I sketch a lot from my surroundings. Some of it borders on surrealist, and a lot of it comes from my head. But when I was a kid, I used to traverse the ranges near my home, finicking for fossils. There was a cretaceous limestone cliff that endured way too much of my geopick, and since those days I've tried to keep more naturalist notes and studies about the things I encounter.

"If you are going to write, say, fantasy - stop reading fantasy. You've already read too much. Read other things; read westerns, read history, read anything that seems interesting, because if you only read fantasy and then you start to write fantasy, all you're going to do is recycle the same old stuff and move it around a bit. The next thing you know you've got a dark lord and there is no help for you. " - Terry Pratchett