#also this is the first thing ive drawn to go beyond a sketch in a few months so hurrah!

[uncharted-constellations]

My old Frecklebro’s drawing is circulating again and i decided they didn’t look nearly smug enough so i had to give it another go

also featuring the sketch below because i adore it

[illumax]

Taking The Arrow - Process

Breakdown of the painting process

“1308AD.  France.The Templar Order has fallen. King Philip IV has a price on the heads of its remaining members and associates.  Three Knights, Pierre, Jean, and Reynaud are on the run and head for the Order’s last bastion of safety: The island monastery and fortress, Mont-Saint Michel.  There they are presented with an opportunity to fight the king using dark methods. Soon, they are met with an untamable evil that turns Mont-Saint Michel from haven to prison. They will discover that not only does evil lurk beyond the walls of the monastery, but the actions of the past torment them within the walls of their own minds.” 

Over the last while, I have had the pleasure of illustrating a phenomenal book by Dalton James titled “The Night’s Many.” With his permission, I am going to share some sneak peeks of the finished illustration, as well as some insights into the process of making each one!

Our first image is titled Taking the Arrow. This scene is a flashback of one of the characters to his time during a war in England. During the battle, he is hit with an arrow (surprise) and is lost amid the chaos of bodies and presumed dead.

Now that we have a little background, let’s dig into the process.

Thumbnails/ideation

Every illustration should start with thumbnails and ideation. Admittedly, I tend to work on loose leaf paper and sometimes misplace them. So this is the only one I could find.

This image provided a unique challenge as I wanted to somehow capture the chaos of the battle, and those few moments of calm that the character had before blacking out. A major theme of this flashback was being lost among the fallen soldiers and I had this image in my head of being tangled up and swallowed by a mass of bodies. This would create a sort of pocket of solitude despite being in the middle of the battle.

I also took this time to research some period style armor and weaponry just to get an idea of what I would be working with in the image. Taking some time do studies helps us better understand the shapes and forms in an object, so when we get to the final piece, we are more comfortable exaggerating or putting them in different positions.

Preliminary Drawing - Blue Pencil and Graphite approx. 5”x8”

Once the concept was nailed down, it was time to move onto the preliminary drawing. This was done in a moleskine notebook using a non photo blue mechanical pencil and graphite.

A lot of my work tends to have a single figure or character in it, so this was really fun to try and fit as many bodies in as I could. Using things like the spears and arrows I created “blocks” for the viewer to keep them in the image. Everything swirls around the central figure and directs the eye back to his face and the arrow in his chest.

Final Drawing - 12”x16” Graphite on Toned Watercolor Board

After the composition was solved, I scanned, enlarged, printed, and transferred my sketch to a toned piece of watercolor board. (The tone was achieved through a wash of acrylic). During the transfer, I refined my drawing to really get the shapes I was after. Sidenote, that is one of my favorite hands I have ever drawn.

Now onto painting.

Final Painting - 12”x16” Acrylic and Charcoal on Watercolor Board

My Primary concern in the painting stage was to get the values established and have enough color in there to really manipulate digitally at the end. I used a very limited palette, and had fun figuring out the lighting and creating some texture.

I wanted there to be grit in the image so I was not overly concerned with making things look really neat and clean - it is a battle after all. I also played a lot with simplification, such as his chain mail. It really is just a shape with some tiled brush strokes in there to add texture.

Final Illustration - 12”x16” Mixed Media with Digital

Once the painting was complete, I again scanned it and started my digital edits. This is one of my favorite parts of the process as I am totally free to experiment. Pushing and pulling colors, values, and textures. It is really easy to fall down the digital rabbit hole and end up over editing, so I have to be careful.

As you can see, I added more color to the image, particularly the skin tones. I also warmed everything up.

I have been experimenting with introducing some vector based elements in my work, and brought that in through the arrows and spears. This is a theme throughout the illustrations for the book. It is a way to create emphasis, and kind of tone down a little bit of the violence (I want to help the viewer see past the gory details and focus on the themes and messages in the story).

All in all, I am quite happy with how this turned out, and I am looking forward to sharing more images with you. There are about 24 paintings in total for this book, so it will be awhile before they are all finished, and even longer before we get through all of them!

I would love to hear your thoughts on the piece, and if you have any questions about the process drop them down in the comments!

Until the next time,

B.

[gumnut-logic]

Two Birds with One Stone (Bit 5)

Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 | Bit 4 | Bit 5

Bring on the comfort! Still @godsliltippy​ ‘s fault. Also, I really wanted to finish this before posting, but it has wandered on longer than expected and I’m sick of waiting - it has taken me ages to slap together this meagre thousand words - at lunch, in the car and while half asleep at the keyboard at ridiculous times of night. So you’re getting it as is while I slap together what will hopefully be the last bit, asap.

Many thanks to @tsarinatorment​ , @janetm74​ and @scribbles97​  for the read throughs and support ::hugs you lots::

I have no idea what the heck this fic is doing. I’m dumping it here and going to bed. I’m exhausted ::falls flat on face::

-o-o-o-

Waking up in hospital always sucked. The moment he smelled that far too familiar scent of sanitized and medical, he knew he had let his family down, likely worried more grey into their hair and the next few whatever time length would be required to recover would suck even more.

He hated being grounded, he hated causing pain and he hated hurting his family.

But another conscious breath supplied him with the vaguest of recaps on how he had managed to land himself here, even before he opened his eyes.

Tornado.

Gordon.

The latter was enough to slam him into full consciousness and force an attempt to fling his eyes open.

Unfortunately, whatever he had done to himself involved his head and eyes and said body parts did not appreciate being called into service in the slightest.

And there was the pain.

He groaned and brought a tubing-tethered had to his head.

His fingers encountered bandaging and swelling and ow, ow, ow.

A few calming breaths and he brought himself under control. His head throbbed, but he could manage it. Gentle finger investigations sketched out that the whole side of his head was wrapped up and it sparked worry about what exactly was wrong with him.

The last thing he remembered was Gordon and blood.

He cranked an eye open. Apparently, only one was working, the other one felt swollen shut and there were spikey things that could possibly be stitches in his eyebrow. Probably meant wonky eyebrows again, but considering the bandaging, he probably had much more than eyebrows to worry about.

But Gordon.

Where was Gordon?

He blinked and winced as it triggered his injured eye as well, but it cleared what little vision he had.

And he was confronted with red flannel.

What?

It was his shirt on arms wrapped around a tousled mop of dark hair.

It took another painful blink for the owner’s identity to register.

“Scott?” But his voice was whisper quiet and the head did not respond.

Virgil’s neck felt stiff, but he had to move, had to find Gordon.

Looking to the left, beyond his big brother he could see the end of another bed, but the curtain was in the way.

Virgil’s bed was tilted up, Scott’s head resting by his left hand. His brother appeared to be asleep, shoulders rising up and down slowly and regularly.

Virgil quietly lifted his hand up and away from his big brother and tried to reach for the curtain to move it out of the way.

He couldn’t quite touch it.

A shift on the bed, doing his best not to disturb Scott and he reached again.

“Virgil! What the hell are you doing?” A hand shoved the curtain aside.

Scott flinched and sat up, blinking. His hair stuck up in all directions.

But the voice was so Gordon, Virgil was swept with a wave of relief enough for him to collapse back against the bed. “Gords? You ‘k?”

A rustle of sheets and bare feet on linoleum, and his blond and rather pale brother shuffled into view.

Tubing, not unlike that wrapped around Virgil’s right hand, chained his brother to the bed behind him.

Meanwhile, Scott’s brain had obviously booted enough to realise what was going on.

“Gordon! What the hell are you doing?”

Gordon ignored him and shuffled closer to Virgil’s bed, his IV stand trailing behind him. But it was obvious not all was well with his little brother. He wavered a little and it was only a quick move by Scott that prevented a visit to the floor.

“Gordon what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I needed to see Virgil.”

Scott’s head shot around and targeted Virgil as if he hadn’t realised he was awake. “Virg?”

Virgil frowned. “Scott, you okay?”

His big brother looked awful. His eyes were red-rimmed and his complexion was grey. For a moment there, Virgil wondered which brother was doing the most holding up.

“My god, sit down, both of you.” His throat caught on the last word and he was coughing.

The world went wobbly and full of pain.

A door. Exclamations. Hands grabbed him and everything just hurt.

God.

Someone was holding him and stroking his hair.

“C’mon, honey, relax. Breathe through it.”

A blink of purple and a familiar scent. God, he just melted into his grandmother’s arms.

But...

“Scott-“

“Don’t you worry about Scotty. He’s going to get some sleep now that you are with us again.”

“Grandma-“ His brother’s voice was almost as parched as Virgil’s.

“Help Gordon back to bed and get some sleep. Use the bed you were assigned for good reason.”

There was a shuffling of feet and muttered protests, but if there was one rule in the Tracy family, it was that Grandma’s word was law.

She was still stroking his hair. “Now, Virgil, you need to relax. She nudged him back onto his pillow and he was drawn to open his eyes.

Grandma was assessing him, medical and motherly. Her hand reached out and touched his cheek. “Let’s get you some pain medication.”

“No...”

“There is no need to suffer, Virgil.” And she was thumbing the call button.

A nurse appeared and there was conversation that Virgil had no energy for. His eyes sought out Gordon who was lying on his side ever so casual like, smiling at him. His arm was swathed in bandages.

“Good to see you, bro.” The smile became a grin.

“You good?”

“Plugged and the tank has had a refill. Vintage red straight from the source.” He pointed at Scott who was now sitting on a third bed in the room, obviously too stubborn to lie down.

One flannel sleeve was loose at the cuff.

“Scott, lie down.” No wonder his brother was so pale. Virgil could guess the course of events. Determination. The arm stuck out and ready to be stuck with a needle to save his little brother.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

“I’m okay, Virgil.”

“Bullshit.” But it was quiet, because his own status wasn’t great and a tickle in his throat threatened him.

There must have been something in his expression, though, because Scott rolled his eyes and shucking off his shoes, he curled up on the bed...eyes watching both little brothers.

Why was he wearing Virgil’s clothes?

A needle appeared and something was injected into Virgil’s IV and from that point on everything was laced with fog.

John was there at one point, ever so tall and topped with copper. His musical voice asked Virgil a question involving the word tornado, but Virgil couldn’t find the energy to answer.

Alan was hugging him.

Penelope...there was a Penelope until a curtain took her away.

And then there was sleep.

Blissful, blissful sleep.

-o-o-o-

Next

[collage-portfolio-time]

Interview Preparation

Career Choice : Illustrator

Company Choice : FolioArt

1. Tell me about yourself. I am a 16 year old artist who has been working with portraiture, both realistic and cartoonish, since I was very small. I have won 2 consecutive awards for the international government-run ‘Manga Jiman’ competition, both in 2019 and 2020, winning the youths prize in 2019 and both the youths prize and 7th place in 2020, ‘making history’ as I won the youths prize two years running. The music I listen to inspires me a lot as what I draw can sometimes entirely depend on what I am listening to at the time. I have had a major interest in manga and anime since I was young and that has also influenced my style of work and the fandoms I go around to spread my collection of work to different places of the internet.

2. Why do you want to work for us? I love the fact your company will represent a range of illustrators, both well-known and up and coming. That makes you seem much more open to different styles of work and experimentation to me which I find myself drawn to.

3. What can you bring to our company? Why should we hire you? I can bring a range of styles. Like Ive said before, I work in both realism and cartoonish styles of work, which I feel could bring more people in from completely different sides of the art world. I can also work with a wide range of mediums, from digital work to watercolors, although I find myself preferring digital for the clarity you can get in an image.

4. What do you know about our company? You were established in central London in the 1970’s and are now working worldwide. You cover all sides of the art world from traditional works to GIF’s. You say you have a personal relationship with your illustrators. You have also represented artists that have worked with well-known bands for album art which include Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones, and have also had artists under your wing work with film studios like when Joe Petagna created the concept for the Facehugger in Alien.

5. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? What are your career goals? I hope to see myself with enough of a following to simply be able to create for myself and be able to make a living, as selfish as that sounds. I don’t enjoy working for others unless I like their concepts and ideas as I will just simply be uninterested in what I create and end up producing something boring as a result. I want to work to the best of my ability, and as much as the art world is ran on what others want to see, I want to dictate what I do in the process while also getting approval from the people who will consume it.

6. Why did you choose this field/career path? I chose this career path as it’s the only thing I know. As I child I would never let myself do anything but draw, I was obsessed with the gratification I got when I saw that I was improving. That was probably a detriment in the long run as now I feel obligated to work in the art industry because if I don’t what have I been doing this whole time. I feel like I owe it to myself and to the people who have funded my interests and hobby.

7. Can you tell me about your role in your current place of work? Right now I am a college student, so my role is to learn. I will create, be criticized and create again. My job is to learn from the criticism and improve upon myself to represent the collage in a good light as well as myself, and hopefully gain recognition so the collage can say that they taught me for better reputation.

8. What are your strengths/weaknesses? My biggest weakness is my pride. I will become quite offended by the slightest bit of criticism that I think isn't warranted, and yet I am so self-critical that I will rip a piece to shreds if I go a touch out of my lines while painting. It hurts to have my fears confirmed that I won't be the gifted child forever and that I will blur into the crowd of other talented artists in my classroom. It's not only that but also the thought that I spent so long on a piece to be told that it didn’t match up to an idea someone else wanted or there wasn’t enough color, and I find myself unconsciously lashing out, but I am trying to work past that and take the criticism thankfully. Despite that, what could be considered one of my greatest strengths from time to time will be my stubbornness, as I will stick to a plan I like no matter what others tell me might go wrong, which sometimes works in my favor. Technically, I am more skilled with watercolors and digital mediums than I thought I was, as the amount of people I hear struggle with them is astonishing to me as I find I work with them with relative ease, but to counter that I now struggle with mediums such as acrylics and colored pencils as Ive laid off them for so long. I hope to get better with those mediums in the future as I practice more with them again.

9. Tell me about a time when you worked in a team? Were you a leader/coordinator/etc.? I studied performing arts when I was at The Academy Grimsby secondary school. We were tasked to create a script or scenario based on a prompt that I can't quite place now, and we were a group of 4 actors as most people there were dancers. I ended up writing up the entire script that I put together, although the others did prompt some ideas, and almost directing practices. I felt I was forced into a leading position as the others weren't engaging as much as they probably should have, apart from one other person who seemed to take it as seriously as I did. I feel despite the fact I was practically shoved into the lead, and even though the script was probably shoddy as I had never really written besides from creative writing in English, I lead them well considering I was known to be quite antisocial and introverted. That situation made me realize that I was better at controlling situations and being assertive to others than I ever thought I would be, although I wasn’t too strict or bossy from what I remember.

10. Tell me about a time when you faced a challenge. What was your reaction? How did you solve it? I faced quite a big challenge when I created the first page of my 2020 Manga Jiman entry. In the first page you get quite a copious amount of building shots, and while it looked good how I imagined it, I realized when I had finished the sketch that I had never really drawn a building before. It took me two days of constant redoing, experimentation and almost scrapping the first page entirely before I finally felt happy with what I had produced. Nowadays I find it much easier to step out of my comfort zone and delve into architecture when drawing backgrounds, and I feel this experience helped me progress as an artist.

11. Tell me about an accomplishment you are most proud of. Ive mentioned this before a copious amount of times, but my Manga Jiman awards. As they are government run and judges by professional mangaka (manga creators) I think it gives my awards that extra flair of pride that makes me cling to them. The thing I will probably particularly cling to is the fact they said I was ‘making history’ with my consecutive youths prize wins, which I think is quite a good thing to be able to say on a resume. Not only that, but my winning submission for the 2020 competition was given a talk about on the award ceremony by a legendary mangaka Kiriko Kubo, who said my ‘line was neat, the layout was good and the main character was charming.’,’the work can be read smoothly’, and that ‘creating atmosphere is important, and being able to do it like this is an exellent talent’. It gives me pride that someone so prestigious in a world I had barely entered would praise my work so highly.

12. What motivates you? What can motivate me most are two things: approval from others and money. I am materialistic at heart but also sensitive to others comments on my work, so the both end up being great pushes in my art career. I feel if I am being paid for my work that it is worth something, because objectively it is, and being praised for what I do makes me feel validated beyond what I thought was possible, so the two can push me to keep going.

13. What was your biggest failure? What did you learn from it? My biggest failure is the many times Ive tried to work with soft pastels. I don’t know what it is with that medium that renders me unable to function with them but I cannot create a good piece with those sticks of chalk in my hands. I learnt that I am not the best with dry mediums and should probably keep to my paints and digital mediums for now, although I'm always open to trying them out again and again until I get used to them.

14. What was your biggest mistake? How did you fix it? My biggest mistake was thinking I was going to get placed in my first Manga Jiman entry in 2019. I was 15 at the time, so there wasn’t much of a chance I was going to be placed within the top 10 because of my age alone but I didn’t realize that at the time. I had gotten so apprehensive about results that should've been obvious from the moment I was shortlisted, but I was aiming for the top 5 in the placings. I still think that my work might've placed in top 5 had I been older, but the embarrassment and sadness about ‘only’ getting youths prize at the time was almost overwhelming. That experience taught me not to get my hopes up on stuff like that and set myself up for the worst when it comes to things like this in the future, which I did in the 2020 entry. I was simply aiming for 10th place as I wasn’t even aware the youths prize was being awarded that year because there was only 11 of us, and one of the prizes was the yonkoma award for people who were between 11 and 13 containing a single 4 panel page which one of the shortlisted entries mirrored. I ended up getting more that I thought I would've in the terms of awards and recognition which I was happy about.

15. Are you willing to relocate/travel? I am willing to relocate and travel, although i would prefer to do so with someone else I trust as I tend to get nervous in new situations should that be possible.

16. Do you have any hobbies? What are they? I don’t really do much other than draw for my social media’s and complete collage work. I do small things such as singing and watching twitch streamers, but those are few and far between or happening while I work so I don’t think they can be considered big hobbies of mine. I used to bake when I had to take a lot of time out of secondary school due to sickness but I had a lot of spare time back then so it was more possible for me to have hobbies other than art.

17. What are your computer skills/technical skills? I know how to work almost all Microsoft programs, office 365/outlook, and various digital art programmes such as medibang paint pro and the basics of photoshop/illustrator. I also know general video editing such as keyframing and audio manipulation in Wondershare Filmora.

18. How did you hear about this position? I chose to contact you for this position as I had found you take submissions for new artists to represent and thought I'd shoot my shot.

19. What are your salary requirements? Minimum wage and whatever you/the client feel I deserve on top of that, even if that’s nothing at all. As long as I get minimum wage for my work and supplies, I am fine with that.

20. Do you have any questions for me? How would you represent me? Would it be a situation where you would recommend me to people looking to commission and leave us to our devices or would you be there the whole process?

[sssoto]

Creator’s update #1

Hey guys! So I’ve decided to start actually blogging on this blog and tell a bit about the various things I’m working on, share WIPs, music I’ve been digging recently etc. I realise that I rarely post anything, so it seems like I’m super inactive - which is totally not true, I just have so much stuff going on and take a long time to finish things, and I’m also pretty picky about what I put up online lol! For the sake of keeping those of you interested in the loop, I’m gonna start this series of creator’s updates in which I’ll update y’all on the progress I’ve made on my various creative projects. The goal is to give an update a few times a month (hopefully lol)!

This past while I’ve been super inactive in the writing department, but very much productive in the art department, so my writing update will be mostly a summary of what I’ve been doing the past few years up until this point.

Mood: Feelin’ real good cuz my parents finally brought my comfy double bed over from my mum’s place this past weekend, which means no more sleeping on the couch yaaaaaas.

Music I’ve been digging recently:

Skye Sweetnam - Boyhunter So, the other day I randomly listened to this song on my way home from work, and I totally realised that Skye Sweetnam is the perfect voice for my character Caitlyn, and this song totally embodies what Caitlyn is all about lmaoooo. (The song isn’t very accurate to the time period Caitlyn lives in, but it’s super accurate to her character essence and personality, and I just find that so lit hahahah) 

Fallulah - Out of It This song is basically my MC’s theme song?? It’s performed by a Danish artist and was super popular in Denmark a few years back as it was the theme tune to a Danish tv show (a show I loved!). The lyrics are just so Daniel, it’s not even funny. It mostly fits his mental state at the beginning of Renaissance.

Girl’s Day - Love Again Ugh I just love the tune of this song so much, I can’t really place my finger on it, the emotion is just so great. I love the guitar riff especially, and Girl’s Day is a four member girl group, so it’s one of those songs where I can imagine my main girls Annaliese, Caitlyn, Mary and Serena singing as each member lmao.

Nine Muses - Remember Another four member group now, this song is also one where I can imagine my main girls singing each member’s part lmao, and having that aspect to a song always makes it a little better for me! Forreal tho, this new release from Nine Muses slays, and we all know it. The music video haunts me.

Sistar - Lonely This song makes me sad and happy all at once, cuz I’m not ready to say goodbye to Sistar, but at the same time this ending is probably the best one any fan could’ve wished for because there was no drama or anger, just well wishes and hope for the future. I know these girls will go far, and this song just pulls at all my heart strings man. The melody of the bridge and chorus, Dasom and Soyu’s parts in particular, really works for me. And yeah, Sistar has four members too, and once again I can picture my main girls singing as each member lmao. It’s a thing I have, okay?

Moana OST - We Know The Way + Know Who You Are I recently watched this movie, and while I sorta felt like the plot was a bit rushed and tropey in many ways, I totally adored the visuals and the MUSIC OMG. These two songs are my favourite, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s vocals never miss, and Auli’i Cravalho’s high note is gorgeous! Also dat choir in the background tho, and in context with the movie scene that song just makes me irrationally emotional mkay. (That ending was the best twist ever, it definitely lifted the story up a notch for me!)

Writing

So I’m writing a book! You might have seen me mention it a few times already on here, but I’ve not really shared much insight into my process or what sort of book this actually is (other than talking about characters here and there), and as I’ve not been making huge progress lately (I’m in an art state of mind duuuh), I thought that I’d keep this section short and sweet, with a bit of an introduction into what my book project is all about.

I call it a book project because I don’t feel comfortable just calling it a book when I don’t have rights to publish. Technically my book is a fanfiction based on the horror video game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and as such I don’t own copyright of the small percentage of my story that features the canon elements. However, I take this as seriously as anyone else would writing their own book, because I’ve poured my entire heart and soul into it, and the vast majority of the content (plot, characters and world) is my original creation. It’s my own little big project lol!

You might be familiar with the game, and even if you aren’t, that’s not a prerequisite for reading my book since everything is introduced and set up just as in any regular book. The protagonist is an Englishman named Daniel, and we know little of his past through the game. I won’t go into too much detail on what the game is about (if you really wanna know, you can look it up), but the point of my book is to explore the protagonist’s life from his childhood up to the events of the game and beyond, and afterwards connect his story to the game sequels featuring other protagonists within the same universe. It’s a bit complex and elaborate, which is just the way I like it!

As the games are set at various points during the Victorian era (game #1 is set in Prussia 1839, game #2 is set in France 1858, and game #3 is set in England 1899), you can probably guess that the entire thing will be pretty long. That’s why I’m making it a series! I have at least seven books planned so far (though there’ll definitely be more, since I’m not near the end of the timeline I need to cover yet), and I currently have the first book written and am writing the sequel - however, the first book will need a complete rewrite once I’m finished with book #2, because I’ve since developed and changed a lot of stuff, and I have many new interesting ideas for a more fleshed out version of the first book. Still, the fanfic version is available online, so if you’d like to read it, you can find it here. You’ll get a pretty good idea of the general story and the characters, but keep in mind that it’s super outdated and will be very different after my rewrite!

For reference, this is the list of books that I’ve planned (and titled) so far, so you can keep up with what book of my series I’m talking about at any given point:

I - Amnesia: Memoirs

II - Amnesia: Renaissance

III - Amnesia: Voyage

IV - Amnesia: Noir

V - Amnesia: Encore

VI - Amnesia: Rogue

So what I’m doing right now with this project is revisions. Uuuuggghhhhh. Yes, that’s right, I’m stuck in revision hell. I’ve not even finished the first draft of Renaissance yet (I know, sacrilege, writing blasphemy, don’t start your damn edits until you’ve finished your draft dumbass), but I had some pretty major changes to make, changes so big that it would be a waste of time and effort to go on drafting without implementing them first. Mainly the changes are surrounding 1) a change of ages of my main cast (I aged many characters up a few years), and 2) changing and figuring out the specifics of the illness which my MC’s sister, Hazel, is afflicted with. She’s not such a major character in Renaissance, but she plays a big role in Memoirs, and since I had all these new ideas for the rewrite of that, I wanted to implement the ripple effects in the second book so it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle to edit later when Renaissance is a finished 3-400k first draft lmao (I have a lot of words okay?). These changes mostly affect the early chapters of my book - chapters I wrote about three years ago, which means that these early chapters really need a face-lift. In addition to the age and illness change, I wanna revise the first five chapters by cutting the fluff and tightening up the beginning so we get to the action a tiny bit faster. Adding to the fact that these early chapters are three years old, the prose also needs an almost complete rewrite. So long story short, all of the edits are taking a long ass time, and I’m not having a good time lmao. Doesn’t help that I had to stop drafting right at one of the juiciest scenes in my book?!?!? (that’s a lie, it gets juicier, but I was just getting to the real good stuff yanno?)

(Side note: for someone who said that I’d keep this short, it sure turned out long lmao. I just have too many damn words.)

Chapters edited: 2/16 (working on 3 right now and it’s an effin’ pain)

Current total word count: 120,591

Current total chapter count: 17 (the number will go down to 16 once I finish the revisions, as I’m merging two chapters)

Look at all the dumb shit I still have to edit for chapter 3. Look at it.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Art

Man, I’ve been doing a lot of artwork recently, and by a lot, I don’t mean that I’ve finished any.

I think I’ve been focused on developing my actual drawing skills rather than making finished illustrations, because I’ve been so overwhelmed with inspiration and I’ve wanted to try out drawing a bunch of different motives, so my mind is on a lot of different art projects at once, and I’m making baby steps of progress on each of them because I just wanna do everything lmao. I should probably take a step back and settle on one thing at a time, but at the same time, I feel like this is working for me because I’m so inspired and motivated and super excited for every single art piece; I don’t feel myself losing interest in any of them, in fact I just feel like my switching between different artworks keeps every piece fresh and interesting for me, yanno?

So here’s one thing that I’ve been slowly chipping away at for the past few months. I’m drawing a full body group picture of my main cast from Renaissance!

I’ve drawn the anatomy sketches of all the male characters (though I’m debating whether I should add some others), and now I’m adding the female characters one by one, so these are not all of the characters yet. But man, I just love seeing the characters side by side? The variety in their body language, body types and heights is just so interesting to look at, and it’ll be even better once I get around to actually adding their facial features, expressions, hair, attire, and then colouring them as well omg! I’m a sucker for this kind of thing, blame it on @juliajm15 and her amazing diverse character designs.

It’s gonna be a huge picture with a lot of characters, and I’m stoked for it!! This is a piece which I hope I’ll be able to show ya’ll the progress of bit by bit in every few updates. (also, if you feel somewhat familiar with some of my characters, you’re welcome to make guesses at who’s who (; )

Another project I’m working on is making official character portraits of my main cast (and possibly minor characters as well). I just think it’s nice to have official portraits as reference for anyone who’d like to see what the characters look like, and also for myself for whenever I need to refresh the specific features and expression of each character. It’s just a nice thing that satiates my very Type A personality lmao!

So the characters above are Owen Wright (to the left) , Daniel’s puppy bff with the fluffy hair, and then from left to right I’m colouring the portraits of the Armstrong siblings: Caleb, Caitlyn and Tristan. Their dad is a duke! n.n Caleb is the oldest, Caitlyn the youngest, and Tristan is the bland middle child. He’s a little brat LOL but I still love him.

Also, due to this glorious reference I found, I finally figured out how to draw Daniel. Bless this model, I never knew I wanted Daniel to have big puffy lips, but apparently I do.

He looks actually nice now? Which is nice? I’m amazed. Also his hair? I can never draw his hair, but this looks nice so yay? Also, I dunno why I never draw clothes on him, I guess I’m just lazy lol, but he’s gonna need to wear clothes for the official character portrait soooo... That’s a thing I’m gonna have to do.

Now that I’ve figured out his features, it’s gonna be fun to remodel all his family members accordingly. I sense that he’ll have gotten those cute puffy lips from his mum meheheheh.

I also did some Disney fanart of my two favourite Disney ladies; Esmeralda and Kida <3

I actually never really draw fanart any more, it’s been yeeeaaaars since I did, and when I used to do it, I was always very particular about staying as true to the original art style as possible. But now that I’ve spent the past couple years focusing on developing my own art style, I actually decided not to care about that so much and just draw the characters the way I’m used to drawing my own, and lo and behold - it looks pretty accurate to the Disney style?? I assumed that the characters would end up looking very different, but other than the eyes being smaller I feel like they look the exact same lmao. It’s interesting to me, because even when I used to do fanart, I usually did so of Japanese art and manga, not of Disney or any other western art. Also, I don’t consider my own style very Disney, but it pleases me a lot that the characters look so much like themselves even in my art style! The most important thing to me is to capture the essence of the character anyway, so any fan can recognise the character they love so much n.n

So that’s about it for this round! I’ve been working on other things as well, but I’d rather not disclose them to the public just yet - perhaps later, when I’ve made more progress, or (gasp!) actually finished something!! Bahahah, with the many things I’m working on, hell will freeze over before that day comes. *cries*

Youtube

I’m adding this Youtube section because, in addition to writing and doing artwork, I also like to record vocal covers (mainly of kpop songs, but I’ll do anything I’m in the mood for at any given point), aaaaand as of today I'm gonna be uploading speedpaints as well! Which is probably good since I don’t upload my covers nearly as often as I finish them lmao.

I’ve not uploaded any new covers recently (though I really should, I do have some covers lying around on my laptop mwerp), but I’m gonna list a couple of my favourite covers I have on my channel here so you can take a listen if you’d like!

And today I uploaded my very first speedpaint to my channel, so check that out if you’re interested in that sort of stuff! It’s the process of my Christmas portrait piece for Serena. I aim to be more consistent with uploads since I have a few unedited recordings lying around, so keep an eye out for that!

If you’ve read this far, thank you for sticking around and taking a look at my work, even if it’s only in WIP form. I wanted to start doing these updates because I’ve been watching my friends do them for a long time, and I always love reading their writing updates; they motivate me so much to get working on my own stuff, and I just wanna be able to perhaps do something similar for anyone else who’s watching me out there. So thank you sincerely to @coffeeandcalligraphy, @sarahkelsiwrites and @shaelinwrites for sharing your process with the world and being such an inspiration to me and many others, I love seeing you all make progress on your own projects <3

So that was all for this round, I hope you guys enjoyed a little sneak peek into what I’ve been working on! Until next time, folks!