Tuesday, July 19, 2016

New Art Gallery (again?)

Hello everyone!  I recently signed up to Elfwood, a long-going sci-fi and fantasy artist/writer website, for a more casual gallery that I'll be posting a lot of my COL CCG art on.  It's a simple and streamlined platform, and people can comment on art.  Head on over to my profile to check out my current uploads!


I know I just created a more formal art gallery, but that will mostly feature my more detailed art pieces, along with the digital sketches.  Like I mentioned, Elfwood will feature a lot of my trading card art, along with my bigger pieces.

Everyone have an awesome day!

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Digital Painting - This needed to be done!

I love me touchy feely romance :3
As part of the COL CCG project, I've made an effort to make quality illustrations for the cards, some more quality than others.  This particular painting is close to me, and is a picture I've needed to draw for some time.

It depicts a scene from Founders Part 1 after Skandar confesses his reason for marrying Ayaka, and Ayaka allows him to remove her mask of maidenhood, her deepest gesture of trust and appreciation.

This picture was originally hand-drawn in pencil, and I scanned it in and went over all the major lines in black.  It made the curves of the lines less natural, but it turned out cleaner than it would have otherwise.

I did the background to get an idea of the major light source, and then colored in the characters.  I did Skandar's glowing body runes so I would get a good idea of lighting on him as well.

After filling in the colors, I started to shade Skandar using a brush.  However, it was looking kind of sloppy, so I tried a different technique I learned from my friend Taelifoe.  I used the gradient tool to cast dark shades over Skandar, and then erased areas that were supposed to be lit. I used the same technique on Ayaka. While it doesn't have as much detail as the brush method, it has a softer effect, which really complements the mood of the picture.  I did very little brushing for lighting and shading.  Their hair I used a brush for shading and highlighting.

Original pencil drawing.
Aside from art, I've been tackling my writing of Incarnate Choice, and I'm still working on the Incarnate Memory.  I was talking to my husband about how to keep the Legacy Incarnate series and Sabra as a character fresh to readers.  He used the example of a series he had read and told me how the character is constantly adapting to different situations, along with his personal growth.  I've been trying to keep that in mind as I write, as I don't want Sabra to become a stale character or, even worse, a Mary-Sue.  She has developed throughout the series and has had to adapt to several situations, so I hope I can keep it going.


I've updated my progress bars on the left side of Xenithar's Lair, and I've added more link buttons so you can stalk find me at different places online.

Everyone have a nice evening :)

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Gift Search Release Date

Hello everyone, and good news!  Book 2 of The Legend of Draconite: Gift Search will be available on Createspace Friday, July 8th, 2016!

I must apologize for how long it's taken to get this book out for purchase.  There was still a lot of stuff I had to fix in it, and even after I ordered a proof copy, there were a few things (even a few inconsistencies, out of all things) to fix.  But now this story should be ready to go, and I'm excited to finally publish it for all to enjoy!

I must say, I really ripped this book apart and put it back together.  There's so much going on in it, I'm just glad it came together as well as it did!  I'd like to thank my critique group for the (indirect) help they gave me, as I learned a lot about writing from getting critique on another story, and my beta reader Taeborg.  All of you have helped make this a great book!