#I crafted an entire new set of procreate brushes to make this

[paragal]

Day 12: manilatt

[baladric]

4, 10, 14!! heehee!

ouuuu thank you!!!!

4. How many different styles/medium (e.g., digital art, traditional art, comics, sculpture, paper craft, etc.) did you try this year?

on the diversity of media front, i feel like i stagnated a little! i used to have a lot more breadth, but this year like 98% of my work was done with procreate, and the other 2% were very occasional pencil/pen doodles that i then spruced up in procreate ahaha!! but honestly i'm not too arsed about this, like the sheer volume of art i made this year is so much higher than usual, entirely bc messing around w procreate and the specific hyperfixations i've had this year really inspired me to keep throwing myself at drawings again and again until i got it right—which has translated into a lot of skill growth, which i honestly could not be happier about!!!!!

10. What inspired/motivated you this year?

content-wise, the goblin emperor was my main artistic motivator (specifically my own goddamn au s;alkdfjaow;if), but i'm also really learning how to create my own original works as expressions of various emotional experiences i'm shufflin my way through lately.

also (and i've said this already recently but it bears saying again) literally i looked at @littleowlbub 's concept art for their new comic, prism, and i fell deeply and madly in love with how they draw hands—they're like... so expressive and lovely, but what really sets them apart for me is this sense that there's joy in the simple act of drawing them. their hands are, for me, the visual equivalent of taking that first full breath of fresh air at the start of a hike in the blue ridge mountains ;lakjdfaef like, god, i look at a few of the drawings of spectrum specifically and just feel love and peace in my own existence as a tactile being, idk!!!! this is all a lot of weight to put on the way someone draws hands, but it's WHERE I'M AT and honestly it has really inspired me to find my own ways of creating that feeling with the hands i draw, and i have a long road ahead still but the results are so visible to me, and i'm so so excited about that progress!!!

14. What's one pairing/character/subject/body part/object you want to explore next year?

pairing(s): hrmm honestly i've been eyeballing my internal visualization of evemer and kadou from @ariaste 's A Taste Of Iron and Gold, like i am itchin to draw them a whole whole bunch

characters: it's become a pathological need to figure out how to simplify eddie entertainment munson's dumb face down to a few brush strokes, like i've done so much noodling to try to figure out what it is exactly that makes his face his face—is it the full lips? the angle of his eyes? the sparse eyebrows? the laugh lines? nose, the particular contours of his 3/4 profile?? who the fuck knows!!! but i will figure it out or i will die trying!!!!!!!!

subject: really digging my vent pieces so i fully intend to keep honing that style and the sort of. idk creative muscles that go into funneling big emotions into little eyestrain-y guys

body part: see my tender screeching about hands above. also really working on understanding legs. why are they like that. whose idea was that.

object: man i need to draw more objects. engineered shapes in general suck SO BAD. i wanna get better at musical instruments especially, but one of my broadest goals is to get better at dramatic lighting (light is a huge part of my creative world, which is really apparent in my writing and poetry, but much less so in my art bc i Don't Know How To Do It Yet), and i'm annoyingly aware that the best way to work at that is to, in fact, do a lot of still lives, and probably like. paint more. pls pls, 2023 me, let yourself fuck up with gouache. you love gouache. it's so good for light.

artist wrapped ask meme!

[allonsysilvertongue]

Silver Pen: Her Maker

During a particularly long stretch of writer’s block, Haymitch Abernathy discovered a world of his own making. (AU)

Chapter 3: Her Maker

The book was old; the pages were yellow and its spine was cracked. It once belonged to Lachlan Abernathy who spent his night quietly reading poetry from the book to his young son.

Haymitch’s father was a man of a few words but at night, when the world became quiet, his voice rose among the hoots of the owl outside and in those prose, was the most words Lachlan ever spoke.

It had been a while since Haymitch had read anything from it but he kept it safe and between the pages of the book was an equally old photograph.

He brushed his thumb across it, staring at the picture of his brother.

Where Lief had dirty blond hair just like him, Finnick had bronze hair, and if Lief’s eyes were pale grey, then Finnick’s sea-green eyes stood out in the dark. Memories of his brother might have driven him to create and write Finnick but Haymitch painstakingly made sure that they were different. He wanted to be able to set them apart, to not confuse his brother, real as he was, with a character he produced.

Now, he might just know if that worked.

When Peeta came to greet him, he was on the sofa, gazing down at the bottom of a bottle. The boy knocked quietly on the door panel to catch his attention.

“Didn’t forget, did you?”

Haymitch rose to his feet and grabbed his black woollen jacket from the back of a chair. Katniss was waiting outside for them. At the sight of him, she jumped down from the bannister where she had perched herself and started walking.

Peeta fell in step next to her while Haymitch lingered back, keeping a slower pace.

He caught drifts of their conversations – discussion of suitable places to set up Peeta’s bakery and the ideal size they were looking for.

“Surgar cube?”

His steps faltered. His gaze fell on the hand offering him the treat and then up to the owner.

“Or might I interest you in some oysters?”

The wolfish grin was the giveaway. He was staring at Finnick Odair; sun-kissed skin, soft curls of bronze hair and twinkling eyes.

Haymitch had written him as a handsome young man since he often believe his brother had the looks in the family, but he had never tried to picture Finnick as a person. The feeling was somewhat akin to reading and knowing a character from a book and then learning the actor that was cast as the character for a film. It felt strange to him.

“Pearls for your lady, maybe?” Finnick winked.

Haymitch stepped closer. Finnick had set up a small stall at the first corner of in the town market. There were oysters on ice and stools for customers to sit.

“Never seen you before,” Haymitch muttered. “You new?”

“That will depend on what you consider as ‘new’,” he teased. “I’ve been selling fresh seafood for the past three months.”

“Not what Katniss said,” Haymitch told him. “Was told you just moved here a week before her.”

“Yes, that’s true. I like it here and so does Annie – that’s her over there,” he pointed to a young woman with a warm smile and gentle demeanour. “I still have a beach house two towns over. It’s hard to make a business where I’m from when everyone can just row out to the sea to get seafood themselves so three months ago I came to this town to sell my catch. It’s a hassle to travel back and forth. It wasn’t a difficult decision to make. This is a nice town, anyway.”

The timing was too much of a coincidence. His characters could not just pop up one after another at this particular moment. He had been writing for years so why now?

“This is the Haymitch Abernathy, yes?” Finnick turned his attention to Katniss standing behind Haymitch.

Katniss nodded. “My neighbour.”

“Word has it that you keep to yourself,” Finnick teased. “I also heard that you’re a writer. We must have read all the short children stories you published. Any new stories for my boy? I think he likes pirates.”

His brother loved pirates. Haymitch tried not to think too much about it.

Instead, he thought of the poetries and stories his father told him as a child and like always, he wanted to hold them close to his heart. That was their moment. It was hypocritical for a writer because stories were meant to be shared but somehow, he could never share the stories his father shared with him with anyone else. One day, he might share it with this boy but not today.

“Are you writing anything new? I would love to read those stories,” Annie spoke quietly for the first time since they met.

That struck him. There were notes and half-written stories on them – all ­of them with the exception of the baby – at his house.

Just the thought of them stumbling on it made his blood ran cold. His conversation with them proved that they had no self-awareness that they were his character and that he was their… maker.

“I have to go,” Haymitch announced suddenly.

“What’s the hurry? You should try my oysters, they’re – “

Finnick’s words were drowned by the rushing of blood in his ears. He had to get home. He had to make sure.

The distance from town to his house seemed unusually long and he was only slightly comforted when he heard the honking of the geese. Haymitch tore through his study once he got home, clutching papers in his hands as his eyes scanned the contents.

He was searching for a name. His name.

Because what if he was not who he thought he was? How else was he existing in the same plane as his own characters and –

Haymitch stopped short.

He sounded insane.

You’re fucking real. You’re not some… Some work of fiction.

Sitting and leaning against the wall, Haymitch stretched his legs out. He let out a quivering breath and counted to ten as he retrieved his flask from his jacket. With shaking hands, he took a sip and in a much more collected manner, he read his works again.

His name was not in any of it.

“How is this happening?” he mumbled to himself, searching for an answer he didn’t have.

If there was one thing he hated, it was not knowing. There was a multitude of questions swirling in his mind, an entire mystery that needed solving with nowhere to turn for answers… or solutions because obviously this could not go on.

How was he expected to live next door to two kids whose stories he had written? What was he supposed to make of his characters procreating when he had not written that in for them?

That thought gave him pause. His hand trembled and he felt the familiar rush of adrenaline at the spurt of inspiration.

Katniss, Peeta, Finnick and Annie…. They were all characters he had written. What about characters he had yet to write?

His study was a mess. Papers were strewn everywhere in his mad rush earlier so he simply just swept everything off the table.

For the first time in a long time, he planted himself on the chair and pulled his typewriter closer. His fingers hovered over the keys, searching for the right words.

Then his gaze fell on an old magazine subscription and on the blonde-haired model standing in front of a house that graced the front page. Slowly, an idea began to take shape.

For years now, he had to force every bit of creativity but seeing his four characters coupled with an overwhelming desire to know had brought the spark back.

He began typing.

Haymitch started as he always did when creating a new character – he began with their physical description. Then he gave them a base personality before slowly crafting a back story to suit. He gave his character a hidden trauma, a childhood fear, some regrets with hopes and dreams. He gave the new character motivations as a drive, good traits and bad traits and skills.

There was no future to the character yet but that was not a pressing concern for him at the moment.

Haymitch wrote until the sky turned orange and stars twinkled.

He really should start writing that novel. After all, what was the point of having all these characters to play with if there was no story?

When he was done, he leaned back in his seat and wriggled his fingers to relieve the ache. There it was - another character to fit into his fictional world… and possibly this world. That was the theory he wanted to test.

There was just one final touch to this - a name for his character. Then all he had to do was wait to see if this character too would jump out of the pages and into the real world.

It was only when morning dawned and after he roused from his unintentional nap on the sofa that he wandered back to his desk and typed in the only missing information.

Her name.

Euphemia Trinket.

There you go - Effie Trinket! What do you think? Will she appear and if so, how is she going to appear? Tell me all your thoughts.