Laiuna card

Yay, another one! It's been a while since I've worked on any of these. I've been busy with writing projects and have had to be careful about how much art I do right now for trading cards. I found that it was actually draining my energy and hindering my ability to write frequently. With Wayside Tales nearing completion, I've been able to come back and look at these cards a little more. It helps that I already had the graphic drawn for the lore drake, too.

Old Art: Wyvern Lantern

Some years ago, I posted this over on DeviantArt. I later deleted my account there, and it's been a long time since I've seen this picture. I ran across it the other day while backing up files from my external drive.

Readers familiar with the events in Taloner: Reima 2 may recognize this concept. It was for an object in the fantasy world called a Wyvern Lantern, which was a large statue that marked the borders of imperial territory.

I feel like I've improved a lot with my art since creating this piece, but this marked one of my first paintings done with a tablet. We've all gotta start somewhere.

Fox wings

 Recently finished image from my sketchbook. This is one of the Chaos Beasts.

Chaos

A piece I finished the other night. I'm pretty happy to have this done, because it illustrates all twelve of some special creatures that show up in the series. They're called Chaos Beasts. There's only one of these that I'm still undecided on. Oh well.

Readers of Eternity's Edge may recognize a couple of the figures pictured. I look forward to introducing more of the beasts as the series expands.

Oryx symbol

An emblem that appears in one of the short stories for Wayside Tales. The animal pictured is an oryx, done in a somewhat calligraphic style.

Denlupis

So I decided the other day that I wanted a new bookmark. Here is the result.

This is a villain named Denlupis who appears in Eternity's Edge. He is an unusual, very powerful beast who I was thrilled to work with. By far he is one of my favorites.

Here is the original drawing of him from 2010, badly fixed up as a digital piece by yours truly:

Cover redo concept sketch

Just a sketch for an idea I'm toying with. I've been wanting to redo the cover for one of my novelettes, Taloner: Reima, for a little while now.

Old Art - Launch

Here's an old piece of art I dug up the other day while checking the files I have backed up. I think this one was done in 2009, but it could have been 2010. I can't remember. It was when I first got my tablet and was learning how to draw on the computer.

The image is of the three main characters in one of my short books, Taloner: Reima. I remember leaving it looking sketchy and spotty because I liked it at the time. Now I think I'd like it better clean, but oh well.

Pied and Pure

Here's the second half of art for today.

This features a character that shows up in a future project I'm toying with. I inadvertently found that trying to color ice is a fun challenge while doing this!

Wayside Tales collage

It's time for more art! Today's offerings include a collage I have been working on of recent times. I got the initial inspiration for this piece from this picture. Mine still needs some tweaking on the line art, but I feel like it turned out pretty good.

This features characters or important things that show up in the anthologies I've been working on. I did end up with a little bit of dead space, and I ran out of room at the bottom of the page, which I wasn't thrilled with, but oh well. It's all a learning experience.

Art dump

Time for an art update! I don't have internet at home right now, and it's really hit and miss as to when I can get a good connection that lets me create blog posts. So, here are a few pieces of my recent artwork:

This first piece is a character portrait of a Laiuna (dragon man) named L'ubax. L'ubax features in my current writing project, Wayside Tales. I was very pleased with how well this turned out. Done in Micron pen, brush pen, and colored pencil.

This second picture is a sketch I did of one of the gods from the Legends of Destiny series. I'm hoping to update my art programs so that I can go in and add some color to this in the future. Done in ballpoint pen.

The third image is a piece of fanart I did of two characters from fellow author S. A. Thorup's Legend of Draconite series. This was more of a warm-up piece for me to get back into the swing of things with colored pencils, and it's not my best work, but I still enjoyed drawing it. This is my take on the emotion that one of the characters must have felt when dealing with a very difficult choice. The character on the right, who is holding her, is quite possibly my favorite character in Thorup's entire Chronicles of Libera series.

I do not own these characters - only the artwork. Characters and Legend of Draconite are copyright Sarah Bailey.

Old book covers

Heya! Long story short, I'll be moving in less than two weeks. This means packing. Ohhh so much packing..........

While boxing up my personal library, I ran across the original printed format of my trilogy. I'd forgotten how much I loved the images that I hand-drew for these binders, which I loaned to a few friends to help me with proofreading and constructive criticism. This was all prior to any self publishing, and I also wanted the binders for my own personal reading, since I didn't have another hard copy version. I am amazed that I was able to finish these by hand, as backgrounds were a very difficult feat for me at this time. I can see where I've improved, but I still love the artwork. These were done between 2005 and 2008, I believe.

Here are a few of the covers:

This first one was the front cover of my second book, Path of a Hero. This was created before I changed the title from "The Path of a Hero", due to title length limitations. This featured Terezom, one of the book's protagonists, riding his wyvern, Gryphon. The city Doomherald can be seen in the background, as can a small silhouette of Illiya, the protector of the city.

This second image was the back of Path of a Hero. It showed Lotus, another protagonist, riding on Illiya as they launch into the dawn to fight an invading army.

This last image was the back cover of Eternity's Edge, my third book. It depicted the hands of Kuma, a protagonist in the book, as he reached out to take a very special relic glowing with magic. This image was tied heavily to a key part of the book and the first line of script on the cover, which read, "Your will determines everything", a direct quote from the trilogy.

Images are copyright me, W. A. Johnson.

Did someone say "fondant"?

Well, I have the strong possibility of a wedding looming in the near future, and what's one of the best things about a wedding? ................ CAKE! Well, to me it is :)

However, cakes tend to be expensive, especially if you want a nice one. And this presents a problem for me, as I tend to have very little cash for anything. Dang, I knew I should have planted a money tree!

So, it occurred to me that one solution to this problem would be to create my own cake. And that means getting my hands on the right materials to experiment with. Fortunately, I just happen to have a cake decorating kit from a couple of years ago, compliments of my awesome mom.

Anyway, I've been playing. See for yourself:

One of the first flowers I made was a rose. It didn't exactly turn out spectacular, but we all have to start somewhere.....

I moved from roses to daisies, and I started playing with dyes, as well. After that, I tried using edible pearls on some forget-me-nots.

Then I tried some dogwood blossoms. I don't think they turned out too bad. My hope is that I can use these - or possibly some improvements - on my own cake. It's a far cry from a breathtaking professional cake, but it's a lot cheaper, too.