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!

Simple Laiuna Color Chart

Quick post tonight, since my laptop no longer gets ANY internet from my phone and I'm piggybacking on the wifi at work. Whipped up a color reference chart, yay. Done in Krita, assembled in Gimp.

Nighteye

Another Wings of Fate character! This guy is actually one of the four original original characters that I ever drew in the Legends of Destiny. The other three are: Kuma, Cenme, and Himni. Since then, I have not redrawn Nighteye. It's good to see him again!

This was a learning piece for me. I discovered several tools that I hadn't yet played with, including the airbrush tool. I'm extremely pleased with how the piece came out, although I didn't originally plan it in a nighttime setting. I didn't draw the character's trademark knife harness, either - there was already too much going on with his gear. I'm not that talented quite yet.

And again, a bit of trivia for you: The black scale pattern apparent on parts of Nighteye's body is in fact a dark coloration that appears at the edge of some of his scales. Nighteye is a squadron leader who has worked under General Cenme Duforthia for some time, making him one of the longest-standing soldiers to be employed at the Fortress of Roses at the point in time that the book takes place.

Done in Krita. As always, character and the Legends of Destiny are copyright W. A. Johnson.

Inktober - Widow Ssiadagama

It's Inktober!! .......... And I'll be honest, I feel like my art skills are regressing. Bleh.

So, big news - As of Thursday night, the first major revision of Wings of Fate is complete! I've been taking a bit of a break from writing the last couple of days in order to recharge a bit and prepare myself before I dive back in and read through it for further refining purposes. It has officially clocked in at roughly 203,000 words, which means it should be about 600 pages in print format. I'm very pleased, and very surprised. I had no idea when I began revising the book that I had THAT much more to add!

And, yesterday was the last day of September. I totally forgot to put up anything to wish readers a Happy Rebirth Day. Go me.

Here's another character from Wings of Fate. I'll admit that through revising the story and it's characters, I've grown closer to some of them. One of those characters is Widow, an important side character who appears in the story. I always imagined him with a leather keltho, which is the article of clothing he wears draped over his legs, but I didn't have a brown marker to color it. This piece was done in micron pens and brush pens of both the Prismacolor and Copic calibers.

Here's a little more trivia: Widow is an expert knife marksman and a skilled fighter in close quarters. The majority of his armor is made up of chainmail in favor of lighter weight and increased motion. He is a native of the Laiuna city Prosperous Gate in Genkai, but due to family conflict, he left at a young age and has lived and worked in Cardmov ever since. He typically carries at least nine knives and daggers on his person at any given time.

Swift Peilos

This is a supporting character who appears in Wings of Fate. She plays a fairly minor role in the story, and I've never drawn her before now.

A little background on her character for you: Swift is a member of a family of lesser nobility. Like many of her relatives, she is skilled at cartography and navigation. She was originally exposed to work at the Fortress of Roses by her elder sister, Arathinja, who is also employed there. Her mask is blue steel, a detail not mentioned in the book.

I'd like to say that I'm super pleased with this picture, but ........ not really. My hands wouldn't stop shaking while trying to ink, so the line art is a travesty. The smooth quality of coloring that I was seeking after is also lacking. As an excuse, I claim the side effects from coming off of my meds and my nasty cold.

Started in Krita, then switched to Gimp for shading. Gimp reminded me why I don't use it much anymore -_____-

Blue World

Been a while. Here's a little landscape I felt like drawing tonight for an art challenge a friend has going. The lore drake figure looks ......... doofy. Ugh. Whatever, he's just there for scale.

This actually has to do with the Legends of Destiny, but I don't want to give away any spoilers. Sorry. Tired tonight. Been really busy lately and dealing with a lot of stuff.

Done in Krita while listening to Desert Realms by Rudy Adrian.

Thinking of You

Love is in the air, and I wanted to do a fun little doodle of a couple of my characters.

Done in Krita.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Celure vs Sahamel

SPOILER ALERT! Look away before you ruin the experience! Your eyes will melt and your pants will catch on fire!! ....... Oh well, I tried.

I got it done! Ha HA, you nasty picture, how you like THEM apples??? Ohhh it has been a long and difficult battle to get this image completed. I'll probably come back and touch it up when I have more time tomorrow, but for now it's getting put up for your viewing pleasure. I needed a victory tonight.

This is a scene from Taloner: Reima, one of the short stories I have written and self-published (shameless promotion! Yay!) I really, really enjoyed writing this scene, which is a magic-heavy duel between a priestess and a sorceress, and ever since writing that book I've had this image in my head. I would love to use it as some kind of cover image if I ever release a special edition of some of the Taloner books. (Yep, there will be more of them.....I told you this was rife with spoilers)

So I had a lot of stuff on this that wanted to fight me from the get-go. First off, I don't know how many times I've had to rehash the positioning of the figures here. I also couldn't tell you how much time was spent working with that fire dragon to get it into a shape/spot that I felt was at least workable, and not an eyesore (I really hope it isn't still an eyesore) Another thing I had a problem with was that I am still learning how to draw humans well enough that I don't make a laughing stock of my art. That elf's face was incredibly challenging for me to get right, but I think this is the best result that the (far too many) hours have yielded, and I'm pretty happy with it.

I used my method of erasing out portions of a solid black layer on this to get most of the shadows. I wanted it to have a more dramatic look with the dark against the colors, and I love this method because it's like forcing your brain to work in reverse when coloring.

For example - When not using the blackdrop layer method for shadows, I begin the coloring stage by putting down chunks of a medium-toned flat color. After this I proceed to go in and color darker or lighter portions along that flat color in order to give the original tone some variation. With the blackdrop layer approach, I do the flat colors, then the highlights or lighter tones, then drop the black over everything and go in to erase the spots I don't want to be so shadowed, such as the highlighted portions and a little of the original flat color. I hope you understand what I just said. It makes sense in my head, at least. Sigh........

Black, green, and red

Man, I hate days where you're feeling off kilter. Pretty much, I've been a slug today because I've contracted some bug that saps my energy. Wish I could blame being stupid on it, too, since I'm sure there are more productive things I could have done than to draw this :) Whatever, he makes a nice thumbnail. I was trying to do a speed drawing to test out some recording software, but it ended up taking about 2.5 hours.....not so speedy.

Haven't had as much time for drawing this week, since I've been trying to get more writing done. The last month has been woefully lacking for progress in the writing department. Plus, I've been learning to knit, a hobby that's surprisingly fun. See my pretty scarf?

Tsag Reference

(EDIT: Okay, the first one was bugging me enough that I went back and cropped out some parts so that it was cleaner and hopefully makes more sense! It's at the bottom)

Wow, my hand hurts. This took forever to complete, though I did get to tinker with a few design elements to see what I liked best. Still, I'm wondering now if I might have to adjust the price I'd ask for these, should I ever get commissioned to set one up (I was going to charge $20, but based on the time and work that went into this, I'm thinking that $25 might be more accurate. Thoughts, anyone?)

So I got to play with some of the different options for viewing layers (overlay, multiply) And I also got this guy drawn in his full armor uniform. He's one of the characters from my trilogy and I like his coloration. Up until now, I've only ever had one bust shot of him drawn, and that's at a few years old, so I wanted something updated. Had a lot of fun with the armor, wish I could have drawn his big lance as well, but it wouldn't have fit very nicely on the sheet.

Oh, that top right corner is woefully empty! In my defence, there really wasn't much on him that I wanted to reference.

This one was a test run to see how I could set up reference sheets. I figured that if I had something to present to people as a sample, it might help garner some interest, instead of this happening:

me - "Hey, I can draw those! They're fun."
interested person - "Oh? Can I see some of your past work?"
me - "Um, I don't have any.....but I know it would look good!"
now disinterested person - "I see."

Griselda

So I wanted to do this image partly to play with clouds. They turned out alright, but I need to work on some of my lighting.

I had a lot of fun here, especially because this was a good learning opportunity for me with different brush dynamics and line weights. I also discovered that coloring something that's white is more fun than I thought it would be. I like being able to incorporate so much color and still have it look good. The shadowing was a little difficult, but after convincing myself that it was okay to press harder with my tablet pen and get a darker shade, I think it came out good.

This character belongs to Sarah Thorup and is posted here with her permission. The blue scale detail is supposed to go across all of the white on her, but I was worried that trying to do that would make it look messy at the size I drew it, so I opted to do a partial thing where the blue would only be shown off at certain angles, kind of like a pearlescent effect.