New Art Gallery

This has been a long time coming since I moved Xenithar's Lair from Freewebs to the Blogger platform.  I have created an art gallery at Wix.com for everyone to enjoy!  It features digital and traditional art.  So head on over to the Silver Dragon Gallery and take a peek!

There are a few finished pieces I missed while uploading to the gallery, such as the new Lithia book cover, but I plan on getting those up there when I get back to editing the site.

For the last week I've taken a break from working on any novel stuff --- writing and editing.  Between writing and this critique group I joined, I've felt really burned out.  I have so many projects to work on, and having to read through other peoples work and write out comments stressed me out more than I had expected.  However, either this coming week or next I plan on diving back into The Legacy Incarnate for more writing and editing.

The critique group got me thinking very critically about The Legacy Incarnate series as a whole.  I drafted 7 books in the series and thought I would leave it at that.  However, due to some major revisions I decided to make from the first novel onward, I currently have 2 more books planned to write for the series and have started on one of them.  Both will take place between Book VI and the original Book VII, and are tentatively titled Incarnate Choice and Incarnate Hunt, Books VII and VIII, respectively, and Incarnate Test will be Book IX.

This means I have put off writing In Chaos Forged, at least mostly.  I may jump back into ICF once in a while, but it's no longer my main WIP.  I will continue to do revision on Incarnate Memory, Book III of The Legacy Incarnate, and I hope to get it published by the end of the year.

Aside from book projects, I've continued work on the Chronicles of Libera card game, and it has undergone a 3rd major revision.  There are still some things in the rules I need to tweak, and I have yet to test it out, but I'm hoping it will work out better than the last few versions.  This past week I've been focusing a lot of my energy on the Collectible Card Game, and have created a tasty piece of art you may enjoy.

This actually isn't the final card, but it's pretty close.  Characters and other cards will come in collectible sets and have different rarity levels.  Unlike the 2nd version of COL CCG, I'm planning on making starter decks and booster packs.  There are literally hundreds of cards to make, but I'm not in a big hurry; this has been a fun art project, and I hope it will eventually come to fruition as a fun card game.

Everyone have a wonderful evening.

Experimental Style - Sabra portrait

Here's a piece of art where I experimented with some realism.  The goal of this picture was to avoid keeping any line art in the final piece.

Side-by-side comparison of the line art to the final piece.

I admit I got lazy when I got to the clothing; I somehow messed up the blue base color layer, so I did a little modification to one of her sleeves and left the colors flat.

I'm happy with how Sabra turned out; her appearance has changed somewhat since 2010, 2011, and this picture definitely gives her a more realistic look than how I normally draw her.  I know looks amateur.  It's been a long time since I've tried this style, and I have a long ways to go before making it look even more realistic.

Done in GIMP with a Wacom Bamboo tablet.