Epopteia Cover

I took a request to design a book cover for a short story known as Epopteia, set in Ancient Greece. It took a couple of days, but I was very happy with the outcome.

Painting Realistically

Painting has always been a weakness of mine, especially digitally, and I hate failing at things. So, naturally, I've been practicing, practicing and, yep, you guessed it, yet more practicing. Now... I seemed to have gotten a grasp of the basics. Maybe. I'm slowly improving anyway.

So, without further ado, here's a couple of pieces I've completed in the past couple of days.

Life and the leading of it

January has been a hectic month. I've moved into a new flat, and a pretty decent one at that, I'll be starting a new course shortly, I've practiced my artwork a heck of a lot and improved quite a bit, and I've actually managed to find some free time for myself as well. Miracles never cease.

I'm actually looking forward to this course I'm about to start. Exploring the English language in its varying forms around the world is thoroughly intriguing. Anyone who knows me knows I can be quite... particular about SPaG, and I'm not sure if this will just perpetuate it or improve it. We shall see!

I'm also trying to work on a cover for a short story. I've found painting scenery can be... frustrating. Still, it's steadily coming along and hopefully it'll be of decent quality when it's finished. :)

And then there's my writing. I've finished part one of the novel and a little way through part two. I haven't really found the time to write much more in the past month, but I hope I can start back on it soon, even with the course upcoming. *fingers crossed*

On Art and Writing

I've tried and tried over the years to refine my art style, to little avail. I haven't consistently practiced, though, and I think that's the problem. Practice makes perfect, right? Well, perfection is a fallacy, but let's not go there.

I've been practicing my drawing daily and although I've had a fair amount of frustration, namely due to the fact that I have no graphics tablet and inking with a mouse is chaos incarnate, I have at least managed to complete some pieces. I'll linky them here.

First off, here's some character concept art for my novel, Leventus' Aria:

This is Anytos Ven Anaxian, mentor to the main protagonist, leader of Scion Xiphos, and all-round generally imposing guy. Except, he turned out looking a whole lot younger than I had intended, so let's just say this is him in his early years. xD And on that topic, I'm collaborating with another artist to make a short prequel comic for the novel. Shall see how that turns out. c:

Okay, more of a rough sketch this time and I haven't fixed the crummy pose or wonky perspective, blargh, but here is Vrack M'rtho, the main protagonist's first teacher. He's eccentric, unpredictable and reckless, but sometimes he has it in him to do the right thing, even if it's in a weird way.

And here's the protagonist herself, Squin. Squin is, in fact, her child name, but I shan't be revealing her adult name just yet. :D This is, of course, her as an adult, fully trained and ready to be unleashed on the world. Or Hylaxi at least!

I'm currently working on yet another character sketch, of Mavin, Squin's childhood friend. He's not in the book much at the moment, but he will be~!

Just one more drawing then, and this one is unrelated to my book. It is a fan art in fact! My sister and I were discussing that there really should be a female assassin ancestor in the Assassin's Creed franchise. Now, I can see why there hasn't been one. Desmond exploring the memories of a female ancestor could be a little... awkward. xD But! The character we came up with doesn't necessarily have to be Desmond's ancestor. She could be any assassin's ancestor. So, here is Katerinka, 13th century Russian assassin. :3

So, back to writing, I go... oh yes, and finishing the script for the comic. Busy, busy~!

Le News

Hello December. You came quick, didn't you?

NaNoWriMo just passed and completed this year. The novel that's come from that, Leventus's Aria, is still a work in progress, but it's well on its way. At least the first part is written. That will make up about one fifth of the book. It'll be a long one, for sure!

Some artwork should now be forthcoming. I'll be drawing some character concept art for the book, as well as simply experimenting and hopefully finding a colouring style I'm comfortable with.

There's plenty of distractions due out soon to prevent all this happening quickly though, namely some darn fine games. Skyrim was recently released, but I've at least completed the main storyline in that one. Assassin's Creed: Revelations is another. I do enjoy that franchise. So much so, I got it into my head last night to dust off my video editing skeelz. Yes... as you can see below, I'm a tad rusty. But there might be some more videos coming up anyway. ;)

New Website

Yep, I've gone and done it again. I've created another new site for myself, except this time, it's not purely a blog! :P

Now that I've become more serious about my writing, I've decided to host my work online (that which I don't plan to publish elsewhere, that is) as well as create a nice little environment for other people of similar interests.

Clicky here to go check it out. ^^

Another Update!

I've failed a bit, creativity-wise over the past month. D:

I've moved house. We bought a shiny detached villa and moved in, so things have been a bit hectic. Needless to say, I've not managed to update any of my fanfics nor work on my original stuff.

I've also got two assignments plus the end assignment for my university course coming up in the next month, so going to be uber busy with that, and haven't even started them yet!

Good news is that I've been encouraged to get my original pieces published by an author, so will try and focus on that once I get all these boxes unpacked. Oh, and after I do the assignments, of course. *nods*

We'll see how it goes. *sigh*