Legend of Draconite Book Covers: Ascension

This is the fifth and final installment in The Legend of Draconite book cover series.

Book 5 of The Legend of Draconite: Ascension marked the first time I had finished writing a series since the Kajt Chronicles, a series I had finished in Junior High. I look forward to going back to Book 5 for revision, and though it's going to be a monster to clean up, it'll be an awesome personal milestone to see how far I've come as a writer and editor.

But that's not until 2021 at least.

Like I mentioned in the previous cover art post, I switched the characters Draque and Aero when it came to the first and second edition covers. In the first edition, Draque is supposed to be sitting on the cliffs of northern Ramirra, and the background is a pretty photo I took. At the time I didn't consider where the sun should actually be if Draque was facing this direction; it should be behind him, as Ramirra is in Libera's northern hemisphere and the planet is tilted much like our own.

In the COL edition, we have Aero...bursting through something. Unlike the other 2nd edition covers, this one ended up being a bit more abstract. The black was supposed to represent the volcano she visits, and maybe the blue her, uhh, divine victory in the end? Haha. What I mostly had in mind for this cover was her pose, and I wanted to keep something similar to that for the third edition cover.

This latest cover I put a lot of thought into Aero's wings, and I actually worked out the Erskan writing system (a later language the Ramirrans use) to create the runes in her wing membranes. Like the other revised editions, I inked this picture and scanned it in. I took my time inking, as I wanted it to look gorgeous, and I love how it turned out. In the BG there are the four havi'thal, or prisons of the four demons of Libera, around her and pointing to her. I'll go a little more into detail on the art when I post a larger version of the cover.

The last picture is the back cover to the first edition, featuring the demon Jarkul. At the time she didn't have a name, or even a real identity except that she represented everything opposite of Sabra. That went for all the demons, but they turned from being shadowy "mirrors" persay into actual, sentient entities. I think I originally got the idea for these shadowy beings from Shadow Link of the Legend of Zelda series. They have more history explained in Founders. Jarkul also bears the mark of the Moonstone in this picture, although this is an outdated representation of it, and I have since established what it really looks like.

I hope you've enjoyed looking at all this Legend of Draconite cover art with me!

(EDIT: I recently discovered that the back cover art featured in this post was not included on the final print of the first edition. I must have created it for consideration, but I used different art entirely. I recently discovered printed versions of the first editions, and I may upload photos of them later!)

Mark of the Blessed Hoodie

Wanted to share one of the creations from Xenithar's Closet, the Mark of the Blessed and Moonstone hoodie. I got the Premium hoodie, and it's warm and soft. The best part is that the print turned out beautiful!

The front has a smaller print of the mark of the Moonstone with The Legacy Incarnate inscribed beneath it.

E'lsra Excerpt: Tournament of Swords

An excerpt from the revision of E'lsra. Henry has a blast in the Tournament of Swords. I just want to note that this doesn't necessarily represent the final product. I hope you enjoy!
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Their guest suite balcony was the perfect place to practice his swordplay. Henry held his broadsword out before him, hands easy but firm around the grip, and took deep breaths. He stared at the polished blade, and the bearded, frowning face of the regent king stared right back at him. His mind formed three imaginary enemies before him before he bolted into action. He lunged his sword at the ankles of one opponent, then followed with an upward swing to block a blade heading for his neck. It parried, and he swung the sword back at one of the wrists. His third enemy was at his side. He completed his sword swing by rolling past the third enemy, and then did a back kick to knock them over. The other two dove upon Henry, and he rolled to the side, letting his sword swing out to catch the wrist of one. Cloths on the wrist, cloths on the ankles. That would be the Tournament of Swords.

Legend of Draconite Cover Art: Moonstone

This is the fourth installment of the Legend of Draconite cover art series!

Moonstone

Moonstone almost ceased to exist while I was writing it. I was more than halfway through the manuscript when Openoffice unexpectedly closed; I don't remember if it was a computer crash or the program crashed. When I re-opened Openoffice, the program asked if I wanted to recover Moonstone. I told it "no." One of the biggest mistakes of my life. The file was corrupt, and I had no backups.

Fortunately I found a program that allowed me to recover raw text from a corrupt file, and from that point onward I made backups of my manuscripts, and sometimes backups of the backups. I've lost count of how many backup files I've made for my manuscripts, among other files. Moral of the story? MAKE BACKUP FILES, and LET THE PROGRAM RECOVER DOCUMENTS!

Anyway, the cover art. I'm revealing a thumbnail version of what will be the latest revision of it, and will post a larger version of it at a later time. I'm so excited to share my work with my readers!

The first edition cover art of Moonstone features Aero flying through a rainy sky. I took the photo in the background in the Timpanogos mountains. The theme picture is the earring worn by Ramirran royalty.

The second edition features Draque sitting in a stream. I think I took the BG photo in the Stansbury mountains here in Utah. I did a switcharoo between this cover and Book 5 in the newer editions, putting Aero on the cover of B4 and Draque on B5, then vice versa in the newer editions.

The newest edition again features Draque. I studied the armor from the 2nd edition and tried to replicate it. His Gift is clearly visible, and in the BG I created a simple illustration of silhouetted mountains.

With these new covers I've added a logo with a Draconite helm with embellishments on either side. I created this design while first drafting The Legend of Draconite. It's no one's helm in particular, just represents the Draconites.

The back cover piece for the first edition features Elec-Marith, the fairy city in Zanoll

Thanks for joining me again, and look forward to the final edition of the Legend of Draconite cover art series!

Legend of Draconite Cover Art: E'lsra

This is the third installment of The Legend of Draconite cover art series.

E'lsra

For all my wonderful readers, I'm happy to reveal the Amazon edition cover art for Book 3 of The Legend of Draconite: E'lsra!

When I was first writing The Legend of Draconite during High School, I didn't really know where the series was going until Book 5, the last book in the series. I think the same goes for the first edition cover art, haha. It's been an adventure trying to tie all the books together into an overarcing plot in the revision.

The first edition cover features Tasaru on the left and Rune's lusty motivation for inconveniencing everyone on the right, bearing the Wyvern's wings. I wish I still had all the .xcfs (GIMP files) for these old covers. The solid colors took so much layering. I also took clouds out of a photograph and pasted them in the background because why not?

The second edition features Gage Mon, Draconite of Speed, running through the Tyrellan woods. Like all the 2nd edition covers, the BG is a photograph I took. This photograph I actually took during the day, and then modified the coloring on it so it looked like it was dusky.

The sad thing about these second edition covers is I don't have the original pocket-book size pictures anymore, and so if I tried to enlarge them too much, they lose quality. I think at one point during the super-revision of Sunstone I considered reusing these covers, but with lack of quality and no .xcf files left for them, I needed to start over.

Now we have the Amazon cover! This features Gage too with his sword Silence and the Gift machine Dragonhart on his chest. I mentioned in the previous installment that I had based the armor of the Draconites in these new covers off the 2nd edition covers; I didn't do that for this one. Didn't think to. However, I think this most recent edition is a more fitting representation of what kind of armor Gage would wear: sleek, tight-fitting, helping him run faster.

The background represents Loran runes, as this story deals more with the Loran Rutia, or magicked stone griffins of Tyrell.

Thanks for joining me on this cover art post. Keep an eye out for future installments!

Legend of Draconite Cover Art: Gift Search

This is the second installment of the Legend of Draconite cover art series.

Gift Search

Ah, my plot-hole baby. There's something exciting about the second book of a series. There's more expositions to look forward to, more of the world to explore, and more adventures to discover.

Let's jump into it. The first edition of Gift Search features the Gift machines Theras (top) and Dragonhart (middle), which play a major part in the story. The designs on these machines have changed in my art over time, although Theras doesn't look much different. Unfortunately Theras ended up looking like some sort of mutated, robotic caterpillar on this cover. The "theme," which I explained in the first installment of this series, is actually of Gage, the central Molouk figure in the story. The silvery flames around the cover were a bad design choice on my part, as you can barely see the book title on the bottom. Oh the blunders of self-doing-everything-myself-publishing.

For the COL edition, I featured the Draconite warrior Demos. Something that was fun about the COL editions was detailing the Draconites' armor. I actually sketched out the COL edition characters, scanned them in, and did all the coloring over the pencil. The background is a photograph of mountains I took from my high school bleachers one stormy morning, and represent the mountains around the city of Mal'ur in the story.

Demos carried over into the Amazon edition of Gift Search. For the background I was trying to replicate Polynesian art. The characters once more spend a majority of the story on the island of Zanoll, which has some Polynesian influence when it comes to art. The coloring was kept minimal, highlighting Demos's Gift machine, Phobos, and the two extra arms he provides to Demos. As a mom I sometimes wish I had four arms...

Fun fact: for the inked characters on the Amazon covers, I referred to the COL edition cover artwork to make the armor accurate and as consistent as possible on the Draconite characters, with the exception of E'lsra, which you'll learn more about in the next installment.

The last picture is actually the back cover art for the first edition of Gift Search. The first editions of the series had sepia back covers; Sunstone didn't have any art as I recall. I don't have any images for the back covers of the COL editions, and I struggle to remember how I designed them; I think I may have just flipped the red border along the spine onto the back. The Amazon editions don't have artwork on the back, just the summary.

Thanks for joining me on this cover art installment, and keep an eye out for the cover art of E'lsra, along with the reveal of the new cover art for the Amazon edition!

Book Chapter Updates

I've added some new content to the left column of the Xenithar's Lair blog, that of short happenings in chapters of E'lsra and Incarnate Key, the two manuscripts I'm currently working on. It's my way to share what I've written so far without being spoilerific! Yay!

Legend of Draconite Cover Art: Sunstone

Over the next few weeks I'll be making some special posts on the cover art of The Legend of Draconite series!

Sunstone

Let's go back to 2005, when I was fresh meat -- I mean, a freshman in Jr. High/High School starting my first job at the tender age of 14. I was working with my awesome cousin, who is also an author, and I was inspired by her work in epic fantasy to start a series of my own. I had finished writing my woeful Kajt Chronicles, the sequel series to another series, the Silver Dragon Legacy. It was time to start anew!

There were so many inspirations that went into Sunstone, from my aforementioned cousin's stories to Digimon to randomly stumbling across the word "draconite" on the internet. The main protagonists of The Legend of Draconite series, the Draconite warriors, are named after the dragon-stones they attach to their helmets, and so the first cover art featured an engraved draconite.

For some reason the original carving of the Molouk didn't have a mane. When I started writing Sunstone, I had this book on dinosaurs floating around in my bedroom, and I thought the raptors were the coolest thing; to this day they're my favorite dinosaurs, specifically the Utahraptor, the largest raptor breed. I based the Molouk race off of them, making them more anthropomorphic and altering little details like their skin, mane, adding ears, etc. Maybe I thought to add the Molouk mane in the story after doing the picture. Maybe it's a style preference on the Draconites' part. Maybe I'm just crazy.

The first cover featured in the line-up never made it to publication. I did this to several novels I wrote on the computer, some of which may never see the light of day. The second cover, however, did. You'll notice that there is also a miniature picture, what I called the "theme" of the series title, above the main illustration. I got the idea from the Final Fantasy titles; I even used a FF font, which I'm pretty sure now wasn't legal to use on a product I was selling.... I talked a bit more about the "theme" pictures on my old blog, and I may post them somewhere in this cover series.

The third cover I created after the publication of Founders, and the way you can tell that is it has the Chronicles of Libera logo on it. I had decided during the creation of Founders that I needed an over-arcing series title for the various stories in this world, similar to Forgotten Realms. As you'll see in the next installations of this series, the COL editions all shared the same art style, which I was really happy about, as the first editions didn't really have an art style to tie them together. The picture in the background I took out in Skull Valley, Utah, and I thought it would be a fitting representation of part of Zanoll, where Tasaru spends a majority of her time in Sunstone.

The last cover is the latest edition, created for Sunstone's first publication in a 6x9 novel format on Amazon Createspace. This picture, and the other pictures for the Amazon editions, I inked by hand and scanned in. I kept coloring minimal and stream-lined the font and design; this made it a lot easier to create the following 4 front covers. The swirly tendril things in the background are very much abstract; as the covers progress, I did put a little more thought into them 😥

Thank-you for reading this installation of the LOD cover series, and keep an eye out for the post on the covers for Gift Search!

BIV - Pearl's Rescuer Card

Working out an idea on the whiteboard.

Xenithar's Closet

A project I've thought on and off about is creating apparel based on Chronicles of Libera stuff...

So that's exactly what I did!

There are several apparel items available on Xenithar's Closet, ranging in design from Ramirran cider to the Mark of the Blessed. Head on over and check it out!

I've been able to design these so quickly because I've had this art on the computer for a long time, and now these art pieces work well for clothing. I'll continue to design apparel, and hopefully other merchandise for this site.

Enjoy!

The 9th E'lsra

"Zephyr squeezed her hand and hurried out of the shadows and onto the interlocking stone floor. His steel armor gleamed in the chandelier lights as he mingled with his warrior kin, their helms glinting where they hung on their rib plates. How she longed to be able to run out there with them in her own suit of steel, clap her gauntleted hands against theirs, and talk as brothers and sisters, even amid such a grand occasion as this. No, not tonight. Queenhood beckoned to her, reminded her that she had chosen to leave the Draconite clan behind to keep her country secure from scheming bureaucrats. Though she would always be a Draconite at heart, she had an appearance and duty to uphold to the Ramirran throne."

Lately I've done some introspection on my self publishing and what I as an author want available for my readers. After some soul searching, I've decided to devote most of my writing efforts into completing the revision and re-publication of The Legend of Draconite, starting with Book 3: E'lsra.  Yay!

Why? Well, LoD is the backbone of The Chronicles if Libera. While  books like Lithia and Founders can be read on their own, a series like Legacy Incarnate can be hard to grasp at first without the full background of characters and lore like Sabra, the Draconites, the Gospel of Zarem, the gods, etc. A better appreciation for Lithia and Founders can be had after reading LoD as well.

As far as Book 3 of LoD goes, I skimmed through the old manuscript and made a lot of notes. After some consideration, I just decided to rewrite E'lsra. The core of the story is the same, but I'll be expanding on character arcs and world lore.

Currently the expected publish date for E'lsra is April 2020, but may change depending on how far along I am by March 2020.

What about Incarnate Key? I'll still be working on Legacy Incarnate, but most of my sparse writing time will be devoted to The Legend of Draconite.

I plan on posting excerpts from both projects to share with my readers, hopefully without being too spoilerific. I'll also plan on posting editing/writing session videos again for these projects.

Also keep an eye out for exciting art updates! Thanks for reading!

The Heral Horn Amulet

As part of my cover design process for The Legacy Incarnate, I include a small graphic on the spine of the hard copy of the book. I created artwork based off of Sabra's trinket in the Legacy Incarnate, the heral horn amulet, that will be featured on the spine of Book IV of The Legacy Incarnate: Incarnate Key.

Fire in the Rain

It has been a HORRENDOUSLY long time since I posted, friends. I got pregnant last year and have dealt with HORRENDOUS morning sickness, and I've been drained of so much creative energy (and some weight) it's not even funny.

But this last month has been much easier on me. I've continued rewriting Book IV of The Legacy Incarnate, and along the way, God gave me enough inspiration to finally complete the front cover art for Book IV, whenever it comes out.

For awhile now I've had this image of Sabra in my head where it's raining and wherever the rain touches her or even around her, it simply lights on fire due to her magical aura. This was partially inspired by the song "Set Fire to the Rain" by Adele (which song aptly describes the relationship Sabra has had with one of the characters in this story, and no, I did not get the name for Sabra's armor from this fabulous singer). It's also part of Sabra's nature, as she's described as "fire on the water" due to her connection to the divine Moonstone and her role as goddess incarnate.

Now, if you're ready for my speel on the picture's creation process, here we go!