The Magic of Blending (and Updates)

 Hello everyone. It has been an absurdly long time since updating this. Summer has been crazy busy with so many things!

Writing Projects

I've finished the editing and revision of Book 3 of the Legend of Draconite: E'lsra! I'm assembling the appendix and want to do more interior art for it, and then I will format it and prepare it for publication. I can't give an exact date on the publication, but it will either be by the end of this year or early next year. I have a few illustrations for it already (some of which I've already shared on Xenithar's Lair), and I plan on doing more, possibly in a variety of my art styles.

The Legacy Incarnate anthology (Book IV.V) has been on the backburner, although I've done some editing in it already. For the cover of the anthology I want to do a full color piece, not just a single-color palette like the other books. 

I've been making notes in Book V of LI in preparation to revise it, and boy does it need a lot of work! I also have the front cover art for it outlined, and I just need to go in and color it. I look forward to sharing it!

I've put a lot of energy into my RPG, and I believe I've worked out all the mechanics. It needs some more play testing to work out any kinks, and I'm planning on doing a lot of digital art for the Player Guide. One thing that's been interesting about the RPG project is it has helped me expand on some of the Chronicles of Libera lore I haven't been able to explore in the stories. I look forward to sharing more of this project in the future.

Art

I've turned my attention back to digital art, something I haven't done much of since early this year. I've done some study with some help from Samdoesarts on Youtube, and I've learned how to blend colors with my digital art. 

My technique usually involved a lot of airbrushing, and while I can make that work, I have learned to instead fill in solid colors and then blend based on the surfaces and contours of the subject. It looks a lot neater and gives my art more of a semi-realistic feel (I'm not going for super realistic). 

(Some of the weird coloring is due to my watermark, so please don't mind it.)

This isn't any character in particular, although he shares coloring with Azull from the Legend of Draconite. I'm planning on using him as an example picture for the Molouks section in the RPG. I was able to use a mix of blending and my own style of doing shadows and highlights with texture brushes. I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out, and I know I'll continue to get better and better with practice.

What's ironic is I've been practicing blending from photographs of real subjects, and they're awful. Then I go and draw something from my head, and it looks great! Am I on the only one who has this issue?

Yeah, I think I know which one I like better too!

Thank-you for reading. With any luck I'll be able to make a few more updates before the end of the year. Being a mom of 4 boys involved in school and Scouting isn't easy, but it is so much fun!