Book IV of The Legacy Incarnate: Incarnate Key LIVE!

 Hello readers,

I'm pleased to announce that Incarnate Key is now live and available for purchase on Amazon! If you purchase a book, please email me a picture of it at sathorup@gmail.com, and I will send you a free ebook version!

Still need to catch up on the Chronicles of Libera world? Check out the other books too!

The Legend of Draconite

The Legacy Incarnate

Lithia

Grieving Mothers

 Two mothers grieve in their own ways: one in silent tears, one in helpless violence. However, they find comfort and strength in each other. Based off a scene in Book 3 of The Legend of Draconite. Done in graphite.

Official Release Date for Incarnate Key (And Other News)

 Hello readers! I'm pleased to announce the release date of Book IV of The Legacy Incarnate: Incarnate Key will be October 31st -- Halloween! It will be available on the Amazon marketplace for $15.00. 

I am also pleased to announce that if you purchase a copy of any of my books, I will send you an ebook version of that book FOR FREE. Just email me at sathorup@gmail.com with a picture of your book, and I'll send you the ebook!

I personally received an author proof of Incarnate Key so I could get a good idea of the final. As you can see, it has the key art I posted about a few years ago on the spine. I had to make some adjustments to text on the front and back cover after receiving this. The final will look fantastic!

The final copies will not have that
"Not for Resale" 
band across it!

As well as containing the main story, it has an insightful Compendium that includes the following:

• Glossary
• Translations
• Pronunciation Guide
• About the Gospel of Zarem
• Magic-Making Classes
• Liberan Calendar
• Bonus Short Story: Convergence
• Bonus Excerpt from Book 3 of The Legend of Draconite: E'lsra

I've cleaned up the Glossary, and I've made the Translations section more concise and relevant to this story, which section previously included many of the elven and other translations throughout the series. The Gospel of Zarem and Magic-Making Classes sections are new sections, the latter of which I plan to keep in future LI Compendiums.

What's Next for The Legacy Incarnate

This book says at the end of the main story that the series continues in Book V: Incarnate Truth. However, I will be releasing a different Legacy Incarnate book prior to that. The working title is Incarnate Duty, and it will be an anthology! I mentioned in a previous post that I would be working on a project between Books IV and V, and originally thought of doing a novelette. I decided that a collection of short stories would be more appropriate, including POVs that readers will never see in other parts of  Legacy Incarnate.

The anthology covers 20 years, starting right after the end of Book IV and ending right before Book V. I've drafted most of the short stories, with only three more planned to go. Most of the stories have a more light-hearted tone to them than the main series, although there are more serious stories as well. While it's not necessary to read prior to Book V, it explores characters and unusual situations, and it will fill in a lot of gaps that the reader may find in Book V. 

Next Publication?

My main focus will be turned to Book 3 of The Legend of Draconite: E'lsra, although I will finish drafting Incarnate Duty on the side. I'm hoping E'lsra will get published by the end of 2025, but that's very tentative. However, this will for sure be the next publication before I start publishing more LI or anything else!

Book IV of The Legacy Incarnate: Incarnate Key Finished Front Cover and Details

 Whew, long title! Just wanted to share the updated Book IV cover with the new art, along with a few detailed shots. The book page has also been updated.

Watch as this glorious dagger goes outside the post border!

Yay for decent hands! From the tears and scars to the pose of the character to her feathery dress to the background...I love putting the little details into a painting like this, and especially a book cover. A book cover should tell a story just as much as the book itself, and I'm so excited to eventually see this in print!

Speaking of print...I plan on having Book IV published by the end of this year! Look for future updates on the blog, and happy reading!

My Favorite Medium

 Though I love to do digital art, my favorite medium will always be graphite pencil, followed closely by colored pencil. Between motherhood and everything else, I will from time to time complete a hand-drawn illustration. This past week my family camped in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, and being unplugged from much of our technology helped me focus on my hand-drawn art much more.

The first piece I completed before the campout. I had drawn out this character, but it took me several months to get to actually shading her. I was on a creative burn out and was itching to lubricate my drawing muscles, so I found the picture, sat down, and shaded it. It's a little rough in places, but I'm pleased with it nonetheless.

This character is Kierra of Karin, a character that appears in The Legend of Draconite series. She's taking a break from being awesomely sneaky to sniff a flower. I had a lot of fun doing her helmet in particular; it's supposed to resemble a dragon head, and its horns are unusually long for a Draconite helm.

This second piece I did completely at camp. I had this idea of Sabra in a pensive pose, using her armor to rest her hands on while she took a deep breath. I didn't really have an idea for a background at first, but I thought of forest, and then it kind of turned into a seaside trail. This is her in her short-haired days, between Books II and III of The Legacy Incarnate.

Fun fact about elf hair in the Chronicles of Libera: it grows pretty slow! It is also a huge health indicator for an elf. To have it suddenly removed (as was Sabra's in this case) can be traumatizing. You may notice on the cover art of LI Sabra's hair getting slowly longer, even with the large time spans between books. Now you know why.

As always, the scanner never does graphite pictures justice. I tried to edit the pictures to the original shade in GIMP, and got as close as I could. Thanks for looking!

Book IV Cover Art...Again

 I've been holding back...and redoing stuff. I took a look at the cover art for Book IV of Legacy Incarnate: Incarnate Key that I created a few years ago, and decided I wasn't satisfied with it, and there's a few reasons for that. I compared it to the previous 3 cover pieces, and it looked too clean. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I wanted to go with a slightly grittier look.

Another reason is I wasn't satisfied with Sabra's look. I loved the idea of doing the scene of her dripping with fire, and perhaps redoing the same scene would have been great, but I decided on a different scene from the book, one that's just as heartbreaking. (You'll have to read it to find out why!) Let's just say it involves a dream with a certain someone that has appeared in every book of the series so far.

New art.

Old art.

Oldest art.

As you can see, this cover has evolved quite a bit!

Like the other pieces, I went with a single color palette (black, or black and white), focusing on sharp shadows and lighting. I first drew this as a pencil piece, and then scanned it onto the computer and went over it in black lines. Before I made it grayscale, I filled in the base colors for Sabra: brown for her hair, skin color, and red for her dress. I did this to make sure the color scale transferred correctly to the grayscale. I did the same for the background, which involved reds and whites. Sabra's dress is supposed to be feathery in nature, and if you've read the books, you'll know why she would appear rather feathery to a certain someone. I'm not trying to get anyone reading this blog to read my books, am I?

I am currently on the third revision of Book IV, and it should be in print by the end of the year. If you haven't read the other ones, check them out before reading Incarnate Key!

The Bore of Ontal

 Throughout the silence of the last few months, I've been steadily working on revision for Book IV of The Legacy Incarnate: Incarnate Key. One of the best things about revising this story is putting in all the little details that help the story work even better than it did in draft stage. Maybe something I'll do after I publish BIV is make a comparison table of changes between the original original draft and the final work, because there were a lot of them! I'd also like to address similarities as well. 

I've worked a bit on the Legacy Incarnate anthology, but I'm focusing most of my energy on BIV before I finish that. Something that always broods in the background of my creative mind is Book 3 of The Legend of Draconite: E'lsra. I've drafted 13 chapters so far, and Chapter 14 has been gathering dust. However, I thought I'd share one of my favorite chapters from E'lsra so far; don't worry, you don't need too much context from the rest of the book to understand what's going on in it. I hope you enjoy!