Layout - battle screen mockup

Just a mockup, obviously -- I took some shortcuts to throw this together before the meeting tomorrow. I'm going to finalize the character portrait borders, and make the health bars more legible. Possibly with outlines of some sort. I do like outlines.

Concept - Nebelmeer

Quick concept for Nebelmeer! It's hard for me to make plains look interesting, so I'll come back to this design later and try and think of something more interesting.

UI Layout

Possibilities for layout, anyway. Never done this before! Kinda fun. A little too much like graphic design, though.

I like the idea of scribbling out things when the characters are dead, or can't use a specific option, or something like that. Not sure why that's so appealing to me. Also, I feel like this game needs a less precise and pristine look for the options, because that's sort of the feel of the game to me, I guess? If folks disagree, I will redo a cleaner look. Just let me know!

24-hour (sorta) 24-page (sorta)

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace, built upon the sand!

That was what this (sorta) 24 page comic was based off of. I went to the 24-hour comic work session, finished this in five hours, and had too many things to do to stay the whole day, unfortunately. It was definitely a learning experience, and I'm glad I did it. I even like how some of this came out, though the writing is pretty atrocious. I like some of the layout, and I almost like the style of it -- I think if I work on it a little more, and add a little more detail (but not too much, because I do have a problem with losing the looseness and fluidity) then I would really like this style. Gonna work on that.

Also, love, love, love Edna St. Vincent Millay, forever.

EDIT: I just realized you couldn't see what was going on at all, so I split it up.

Concept - The Splintered Shore

One of the regions for Wanderings. Only seven more regions to go! I want to do one of these for each of the regions, and then work on specifics of each region, if there's something particular of note. And then go back and redesign, if the group deems it necessary.

..and then I might do more of this region on my own time, because I think it's pretty cool.

Concept - Wanderer Sprite

First attempt at sprites. Sprites are pretty difficult for me. Also, back in the game! I'll actually be able to work on art again, which is super exciting.

Llama & I - colour stippling

First attempt at stippling in colour! Some of it came out a little mottled, unfortunately. Still getting used to having to switch between different pens.

I'm going to miss this one.

hands: matters of the heart -- sneak preview!

This is what I've been spending a lot of time on recently. I'm having a lot of fun with it, and I'm really enjoying doing traditional pen & ink, since it's been so long since I've done so. This is the prologue for the graphic novel, and probably all you're going to get to see until I finish the damn thing.

The entire book is going to be focusing only on people's hands and their interactions. It's semi-autobiographical, and it's about love, and polyamory, and asexuality, and living our lives, and living them with each other.

These aren't quite complete, but I didn't have time to finish them entirely. I'll be gone for a couple of months, but back with stories and lots and lots of drawings!

Concept - Lattice Caverns

Concept of some caverns in the (semititled) game I'm working on! Someday, I'll concept in color again. Maybe. 2.5 hours.

Concept - Untitled Map

Map mock-up one, for untitled. 2 hours.

Thinking of adding sea monsters and a border sort of like (but not as complex as) this one: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LTu6jjNLQ28/TjBR54pkBtI/AAAAAAAABbk/BXN5q3i7_2c/s1600/Old-World-Map.jpg . Also, possibly latitude and longitude lines, or something like them. Because they look cool. But I don't know that they'd work for this continent, because it isn't globular.

DS - Map Silhouettes

Beginning stages of the map for untitled. .5 hour.

In other news, I started inking hands: matters of the heart. It's so much fun, I may just do the entire thing and if I feel like it needs a redraft, I'll go back and redo pages or chapters! I don't know how else to tell if it's going in the right direction. And I'm impatient. I may post some sneak peeks here if I can get my hands on a scanner.

Concept - Zaphon initial

Quick silhouette to help me with a demon design. This character will show up in the comic in a couple of months!

Concept - Caravaning

Quick concept for untitled of a panoramic of some caravans traveling in the deserts. Next up, some village or bustling city! This took approximately 1.5 hours. I've been working like crazy on the Ninth Circle and the planning of the other graphic novel, so this probably won't get updated much with anything other than concepts for untitled.

Concept - Desert Arena

Concept/potential in-game background for one of the battle scenes. It's a crystalline cavern that formed in the ribcage of what the new desert giants are going to look like -- or something.

Concept - Cloudwalkers

Wow, I haven't posted in awhile. Been working on other (art!) stuff, planning a couple of other graphic novels while trying to get enough ahead in the Ninth Circle so I can travel this summer. Here's another post for the untitled game.

Concept - Hills & Bones

Very, very rough. I was trying for something else entirely, but it wasn't working out at all. So I said, forget it, drew on top of it, and came up with this. More of a palette/general feel concept than an actual environmental one, I'm afraid -- I'll have to think of more interesting things to put in the hills.

Concept - Coast & Bones

Just a potential conception of the coasts for this game.

Concept - Sand & Bones

Quick concept piece for an untitled project I'm working on with some other folks. This one's of the desert-scape. Deserts are difficult. There isn't much in them that's interesting. They're just sand dunes!

Concept - Ginny Greenteeth

Redesign of a folk tale character I designed awhile ago. Needs to be designed again! There's stuff wrong with this one. No big deal. Ginny is super fun to concept. See the potbelly? Not pregnant, but possibly "with child." Don't get it? Go look up who Ginny is in folktales! 

....I'm awful.

Concept - Spark Wolves

Hopefully, the concepts for the other elements of Skyvein will be drawn shortly.

Concept - The Cliffs

This is the second version of the Cliffs, and it definitely came out better than my first attempt, but it's still not quite there. Architecture is difficult.

Concept - Wind

Trel's first mate! I did a concept of Trel long ago, but they need re-doing. In the course of their story, Wind is smuggled aboard Trel's airship for more than their five years leave of absence -- and then they all became air pirates and never went back!

Concept - Perceval

Idelia's lover, Percy, is the epitome of knighthood -- except that she's passing as a man to win the Court's favor and to continue practicing knighthood without being thrown into a prison for "fraudulence" and "perversion." They're such your typical star-crossed lovers. They're so cute and messed up.

Concept - Upper City Bar

Demitri "Demy" Stiles is the character at the very front of the shot -- I'll be concepting a design for them in the near future.

Concept - Cliff Shrine

Skyvein remembers the dead with these shrines, which number about half a dozen for the Cliffs and one or two for the Upper City. Inside, each person has a drawer which remembers them -- it pulls out to display a hologram uses the entire shrine (or room) as its screen to play the final farewell of the deceased. Most of the shrines in the Cliffs are surrounded by graffiti and rundown houses, but are usually fairly well-kept themselves. 

Concept - Idelia

Idelia of Idelia's throne. In the midst of all this environment art, I nearly forgot I originally wanted to be a character designer! (before I realized that occupation didn't really exist). So, back to some characters. I have even more trouble keeping them loose than anyone else.

Concept - Idelia's Throne

I had the best idea of what this was going to look like from the beginning, the sketch felt the best, and ultimately turned out the best. I still have issues with it, but I think it makes a fairly adequate 200th post!

Concept - Motherships

These are the actual Skyvein ships I was trying to draw, but, for the life of me, couldn't draw in perspective. The skysquids are housed in the sphere in the upper left one, the lowest compartment in the right one, and between on the bottom left one.

Concept - Airships

Initially, these were supposed to be airship designs for Skyvein, but they just kept turning into space ships, or scouring-new-planets roamers.

Concept - The Keep

Lighting works! This was the other painting I was working on simultaneously with The Wishing Well, and one other that completely fell through.

Concept - Wishing Well

I thought it only honest I put up my failures, as well -- at least, the ones that neared completion. Drawing close-up things sure is hard. That's why I'm doing three more of them! Coming soon.

Concept - The Leviathan

Design prompt from conceptart.org. I still have trouble with characters without lines -- and creatures close-up. Also, I've decided I talk (type) too much. Going to try to cut it down a bit.

Concept - Sacred Tomb

Concept - Symbiotic Scorpion

Doing lots and lots of paintings. And that's about it. Starting to doubt my fundamentals. Do I really need to go back and learn those all over again? I hope not. I'd rather draw these forever. Maybe I'll become a graphic novelist.

This aquatic scorpion lives in an extremely dark, cavernous environment. One their back, they have a layer of fungi, thriving on the thin layer of epidermis that the scorpion is born with specifically for this purpose. When the layer runs out, the fungi produce a glowing mass of spores, which light up the caverns in order to attract these scorpions to each other during mating season. The fungi then settles on the eggs (which are sealed in a protective sac), and waits for the offspring to emerge.

Concept - Gullet

I had a dream about giant pelicans -- with proportionally larger beaks that reached towards their stomachs -- except they were called gullets. After I looked it up, the name seemed to make a lot of sense, for dream logic. Go , my subconscious! Also, I just found out that I'm supposed to be doing about two or three of these a day, at least. So I guess you'll be seeing more of me.

Concept - Lexian revamped

Trying to revamp some of the pieces of concept art I saw fit to go up onto the website. I'm skeptical of this half-photomanipulation, half-drawing process. I'm currently working on another one that does uses the same process, but once I finish it I think I'll go back to what I know.

Concept - Faery Outpost (colour)

My paintings always seem to look weird when I do a greyscale one, and then turn it into a colour concept. Next time, I'll try going straight into colour -- maybe my problem is just that I need to get a better handle on colour! Anyway, here it is -- and next time I do an environmental concept, I may try incorporating photos (of my own, of course) because it seems like there isn't a single concept artist out there who doesn't half-photomanipulate their concepts. I don't know how I feel about that yet. I'm a pretty strong proponent of doing things as similar to traditionally as possible, but I'll try it at least. Especially since all my competition is.

Concept - Trel's weapon set

Trel's collection of weapons. Still trying to figure out a layout for this that doesn't look silly. The rapier on the far right is one using symbolism of the sky squids (which you can see in a previous concept) to decorate the sword and act as the guard.
In other news, I'm -- finally -- getting close to updating my website so that it's actually presentable and something like the portfolio it was always meant to be! Only a year late. And I probably won't start using it as a portfolio to apply for jobs until next year anyway! Ah, well.

Concept - Faery Outpost

Faery colony living in the vines twining around a street light. Inspiration from a real light that had vines twining up it near my sibling's old apartment.

DS - car speedpainting

I usually don't time my speedpaintings -- because it tends to be depressing when I can see what other people do in an hour -- but I'm at least not horrified to say that this took about 40 minutes. Admittedly, I used a reference, but I do seem to be getting faster.

Concept - Core Taxis

I had quite a bit of trouble with this. I'm no good at vehicles -- so I'm going to be speed painting a few from reference in the coming days to get better! Also, I have an idea in mind to redeem this concept and actually make something useable from it for my website, because I do like the ideas behind it, and a civilization (like Core) does need its identical taxis.

Within Core, taxis are small pod-like vehicles, mostly one-person, that are completely automized, picking a person up from one location and whisking them away to another. They have very few features in common with our cars -- they are lacking wheels, using the magnetization of the isles and the technology of underwings instead, and carry only a very small engine in the back (with vents in the front as well) that uses air technology like that of Sylphs of the Academy for propulsion and braking. The pods are minimalist and just barely comfortable, for the isles are small and use of space is often at the forefront of Cores' machinists' minds. With passenger(s), the taxis black out completely, the windows tinting so it is impossible to see inside, and the entire outer skin turning to an almost seamless black, alerting humans which taxis are available and which are not.

Concept - Phrynos

The Phrynos scavenge through the deserts and ruins of the past, often taking shelter from the heat inside the scattered remnants of buildings or toppled structures. They feed primarily on small mammals and birds at the edges of the deserts, but the deserts are their true domain. The Underworlders have taken to taming the Phrynos and using them as mounts, but not a small number of them have been lost to the bellies of the Phrynos in the process.

Concept - Phoenix (on)

And, engaged. Fire is so fun to draw. Brief explanations of things -- I'm no engineer, but the parts I'm making up will, hopefully, be explained away by this other world having slightly different laws, despite its similarity to Earth. At least, that's what I'm standing by.

All the power supplied to Magis are supplied through the magnetic packs which, as the name implies, are fueled by magnetic power. There is a strong magnetic core inside of each of the city-isles, and in many of the country-isles as well. The magnetic packs are most compatible with those environments, feeding partially from the energy the cores provide, and work on much lower power settings without their presence. Since the Phoenix is often operating away from the magnetic cores (and, off the grid, as it were) she has need of much more energy than the average Magi -- which is the cause for the small power pack at the front of her belt, as well as all the adornments, which help to supply minimal, but necessary, power. There is a lot of power expended simply for appearances' sake. The make the Phoenix look like the bird that is her namesake, to strike fear, awe, and hope into the hearts of enemies and comrades alike. 

The goggles are necessary for her to wear whenever she uses the fire -- so that she may see enough to control, and without damaging her eyes. The black lining visible primarily on the palm of her hand and around her neck is a stand-in material for metal. It is a stiff fabric, but one that is at least more pliable than metal, and serves to conduct energy in places which need more of a range of motion than metal would allow for.

Even her beads bear significance, for, when pressed, she will tear one or two out of her hair and use in an emergency, as each has been crafted into a sort of weapon. 

The only object on her that does not seem to function in any way in particular is the ring on her left thumb -- but she certainly won't be the one to tell you what it signifies. She hasn't told me.