fact he reimagines the Trojan War and comes up with different, more realistic and likely versions of what became more mythical in the Greek Trojan cycle.
Another series I love dearly is Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series, which is a huge, detailed fictional retelling of the end of the Roman Republic and the rise of the empire. Its main figure is Julius Caesar, even though he only appears as a child in the second book (if I recall correctly). McCullough really brings him to life and makes it clear why he was such a singular figure in history who led to so much change and upheaval, and why his name is still with us in our culture to this day.
Finally I am a big Bernard Cornwell fan and especially admire his Sharpe series, set during the Napoleanic wars, especially the "Peninsular Campaign" in Portugal and Spain. If you want to learn how to write action and battle scenes, read Cornwell. There's no one better, in my opinion.

19. Which of your novels and renders are you most proud of and why?

I'm usually proudest of my latest novel because I like to think I get better with each outing. Currently I'm quite proud of the novel I'm finishing, Game Theory, that I'll be publishing soon, in fact it might be out by the time you post this interview. EXitZero's been my beta for it as usual and has been telling me a lot of the writing is the best I've ever done. In addition this was a commissioned novel; my commissioner basically plotted the book with me because he wanted specific content included. I feel quite proud that I rose to the challenge of incorporating someone else's ideas into one of my stories.
For renders it's much the same, I like to think I'm improving so my latest render is often my favourite until the next one comes along. For example the latest Reap the Whirlwind image (as of this interview) features my first use of afterimages to emphasize action (an evil version of Cracovia dragon-kicking White Owl in the back). I think it worked quite well, though I was nervous when I worked on it.

20. What advice do you have for people considering trying their hand at indie publishing or 3D artwork?

If you want to write, READ. Read as much as you can. And this is crucial: Don't just read in your favourite genre. Read outside of it. Maybe you want to write fantasy. Good for you. Are you going to include romance sub-plots in your stories? Probably. So go read some romance novels to see how it's done. Is there going to be some crucial mystery your fantasy characters will need to figure out? Read some mystery novels. And read literature just to soak up how a really talented and revered writer carefully constructs prose and plot and character.
When you're ready to dive in, then it's time to study the competition—other self-published books in your genre. How do you stack up against them? How are you different and better?
For artwork, go study art. Not necessarily at a school though that certainly can't hurt, but look around at other art. Again, not just the type you want to create. As with writing, don't just admire the work, think about why it works, why it's effective. This is why it's really good to look at great art because if you're not sure why the Mona Lisa or Michelangelo's David are so famous and admired, you can find plenty of articles to tell you.
And in either case, never stop learning. Never stop admiring someone else's work and telling yourself that one day, you want to be that good. Let your reach exceed your grasp.

21. What new projects will we see from you on DeviantArt and Smashwords in 2017?
My new superheroine-in-peril novel, Game Theory, will be published within the next few weeks. After that I'll be returning to revamping Duster's old stories and supplementing them with new material in the collections—I'm halfway through those, with three down and three to go. The next one will definitely be out later this year and I really hope to publish the last two by the end of 2018.
As for art I'm going to finish the Reap the Whirlwind serial and I am going to return to Raiders of the Lost Eye soon (if I haven't already by the time you post this). As I've said a few times, Raiders is a long-term project that I know will take a few years to complete, so if you're enjoying it you have that to look forward to. Aside from that I will continue to take and fulfill commissions and to post various one-offs.
Finally, to combine these two endeavors, I've also been creating some digital artwork of scenes from Game Theory and Double Jeopardy: Duster Volume 4. So you can look forward to not just new fiction from me, but some illustrations of it too!

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1. What is the origin of your nom de guerre?

I read comics as a kid and then abandoned them in my teens, as a lot of people do. But part way through university I rediscovered them. My kid brother had to bug me about this because that's in the kid brother job description. So he hung the name "Dangerguy" on me to insult my renewed affection for stories about people in spandex. But like many repressed minorities subject to prejudice and cruelty, I took that pejorative name and wore it as a badge of honour! Plus it reminded me of the characters Chris Elliott used to portray on the early David Letterman Show like "Fugitive Guy".

2. How did you get your start as a writer?

I started writing as a kid in junior high. What can I say, I was precocious. I remember writing a story in grade seven about a young detective who also happened to be in grade 7. I actually had my dad's secretary at work type it up for me (yes, this was back before computers when dinosaurs roamed the earth, kids). Not only that, I sent it into Playboy for publication because I heard they paid the best. Got my first rejection letter, surprise surprise. For better or worse, it didn't dissuade me.

3. What led you to expand your creativity into 3D artwork?

I blame Deviant Art for that. I started posting my fiction on D.A. and then I began commenting on some of the artwork I liked. I think RenderPretender was the first D.A. artist to respond to that by creating a couple of images featuring Duster. That was like giving a couple of free hits to a potential junkie. I wanted more but I didn't want to beg and my Scottish heritage makes me too cheap to indulge in commissioned work. Rather than sitting around with fingers crossed hoping someone would post artwork of one of my heroines I decided to take matters into my own hands. I think the clincher was when I found out that the core Daz Studio software was free. Again, the first ride from the dealer always is…

4. How and when did your affinity for the superheroine in peril genre develop? When did you decide to pursue writing in that genre in a more adult/explicit context?

I read comics as a kid and when my pre-pubescent self first began to realize that girls weren't entirely icky, far from it, my first sexualized females were superheroines. I mean they're all drawn to be immaculately beautiful, for one thing, and they wear clothing that's tight or revealing or both. Some of those old comics would feature Wonder Woman or Batgirl or Supergirl getting captured and tied up and those were often my favourite stories as I began to fantasize about what went on "between the panels".
I decided to write my first superheroine-in-peril story back in the early 2000s. It was definitely a case of "write the story you want to read". It was the early days of the Internet and content of that type was just starting to appear, but a lot of it was of poor quality and it didn't feature the kinks that appealed to me. So I wrote "Wonder Woman versus the Plant Mistress" and sent it to be posted on Mr. X's old web site. It got a very good response. I remember people especially appreciated the quality of the writing. You can still find it at the Wizard's Lair.

5. You’ve mentioned in the past that created Duster, but what inspired you to want to become her primary storyteller?

Go look at Vladi's first image of Duster (it's the oldest image in my Favourites/Duster on D.A. folder) . Then Google "Candy Loving", Playboy's PMOM for January '79 and their 25th anniversary Playmate. She was and still is my favourite Playboy Playmate of all time.
Okay, I'm gonna really date myself, if I haven't already. I'm in my 50s. For my generation, with no Internet and cable TV still in its infancy, there weren't many options available for erotica or porn (whatever you want to call it). Playboy was one of the few ways available to see bare-naked ladies before you got old enough and developed the mysterious skills needed to convince them to get naked for you. So Playboy was a big deal. And every guy had a favourite Playmate that came to dominate his fantasies. In my case, with my love of fiction and story-telling, those weren't limited to just sexual fantasies, either.
So there I was as an adult still with a fixation on, first, Candy, and second, superheroines. Then I see Vladi's artwork and I'll be damned if someone hasn't taken my favourite sexual icon and combined her with my strongest fetish, that is, superheroine costumes. (Vladi later told me he had a different model in mind, but that doesn't matter; the effect on me was the same.)
Now the reason my attention was initially drawn to this image was because Vladi was holding a writing contest at the Wizard's Lair. You had to write a story based on one of three heroines he picked from his past work. All he said about my girl was that her name was Duster. I couldn't NOT write a story about her. I didn't win the contest but Duster was now alive in my imagination and demanded that more stories be told about her.

6. How has Duster evolved as a character since the first time you wrote her and since the first time you portrayed her in 3D artwork?

She's aged about six years, for one thing, even though I've been writing about her for a lot longer. She's in her mid 20s now. She's graduated from college and is working as a research scientist. The big difference, though, is that she has more experience and maturity. That makes it more challenging to write peril stories for her, frankly. I've gone to great lengths to portray her as intelligent because, frankly, I think smart women are HOT. But that means she can't keep falling for the same old traps. So I have to get more creative about how she still winds up in peril despite her intelligence and experience.
Another big difference is that I've made her into a team leader. At first she was operating on her own, then she gained a lover and partner in the Black Phantom, but now she has a whole crime-fighting team she works with. Which also makes it tougher to get her in trouble, but somehow I manage!
In terms of the artwork that's harder to say because a lot of the images of Duster are one-offs of situations that pop up in my imagination. Even the serials featuring her, aside from Raiders, were intended to be one-shots but they more or less spontaneously grew into stories. So unlike the books where I really try to consider what she's gone through previously and how it affects her in this situation, the images are meant to stand by themselves for the most part.

7. Are there any “side characters” in your coterie who you are planning to develop more?

Part of the advantage of D.A. is being able to gauge fan reaction to different characters based on things like views, favourites, comments, polls, and so on. Once I started making Whirlwind more of a nerdy character I noticed that fan response to her started taking off. Plus she's cute so I will do more with her.
I really think, though, that of my female characters Midnight Avenger is the most underappreciated. I'd like to think that's not because she's African-American. I have a few image ideas in store for her so I will create and post those in future. Partly to attempt to increase her popularity, partly because I just really like the character and think she's sexy so I want to see more of her.

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8. What are you better able to do with prose than with 3D art? What are you better able to do with 3D art than with prose?

I have more freedom with prose because I'm not limited by the content in my digital library or by my own skills. I've been writing for decades whereas I've been creating digital art for just under a year. In prose I can also dive into my characters' thoughts and feelings a lot more, though I try to restrain myself there and follow the "show, don't tell" rule as much as possible.
With digital art if I'm on top of my game I can tell a whole story, or at least a whole chapter of a longer story, in just one image. If I include and balance enough visual details then the viewer's imagination will fill in a lot of what happened before and also what happens next.
And the other thing I can do better with digital art, to be blunt, is attract a bigger audience. TV and the Internet have shortened our attention spans. It's easier and faster to look at a picture than to read a page of prose. I had a few dozen watchers as a writer; since I've been doing digital art that number has exploded. I do think it has had a positive effect on my book sales, though, as people who are hungry for more of my stuff go and give the novels a try.

9. Do you write stories or create image serials from detailed script and/or outline, or is it more of a stream of consciousness approach when you decide to be creative in either of your genres? Describe your creative process.

I always outline my fiction. I want to have at least a rough idea as to how I'm getting from point A to point B and then C and so on. I remain open to changes to the plot happening organically as I write but I want to at least have a general roadmap I'm following. A couple of key things I have to include are, first, if Duster is so smart and experienced how do the bad guys manage to capture her, and second, if the bad guys are so capable that they managed to capture a smart, capable heroine, how does she get out of it?
In total contrast to that most of my digital art is completely spontaneous. I'll just get an idea for a visual and execute it. Sometimes an idea comes from a new piece of content, free or purchased. For example the entire Test Lab serial came about because of a free Sci Fi containment tube I found at ShareCG.com. And I didn't intend for it to be a serial, it was supposed to be a one-off image; I liked it so much, though, that I wanted to do more with it. But its spontaneous origin is why it lacks a proper beginning—how did Duster wind up in that lab, anyway?—and also why I haven't continued it yet, because I never plotted the rest of the story, I was flying by the seat of my pants the whole way through.
The one exception to this usually-spontaneous process for artwork is the Raiders of the Lost Eye serial. That I outlined from the start as a big, long fantasy epic.

10. You recently polled people on dA about their favorite image serial, but what is your favorite? And why did you choose that one?

My favourite shifts based on my mood. Usually my favourite is Raiders of the Lost Eye but I'm taking a bit of a break from it right now. I'm really enjoying getting back into the Reap the Whirlwind serial—so many guest stars! But at the same time I'm anxious to wrap it up so I'll have more time for Raiders, among other things.

11. You recently began taking commissions ( fav.me/dak37uz) , what has been the strangest request you’ve received so far?

Probably a request that was inspired by the Busted! series that LordLard commissioned. Someone contacted me about commissioning an image of a woman with super-large breasts. They wanted to know just how large I could get them. I pushed all the dials to the max and sent them a sample render and never heard back. I guess they weren't big enough! I know these characters don't really exist but I felt sorry for the woman with the over-inflated mammaries who's living in that person's imagination…

12. How easy (or difficult) was it for you to collaborate with and on the multipart epic, Super City Heroines story fav.me/da0ejp0? What kind of planning and coordination had to take place to have three writers create such a coherent storyline with so many different original characters?

There was a fair bit of coordination but not as much as I expected. I think it was because, first, we're all pretty experienced and felt up to the challenge of taking over where someone else handed things off. Also we treated it as a bit of a fun competition between us, the idea being that rather than fully collaborate you had to accept what the writer before you handed off and run with it.
The main thing we did was lay down the character traits of the OCs we used and set limits (of which, you might gather, there were very few) as to what could be done with and to each character.

13. What motivates you to produce art/serial images for your Blog ( dangerguycave.blogspot.ca/) as opposed to your dA gallery?

My blog images fall into one of two categories. The first type is explicit adult content. Or, at least, content I don't think I can get away with on D.A. I usually won't create a blog post until I have one of those to post because I like to make it the centerpiece of the blog entry.
The other type of images on the blog are experiments—test results. A lot of them are just one of my characters—usually Duster—in some costume I've found or bought and thought that even the test render looked sexy enough to share, though not necessarily interesting enough to do a full render and post on D.A.

14. A few questions about your stories on Smashwords.com ( www.smashwords.com/profile/vie… ). Are your stories there strictly prose or do the stories contain artwork as well?

Aside from the cover art there is no artwork included. The reason being that while Smashwords is very open-minded about prose content, they are strict about not allowing any adult visual content. , who does all my book covers, has even had to re-render some of those to make them more acceptable (no nipple shadows or camel-toes allowed!).
It's interesting that you ask about this. If you browse through my D.A. gallery you'll see that I have created artwork directly drawn from scenes in some of the stories I have for sale. I'll usually create a special PDF version of each book for myself (and a select few) that includes any and all artwork created for it. EXitZero and I have been kicking around the idea of selling that sort of a "special edition" of the book on eBay. I may try that for my next novel, Game Theory, especially if Amazon blocks it like it did several of my other books.

15. How do you decide what to price a story that’s posted on Smashwords.com?

EXitZero and I went back and forth on this back in 2014 when I was about to publish my first novel for sale there, Open Season. EXitZero felt that the quality of the book was much higher than typical self-published fare, a testament not just to my writing but to his editing. He also argued that the book was significantly longer than other superherone-in-peril novels. (Open Season is over 50,000 words, making it novel-length; most SiP novels are less than half that.) He convinced me that the price should reflect these signifiers. So we settled on $4.99 US, which is more than most SiP novels but still less than most self-published mainstream books.
For the collections of previously-published stories I felt obliged to reduce the price to $2.99 because the bulk of the material had previously been available for free. Essentially readers were paying for a new chapter shoe-horned into each tale, as well as a relatively short new story added to the collection.

16. Smashwords provides word counts for your stories, but how would those word counts translate into page counts if you published the stories in paperback format?

The industry guideline for the approximate number of words on a paperback page is 250. So using that as an estimate on my three novels:
Open Season: 52,050 words = 209 pages
Arena: 75,930 words = 304 pages
Harem: 88,840 words = 356 pages

17. What are your strategies for dealing with artists’s/writer’s block?

I find artist's block is pretty easy for me to conquer. I have a spreadsheet full of ideas I can choose to work on. On the rare occasions when none of those are appealing, I'll look through my now-extensive content collection and pick a clothing article or another prop to inspire an image.
Writer's block is tougher. It takes discipline to overcome it. Everyone is different but I find I can get going by re-reading the most recent stuff I wrote. I'll start to get back into the zone by tweaking some of the prose, then I'll dive right in and start writing what comes next. I keep reminding myself that I can always go back and change it, in fact that initial bit of editing is an effective reminder of this fact. The important thing is to start putting the words down and worry about quality later.

18. What did you like to read when you were growing up? What are you currently reading? Aside from the Ken Follett series, what other book(s) would you recommend?

I read pretty extensively across a lot of different genres. My favourite genre, though, is historical fiction. I love big, thick novels where fictional characters cross paths with real ones in the context of significant past events. Hence my recommendation of the Ken Follet Century Trilogy. Currently I'm reading Ernest Hemmingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is set during the Spanish civil war.
I have three other book series I love and still reread every now and then.
One is David Gemmell's Troy series. Gemmell was a fantasy writer but he sticks largely to realism in his series, in fact he reimagines the Trojan War and comes up with different, more realistic and likely versions of what became more mythical in the Greek Trojan cycle.
Another series I love dearly is Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series, which is a huge, detailed fictional retelling of the end of the Roman Republic and the rise of the empire. Its main figure is Julius Caesar, even though he only appears as a child in the second book (if I recall correctly). McCullough really brings him to life and makes it clear why he was such a singular figure in history who led to so much change and upheaval, and why his name is still with us in our culture to this day.
Finally I am a big Bernard Cornwell fan and especially admire his Sharpe series, set during the Napoleanic wars, especially the "Peninsular Campaign" in Portugal and Spain. If you want to learn how to write action and battle scenes, read Cornwell. There's no one better, in my opinion.

19. Which of your novels and renders are you most proud of and why?

I'm usually proudest of my latest novel because I like to think I get better with each outing. Currently I'm quite proud of the novel I'm finishing, Game Theory, that I'll be publishing soon, in fact it might be out by the time you post this interview. EXitZero's been my beta for it as usual and has been telling me a lot of the writing is the best I've ever done. In addition this was a commissioned novel; my commissioner basically plotted the book with me because he wanted specific content included. I feel quite proud that I rose to the challenge of incorporating someone else's ideas into one of my stories.
For renders it's much the same, I like to think I'm improving so my latest render is often my favourite until the next one comes along. For example the latest Reap the Whirlwind image (as of this interview) features my first use of afterimages to emphasize action (an evil version of Cracovia dragon-kicking White Owl in the back). I think it worked quite well, though I was nervous when I worked on it.

20. What advice do you have for people considering trying their hand at indie publishing or 3D artwork?

If you want to write, READ. Read as much as you can. And this is crucial: Don't just read in your favourite genre. Read outside of it. Maybe you want to write fantasy. Good for you. Are you going to include romance sub-plots in your stories? Probably. So go read some romance novels to see how it's done. Is there going to be some crucial mystery your fantasy characters will need to figure out? Read some mystery novels. And read literature just to soak up how a really talented and revered writer carefully constructs prose and plot and character.
When you're ready to dive in, then it's time to study the competition—other self-published books in your genre. How do you stack up against them? How are you different and better?
For artwork, go study art. Not necessarily at a school though that certainly can't hurt, but look around at other art. Again, not just the type you want to create. As with writing, don't just admire the work, think about why it works, why it's effective. This is why it's really good to look at great art because if you're not sure why the Mona Lisa or Michelangelo's David are so famous and admired, you can find plenty of articles to tell you.
And in either case, never stop learning. Never stop admiring someone else's work and telling yourself that one day, you want to be that good. Let your reach exceed your grasp.

21. What new projects will we see from you on DeviantArt and Smashwords in 2017?
My new superheroine-in-peril novel, Game Theory, will be published within the next few weeks. After that I'll be returning to revamping Duster's old stories and supplementing them with new material in the collections—I'm halfway through those, with three down and three to go. The next one will definitely be out later this year and I really hope to publish the last two by the end of 2018.
As for art I'm going to finish the Reap the Whirlwind serial and I am going to return to Raiders of the Lost Eye soon (if I haven't already by the time you post this). As I've said a few times, Raiders is a long-term project that I know will take a few years to complete, so if you're enjoying it you have that to look forward to. Aside from that I will continue to take and fulfill commissions and to post various one-offs.
Finally, to combine these two endeavors, I've also been creating some digital artwork of scenes from Game Theory and Double Jeopardy: Duster Volume 4. So you can look forward to not just new fiction from me, but some illustrations of it too!