It's quite frustrating, really. Those of us with long, dark hair just don't seem to be very interesting to artists. The ability the web provides to incorporate graphics with text added a fascinating opportunity, but when I looked for illustrations for my stories, artwork with brunettes was scarce - and there were WAY too many blondes.

Okay, some of you may think that just means there are way too many brunettes in my stories. So sue me. I happen to like dark hair. *lol*

Long, thick, dark hair. Lots of it.

Not one to be stopped by a minor obstacle, I decided I'd just make my own illustrations. The fact I don't have any artistic talent at all might have been a problem, but I solved that the easy way. I cheated.

I found illustrations that had the right pose and using those as a real artist might use a live model, I transformed the images into whatever I needed, changing hair color, clothing style, and background to fit my story. That doesn't 'fix' my lack of talent, of course, and as a result my illustrations are comical (as in 'comic book'), but at least they have the right fashions.

Some people have asked how I go about it, so I put these pages together as an explanation. The techniques are easy, if somewhat laborious. But that's the price the untalented pay to copy the truly gifted. If you follow all the steps, you can make illustrations as good as any I can do - probably better.

Even if you're blonde!