Jay Wolf

@jayxwolf.bsky.social

3485 Followers 5772 Following

sff writer & dev editor, author-illustrator, lapsed podcaster, sculptor, fabricator, Viable Paradise alum, online community specialist, queer as in here, they as in them, kennywood enthusiast. writes books as @mdmcd.com

A very messy bookshelf, roughly 95% mass market paperbacks, nearly 100% sffh, the majority 30+ years old
Title page: By Thieves-Light A Bladesmith & Brigand Novella cool hand drawn dagger here M. Daniel McDowell
Title page BY THIEVES-LIGHT a bladesmith & brigand novella M Daniel McDowell With a cool hand drawn dagger in the middle
The slightly more color correct but also more blown out photo of the cover
Beneath the Shattered Gods paperback novella! It's real! At last!
Brackenbury books novellas What Rough Beast?, Suplex & Sorcery, Hunt of a Thousand Leagues, The Barbarian at Dream's End
First pages of The Nature of the Sword by m. daniel mcdowell ft illustration on the left of a shirtless aproned Ilwyn M'gavn burnishing an edge on a fancie blade and seeing his erstwhile beloved Vencario Eratena for the first time in A While, silhouetted in his doorway... on the facing page, the General's Sword and Vencario's misericorde in the header above the first page of story
Cover of shatter the sun, art by matthew spencer, ft an absolutely killer bearbarian type fella at what can only be described as a very well-armed disco at the end of time
Picture of seven paperback books: the shatter the sun anthology from neon hemlock; the four novellas of the 2025 novella run from New Edge/Brackenbury Books: what rough beast? by bryn hammond, suplex & sorcery by june orchid parker, the hunt of a thousand leagues by dariel ra quiogue and barbarian at dream's end by steve hugh westenra; and the two most recent m daniel mcdowell novellas, beneath the shattered gods and by thieves-light
The cover art for By Thieves-Light, without type. Vencario Eratena, a tan fellow with dark curly hair and a cloak, holding his dagger and moon-globe, standing shoulder to shoulder with Ilwyn, a tall broad ginger fellow in smithing gear, holding a scroll.
A paperback edition of BENEATH THE SHATTERED GODS, featuring an image of an enormous statue in the wilderness with a wetland covered in a horrible ominous red growth, with a cloaked figure on horseback looking up at the immense distant statue.
Sketch of a flirty moment between Ilwyn & Vencario, with Vencario taking a firm grip of Ilwyn's hair
Several phrases typed in alternate forms of the font Sveva in different weights.
Color adjusted cover for the ebook of "By Thieves-Light" featuring rivals Vencario and Ilwyn staring each other down flirtatiously under the eerie glow of thieves-light....
Front cover of By Thieves-Light, featuring vencario and ilwyn eyeing each other up Typeset in Sveva Versal, the unofficial font of a specific type of romantic fantasy
STOP DOING BALATRO * POKER WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE GIVEN JOKERS * YEARS OF POKER yet NO REAL-WORLD USE FOUND for winning MULT * Wanted to go higher anyway for a laugh? We had a tool for that: it was called "BLUFFING" * "Yes please give me 5 OF A KIND. Please give me FLUSH HOUSE" - Statements dreamed up by the utterly Deranged LOOK at what Balatro players have been demanding your Respect for all this time, with all the computer and phone we built for them (This is REAL Balatro, done by REAL Balatro players) ????? ???????? ??????????????????? "Hello I would like to play [FOOL] please" They have played us for absolute fools
the full image of the cover; a blue cold maountain backfrop with a bizarre humanoid statue. below is a field of red where a lone cloaked rider on horseback looks up at the statue
itch.io sized copy of Beneath the Shattered Gods cover-- the title and author name are adjusted to take better advantage of the space
Pile of sticky note flags next to BENEATH THE SHATTERED GODS completed
A proof book with pink sticky tabs sticking out of it; a pile of extracted pink sticky tabs to the left of it. There's probably some cat hair in it.
This is technically a cat picture Neenie, a little brown tabby, hiding from her dumbass brother underneath the futon. She is barely visible under the fringe of a blanket that is draped over the futon. It is extremely cute and worked really well as a hiding spot because Anakin is a bit of a dingdong
Ebook cover for By Thieves-Light featuring vencario and ilwyn and some very cool typography that i did with that very official font of romantasy, Sveva Versal. More info on this art in one of my earlier posts, i am really sorry screenreader friends but it's the same dumbasses looking smug, just slightly more detailed i promise
Vencario, a tan fellow with dark curls, a grey cloak, and a sassy look about him, and Ilwyn, a big ginger with a leather apron and heavy gloves each sizing each other up smugly; if i did my job right the vibe should absolutely be "i can take him (multiple interpretations)" radiating from both parties This is eventually destined for the cover of my -fritz leiber by way of tom of finland- novella "By Thieves-Light," available like soon...ish
A screenshot of my painting featuring Ilwyn M'gavn looking SMUG and like, well, he's allowed
A pair of sword and sorcery dumbasses in lurve; vencario in the cape and Ilwyn in the big apron. Other posts go into better detail about them, this is, it has to be said, just a sketch. The vital bit is their shins are pressed together competitively, as well as their shoulders, and they're both smirking like "i could take you (multiple meanings intended)"
Neenie, a pear-shaped dark brown swirl tabby cat, sits enraptured by an episode of Columbo (Ransom for a Dead Man) even though i am pretty sure she's already seen this one several times. She didn't watch the intro, so she doesn't know the wife is the murderer and she's pretty lost tbh
Anakin, a russian blue mix cat, stares directly at the camera, intently, in soft nighttime lighting. His eyes are near completely dilated because the lamp to his left is the only light on in the room.
A notsu folding index card with dot pages and ominous spells written in purple ink. Something arcane about word docs, which is your first clue that this is some sorcery what ought not be meddled in But for the curious, it's "Identify steps: How to set up a word doc to be converted into epub How to set up a word doc to be converted into pdf Templates/presets for use in different settings/fields Best practices for book design for indie/small press/selfpub"
Logotype for the front cover of By Thieveslight, set in Sveva Versal by me, with multiple layer styles and a gradient map to make it look like it belongs on the front cover of a beat up paperback on a spinner rack at the Strand
Frontispage for bladesmith & brigand novella "By Thieves-Light" by M Daniel McDowell, with a hand-drawn dagger icon typeset in SVEVA VERSAL, the unofficial typeface of romantic adventure fantasy
Screenshot of previous post in this thread with very small preview image of the linked illustration
Added a foreground and background to the illustration of Vencario and Ilwyn; there's more i might do with this but it's done enough to function for now. In the foreground is an archway balcony with a railing and a decorstive banner of triangular flags swagged across the arch; the background shows them leaning against a hewn stone wall. Like the linked illustration, they are leaning together; this one has slightly more nitpicky lighting work to show them lit by eerie moonlight--the titular thieveslight from the story.
A digital lineart sketch with basic flats and a sort of twilight-blue and purple overlay. The sketch is of Vencario and Ilwyn, my sword & sorcery duo best described by a friend of mine as "Fritz Leiber by way of Tom of Finland" and honestly that is a lot to live up to. Vencario is a vagabond with dark curly messy hair and light olivine complexion; Ilwyn is a bulky ginger bladesmith. In this picture they are sitting back to back with their arms overlapped, glancing at each other, grinning. This is am illustration I am poking at for the print edition of their novelette "By Thieveslight" and while that will ultimately be black and white, i love throwing a gradient map on stuff to change the lighting and mood digitally.
Obie looking through my mother's magnifying lamp
Obes Kenobes in my mother's chair
The rare event known as the cat trick; all three cats on the same couch. Obie is on the left, at one end of the couch arm; Anakin is the Russian Blue mix on the other end of the arm. Remembering upthread i mentioned my mother has never seen starwars, it never fails to be funny that she could not understand why they struggled to get along sometimes. Neenie, the dark brown spiral tabby, sits on a blankie on the couch.
trying to teach me the ways of the Force by sitting on me and purring really loudly
Obes sitting on me with a very smug expression.
Obi-wan giving the camera some feline Blue Steel smoulder from a blue plaid cat bed with faux sherpa trim. He is a big grey tabby.
Obi-Wan using the Force, presumably
Obi-Wan, a grey mackerel tabby with a white muzzle and green eyes, perched on a fuzzy blanket. He has his ears half-cocked and a smug look on his face.
Obi-wan Kenobi. A silver grey tabby cat with a scheming expression on his face.
A close crop of Raphael's School of Athens but Plato and Aristotle are wearing SICKOS garb
A grey Russian-bluish cat sitting on my knee receiving scritches from me, with my books piled up behind him
Enamel pin, rainbow metal with black fill, of the new edge logo axehead. The rainbow metal is an awesome blue-green with just a hint of yellow and pink on the edges. I will order a new one every time because I am obsessed with how cool the colors came out and i like installing my pins with permanent backings so: more pin, more surface i can put it on!
Giant stack of books and magazines: several issues of New Edge Sword & Sorcery and some copies of Beating Hearts & Battle-Axes, my anthology with Brackenbury Books, plus some bookmarks and postcards.
Neenie, a brown tabby with dark stripes, cuddles with two pusheen the cat cartoon plushies on the back cushion of a dark grey couch
a hand-drawn illustration of Vencario and Ilwyn, two right ne'er-do-wells, reclined shoulder to shoulder against each other with their arms crossed together. Vencario is a dark-haired fellow; his eyes are closed and he has an oddly sentimental smile; Ilwyn is a redhead in a blacksmith's apron and gloves. two scamps after a fashion that a friend of mine once described as "Fritz Leiber by way of Tom of Finland" and you know what, I want that on my tombstone tbh
Two renditions of a religious figurehead from a space opera, just under a decade old now, watercolor and colored pencil illustrations of a sort of helmeted female saint of the void, in a wimple and headdress sort of thing. Work I still fond of though. My style has evolved a lot since.
Ebook cover with a BAD Ghibli AI artwork of a witch with black hair, bangs, and a red dress, which is, technically, indeed exactly how Tansy is described in the opening of CONJURE WIFE and yet it is a country mile away from the tone and texture of the book in hand. Buckwild, bizarre.
Top of sad little old cat man head where his flea allergy is causing him to rapidly shed fur
A slightly grumpy little old grey tabby cat He is sitting on my chest and purring loudly but you can't see that part
A slightly less sad slightly less wet little man A grey tabby with a little smirk on his face. He is perched midway up the stairs, peeking through the railing
the saddest wettest little man Wet grey cat on wet grey towel on wet grey tile
Two grey cats on a green couch, one sleeping in a goofy inverted pose, the other is looking at him, aloof, as if to say, "what a goofball"
The Space Guardian by Max Daniels with a highly stylized Boris Vallejo cover featuring a dark-haired space lady warrior in a skimpy red outfit with a cape, riding an elephant sized space iguana in a swampy space bayou setting with a distant space station in the deep background.
Front cover for a Denik dot grid notebook custom printed with the cover art for The Shepherd in Shadow, featuring a gloomy fantasy setting. Front and center is Mehren Tevaht, a wiry dark-haired man with a facial disfigurement and a dichroic glass eye, dressed in a leather shell armor and dark cloak. He is holding a sword which is totally normal and regular and absolutely doesn't contain an elder demon, but it is glowing a brilliant violet...
Digital pencil sketch of my characters Ilwyn and Vencario in a suggestive pose; Ilwyn, a ginger with messy hair and short beard, is holding shirtless Vencario, the fellow with dark curls, whose eyes are closed with a provocative lip-bite. Wonder what might be happening in the uncropped version of this, hm.
Picture of surface pro 7 with Clip Studio Paint open; sketch in progress of my rival rogues Vencario and Ilwyn. If you detect that they are: 1) an homage to my beloveds Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser but 2) very obviously significantly hornier: u rite
Trope map for Bringer of the Scourge features the cover art of a woman in Elizabethan beaded cauls and a lace collar and heavy ornate fantasy armor a la Warhammer on a shimmering fog of war background The trope map reads: The princess might be a monster Dreadful prophetic dreams Loathsome otherworldly creatures Tough + badass older lady mentor Dramatic escapes Mysterious cultist on an equally mysterious mission Demonic enchanted weaponry Sometimes trauma is a bonding experience