WIP - Himni Rek-Aro

Holy smokes, two posts in one week. What is the world coming to?

I sketched this a couple of weeks ago as part of a small art challenge for myself. This is Himni Rek-Aro, a character who appears in The Rebirth Trilogy. She is the last of the four original original characters I drew when I started writing the trilogy as a teenager, once upon a time (the others being Kuma, Cenme, and Nighteye). I've wanted to draw her for a while in order to more fully flesh out her appearance. This sketch needs a lot of work before I ink it, but it's a start. In particular, I need to redo the details of her mask. The wing theme was okay, but it's not what I wanted. I do plan to ink and color this at some point.

So ... a little trivia for you about Himni, since I've been trying to do this more when I post images of individual characters and such:

The gemstones in Himni's mask are a purple-red sapphire and a red spinel, the latter of which represents "intensity" among the Laiuna people. (Side notes - Different colored sapphires, aside from the familiar blue, may also carry special meaning. And, red spinel is one of my personal favorites when it comes to gemstones)

Himni's home is a city called Juk Sul, which is located in a southern range of Genkian mountains called The Gods' Abode. The city is built at a high elevation, which means that cooler temperatures are a norm, and as such, some of Himni's normal attire includes fur lining. Juk Sul has an interesting history that involves rebelling against the Laiuna empire at one point, and one of the carry-overs of that rebellion is represented by the structure of it's citizens' names; Instead of the traditional name format in the rest of Genkai (Surname, followed by Given Name) the natives of Juk Sul use their Given Name first, followed by their Surname. I won't bore you with further details on all that, but yeah.

Okay, now - Setting aside trivia and sketches, I've also come to a decision: While I still have a number of planned works in store for the Legends of Destiny series, along with a couple other series and projects, no more new projects will be started for the next while .... like, years. I've decided that the amount of back-logged projects I have built up is utterly ridiculous and I'm going to start working through the book titles that have already been announced before I begin anything else. This means that titles such as Sovereign Soul, The Gem Duology, at least some Taloner books will be completed in their first draft form before I move on to anything else. My goal is to drastically cut down on the number of books sitting around in limbo, since some of them were announced a long time ago (cough, Sovereign Soul....)

Oh yeah. I guess that means I'd better make an announcement on which title won out as my current main project, huh? Well, look for that post soon!

Fourth Chaos Beast

Another Chaos Beast! Sheeze, I finally got the time and energy to sit down and finish this one. I'll continue to work on the concept art for her, since some of the colors didn't turn out quite right with what I'm seeing in my head.

Okay, so if you've read the trilogy you may be thinking, "Fourth beast? What happened to the third one?"

Don't worry. Beast 3 will be making an appearance in the duology, as I stated before. But that doesn't mean I'm not still developing the rest of the Chaos Beasts, or that none of them will appear in future projects.

So what are some things I can tell you about this Chaos Beast without ruining any surprises? She's female, for one (Yeah, you caught that. I know). Four of the Chaos Beasts are female, actually. The abilities of this one include power over illusion. She is also unique among all other beasts, for a reason that I won't divulge quite yet (sorry). And yes, she does appear in at least one of the book titles that has already been announced. She is also around twenty-five feet total in length, making her a little smaller than Denlupis.

Angel sketch

Random sketch as I attempt to improve my quality of human faces. The paper got rained on as I was walking out of work, so it's all wrinkly.

Went to pull out my scanner a week ago, and oh yes, the software wasn't working right on my laptop. Okay, I'll just reinstall it, right?

Nope.

My install disc now has a lovely curve to it. I'm not putting it anywhere near my reader until it's perfectly flat, if it ever does flatten out. Fortunately, my dad pointed out that I could download the necessary drivers on Canon's site. Yay! So once again, my scanner is working.

Escora the Blue

Tonight, for your viewing pleasure, I'd like to present a non-canonical character from the Legends of Destiny series. I've been wanting to draw her for a little while, and after much wrestling I finally completed a concept of what she looks like. I apologize if the color is inordinately bright; I still can't seem to tone down the saturation of color on my screen to where it looks normal on other computers. Done in Krita.

Bios:

This is Escora the Blue, sole surviving nestmate of the black dragon Shadowsilk. There was a third nestmate at hatch, but he did not survive to adolescence. Escora is about the same size as her sister, placing her at a length of one hundred and twenty feet from nose to tail tip.

Escora chose to leave the safety of her father's lair at a relatively young age and moved to the eastern coast of Kura-Cora, where she now controls her own small territory along the seashore. She is well known to her neighbors as being tenacious and fierce, having ousted a violent faction from the land she claims as her own. She is fairly adept in magic, particularly with the element of water. Her breath weapon consists of green-tinged fire. It is rumored that she can also produce a lightning breath weapon at will, an attribute which would make her unusual among dragons.

Despite her territorial reputation, Escora is known to be quite civil with parties or persons who travel through her domain for trade or protection.

Escora's name is pronounced: eh-SKOR-uh

Griffin doodle

Quick doodle I did for a coworker.

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.

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.