Inktober - Another angel

Inktober - Asenath

I like machines.

Inktober - Phantomfire

For your viewing pleasure, I decided to do a before and after of the coloring so that the line art details are visible. He is very shiny because I didn't want to cover up ALL of the details. The woes of black creatures.....

This is a dragon who appears in Legends of Destiny. I may still change his look a little, but it's been fun to flesh him out.

Inktober - Fellbeast

I don't think I made him creepy enough. Sure was fun to draw, though.

Inktober - Helmet Concept

A little concept art from a future project I'd like to pursue........at some point. I have more than one series that I'd like to be working on right now. This concept is from a series entirely separate from Legends of Destiny. I can already see things I'd like to change, but hey, that's what concepts are for, right? You work out the details on paper.

My work over the last two months has been almost entirely focused on the revision of Wings of Fate. I knew it was going to be a hefty project, but the amount of work I've already put into it has been staggering. I'm about 38% of the way through it, as the manuscript has a habit of growing longer the further I get into it. It's been an exhausting endeavor, and I find myself hoping (without much enthusiasm) that the second and third books in the trilogy won't need quite as much work. I hadn't planned on dedicating another three years to this trilogy, but I think in the end, it will all be worth it. And then when I'm done with that ........... oh my. There are so many things I'd like to be working on.

I desire to add to the subseries Taloner Chronicles. I want to expand the world of Gaia through other books, as well, and not all of them books written mainly from the Laiuna perspective. Sovereign Soul is still waiting patiently for it's turn, and there are others beginning to surface in my mind. It's all a journey.

Inktober - Meditative Angel

Alright, now granted that this is not a tall, leggy blonde babe of an angel. So what? I would like to see more armored angels that are short. Or plain. Or maybe even a little overweight. And I'm tired of fantasy angel art where the woman is flashing way too much skin. I say angels can be beautiful without revealing half (or more) of what the good Lord gave them. I am determined to do more of these!

Inktober - On Yon Fell Horse...

....sits a hurdy gurdy man.

Inktober - Autumn King

I'm enjoying working on my inking this month. Alas, my dearest hubby is away hunting without me because of work. But hey, look! I got an elk, anyway!

Inktober - Release

Happy Inktober!

A few friends of mine are participating in Inktober, a kind of art challenge where artists try to ink something for every day of October. I won't be able to do quite that much, but I wanted to try and draw a few different things, anyway.

Kuma card - version 2

I wasn't entirely satisfied with the previous version of this card. I decided to redraw it, and while it didn't come out quite as well as I'd hoped, I'm still much happier with this version.

Ignore the outdated copyright in the bottom corner. I have become thoroughly irritated with the program Gimp and couldn't stand to fight it a second longer today.

It seems appropriate to redo this card during the month of September. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I've always kind of felt like Kuma's birthday would be this month, if I were to get down to the fine threads of my book series. This is probably because the first drawing I ever did of Kuma, as he now appears in the series, was done in September. It was the 4th, to be precise. Like a few other early characters in the series, Kuma has his roots in an archaic picture I drew when I was sixteen or seventeen, but the current version of his character is eleven years old.

Happy Birthday, Kuma!

Gold lore drake sticker

It's probably been about ten years since I've played with any of my vinyl sheets. This is just a quick one I cut out last night with my exacto knife pen.

Noemus card

Son of the Sun Tower

More concept art.

Don't Argue with a Troll

I had a run-in with a rather unpleasant person today. Suffice it to say that they were a troll. I was thinking about it afterward, and I considered the fact that my trolls aren't exactly the same as most trolls in literature. Mine are fiery and stubborn, but not the ugly, dim-witted brutes that are seen in more popular Fantasy.

I ended up sketching this on my downtime today and kept giggling while I did. This picture was a nice opportunity to try and show the huge size difference between trolls and goblins. The goblins are one of the smallest races of Gaia, standing between three and four feet high. Trolls are the largest race at close to ten feet tall!

Side note: I do believe that goblins are becoming a favorite of mine for sketching. I love drawing their faces :)

Character concept - Cow lady

Concept art for a possible future writing project.

Once again, please excuse the close cropping. We are working on my scanner's manners.

Throwback Thursday - almost

Digging through some old art and thought I'd pull a few pieces to showcase here. Behold, the awe! The wonder! (The horror!)

This stuff dates back from about 2005-2008. From the top left, moving clockwise:

-When Conan meets Greek mythology, you may get something like this. The original concept sketch for my wacky race, the Gan-Do-Gan.

-SPIKES! Original sketch of the character Cenme.

-Someone is being pouty. This was the concept for the villain Maratur. ....... he didn't look nearly mean enough. Bleh.

-A half-decent half-sketch of Widow, mostly to show his mask and head.

-The original sketch of Aeka, Kuma's father. Alas, for all of my dragon men had woefully thin features. Don't let them hide behind a sheet of paper turned sideways - you'll lose them.

Maybe I'll have to retry drawing some of these at some point. I know the Gan-do-Gan are freaking hard to draw. Ugh! All of my attempts thus far just look awkward. It's frustrating to see something so clearly in your head and not be able to translate it into a visible medium to show others.

Anyway, enjoy the terrible art. I have been having a lot of trouble focusing on anything for more than part of a day lately. I feel so icky right now with depression.

Lei Mai

My latest attempt at humans. This is a major character who appears in Predecessor, a future project that I would like to write. It takes place about one thousand years before the events of The Rebirth Trilogy, and as you can guess, it features at least one ancestor of the characters in the trilogy. Predecessor is the code name for the book (the actual title will be different) and it will be only one book long at this point.

This character came out looking a little older than I intended, but I drew an Asian face without it looking horrible, so I'm not going to whine. I very much enjoyed the details of her wardrobe. I based a lot of it off of period dress from both China and Japan, as the character, Lei Mai, comes from a culture where this is common.

For ten years she's always just kind of been a character floating in the background of my world, and I've really wanted to develop her more. Over the past several months, I've been blessed to be able to figure out exactly what her personality and background might be. She hails from a class that is very similar to the current-day Japanese geisha. I won't say more, but I am now in the process of researching geisha so that I have a better idea of this special class. (I admire the geisha, anyway, so it's a win-win)

My darling scanner insisted on cropping this for me every time I tried to scan it, and of course I encountered Washed Out Syndrome, the bane of all scanned images. Ah well. It's a learning process.

Done in micron pen and colored pencil. As always, I own the character. Thanks for looking! :)

Ulf card

Finally got this guy done. I need to make some hair texture brushes, because painting fur really should be more fun than that.

This is a villain who appears briefly in one of my Taloner books. I wish I had been able to work with him more, because I quite enjoyed his personality and abilities.

Sebelle sketch

I've been dealing with a lot of things lately and it's been killing my ability to write. Thankfully I can still do some sketching. My scanner did a hack job on this one. Whatever.

Netherworld card

Behold, a location card!

Card Line Art Batch 3

Yes, it's true! I cannot draw human faces well. Now you know why you don't see them very much on my blog.

One of these images is a remake of a card I did earlier and wasn't totally satisfied with.

Card Line Art Batch 2

I'm having a lot of fun with this project. It's proving to be a great way for me to challenge myself and push my limits with my drawing abilities.

Denlupis card

How appropriate that I would complete this card on a night with thunderstorms.

Hanedoe Card

Fun fact: In nearly twelve years of writing my fantasy series, I have never drawn this character. Not once. It is such a pleasure to finally have the skill and inspiration to draw her correctly.

Drawn while listening to Tiesto's In Search of Sunrise 7: Asia. In particular, the track "Wasted" seemed to fit my mood for this piece. Done in Gimp.......I need to reload Krita on my machine.

Blayde card

Another one. Hey, I already had the image art done.

YES, yes, I know. I'm going to bed.

Stellia Card

Dangit, Gimp! Why do you keep getting rid of the fonts I like?? I thought we were still friends?

Hmph. Jerk.

Here's the first of the line art cards! I've stopped putting so much detail into the text, as the format of these will change somewhat when I prepare the files for printing at some unknown point in time.

This character is actually one of my favorites, even though she's only appeared in a short story, to date.

Card Line Art - Batch 1

When you were a kid, did you ever take a super ball and throw it really hard to see how crazy fast it could bounce off of everything? Well, yesterday I was that little ball. My new scanner came! The old one is now so old that it is obsolete, at least with my current laptop (sad day)

With the addition of my new scanner to the family, I can finally upload high quality sketches and line art! Yaaaay!!!!

So, here is the first batch of line art for the trading cards I have been working on. I will be limiting these to groups of twelve or less when uploading, as I tend to get annoyed with photo strips that extend from here to tomorrow. I've been drawing these six to a sheet, so the proportions aren't perfect. That will get addressed after I color the images.

This has been a really good opportunity for me to illustrate some of the concepts from my books. See anything you recognize?

If you have a specific card you would like to see from the series, feel free to say so here! I still have quite a few of these in the works and am terribly excited to get going on coloring them :)

The computer ..... she LIVES!!!

Hello any and all readers. I am very relieved to say that after some serious problems, my computer is back up and running! Yay! All thanks (and there's plenty of it) goes to my incredible dad for fixing my art- and writing-machine. Thanks Dad!


I'm still working on re-installing the programs I normally use for art projects, but I'm hoping to have another art post up soon. I have been working on more trading cards and am dying to get the results uploaded and colored. And hopefully, I don't have to dismantle another laptop to clean out the dust and grit that's bothering it :/ Bleh.


If you will excuse me, I need to go track down the software for my scanner......

Feedback Requested!!

Greetings, all. Things have been very busy in my corner of the world. Between lots of work and personal struggles, I have been doing everything I can to complete the revision process for The Rebirth Trilogy.

Cut the chatter, onto the art work! Below is my current WIP for one of the cover pieces I'm working on. I would very much appreciate some feedback on this piece :) The marching figures are indistinct because I turned up the opacity for full so that their color is fully visible. I have been turning opacity of each layer down to around 35% and coloring over the top of the "guide" layer, since just making the guide transparent was a mess. Any odd white/gray patches sticking out are visible portions of the guide layer and will be erased.

What I am looking for: Critique on the lighting of this piece, first and foremost. I am also open to critique on the positioning of figures featured on the cover. Any and all constructive criticism is welcome! If you hate it, I would appreciate it if you tell me why, as that is far more helpful than just saying, "This sucks."

I have uploaded the image in all it's huge glory so that details may be more easily viewed.

Thank you in advance!

Accepted cover concept - Path of a Hero

Here's the final cover concept for the redo of the second book in The Rebirth Trilogy - Path of a Hero. This is the copy I will be working off of as I create a digital painting for the cover art.

I would like to have a final product that is of high enough quality for a large digital print I can display on my wall, so it may be some time before this image is finished.

This cover features the character Terezom, the Hero of the god Kem. In the background is an army of mixed creatures, which has to do with a particular scene from the book. Let the coloring begin.

Hammerwing sketch

It occurred to me recently that I have never been very specific on what Laiuna ships might look like. I decided to try my hand at a sketch, and here is the good ship Hammerwing. You'll notice that it's very basic - seagoing vessels are a pretty foreign territory to me. Sorry if I offend any technical artists out there.

Blayde

Practice piece done (for now) I am getting more familiar with my new tablet, as well as the program Krita. This is the colored version of a sketch I did of one of the gods from my fantasy series.

On to book covers!

Here, Have a Griffin!

I woke up yesterday and wanted to draw a griffin. This piece was good practice for me with Krita, as I'm learning how to better use the tools available to me. This is the first time I've been able to do line art with the program, and it's pretty much required me to draw my lines backwards from how I'm used to inking them. It was challenging, but fun. I'm so thankful heavenly father has blessed me to be able to draw the things that are in my head.

About 3.25 hours. Done in Krita.

Character sketch 24

Here's a sketch that I actually drew a few years ago. This is a character that shows up in my current writing project. I have been looking forward to working with them for a long time, now, and I'm excited to finally be working on this book.

Don't mind all the smudges and debris in the margins. That's just my smudgy hand and the scanner making sweet music together.

Current screenshot - Blayde

In addition to redesigning the covers for my trilogy, I'm brushing up on my painting skills with a program called Krita. My long-faithful tablet finally gave up on me last month, and I've been very fortunate to get a new Wacom Intuous Touch. I figured that it would be a good idea to practice on something before I start designing what will hopefully be high quality cover art.

Here's a shot of my practice project. This is the colored version of a sketch I posted here. This is still very much in progress, as you can see.

Rejected Cover - Path of a Hero

I have internet!! (sort of) Hoorah!

Though I have not been able to make blog posts in the past several months, I have been making art. Currently, my main project is a re-do of the covers for my trilogy. This is a huge project for me!

Pictured above is a rejected concept for Book 2, Path of a Hero. This is a drawing of the character Terezom, and while I think it gave me the chance to show some of his physical details, it just lacks the pizzazz I'm after. So, it gets filed away in my sketch folder.

I'm hoping to track down the software for my scanner without too much trouble. FYI, two halves of a software CD do not, unfortunately, make a whole. At least not so far as the CD reader is concerned :/ I would much prefer to scan these concepts into the computer, rather than taking pictures. the quality is just so much better.