Sorry, for the long disappearance in December. I was finishing some important things I needed to do. But now I am back, and I have some drawings to share. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season.
In this post I will be sharing new drawings along with two older drawings I had not posted before. And I plan to post my final part of 2023's Inktober sometime soon.
This is a redraw of a drawing from this post in 2022. I decided I wanted to fix her pose and proportions. I don't draw frogs often, so it allowed me to go a little outside my comfort zone in getting the details right.
This is my new header. The drawing was taken from my intkober post (you can read the backstory behind the drawing there) and digitalized. I had a lot of fun playing with the lighting around Arcasia and the sword.
A drawing of Fiáina. I drew this drawing of her for May Day/Beltane, and never posted it. But I felt like I should post it now. I had a lot of fun drawing the braids in her hair and making it look as if she were wearing them.
Given my fantasy world's change to being Ancient Greek and Irish inspired, I wanted to change Karleon's design, since it resembled Lord of the Rings elves too much. While Lord of the Rings was my starting inspiration, it's not the end. So, I took some time to redesign his overall appearance, and I am much happier with how it turned out.
This is an older sketch I did that I never posted of Salissah. It is inspired by a painting called Moon Nymph (1883).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Which drawing is your favorite?
Since I have talked about the story I am writing for April's camp multiple times, I think I will talk about my writing process in this post. If you want an (up-to-date) post about the details of my novel, The Mystery of the Body Thief, you can check it out here.
This Camp NaNoWriMo I am focusing on the third draft of my novel, The Mystery of the Body Thief. I had initially planned to write the second book, Becoming the Body Thief's second draft.But I realized I did not plot out the second draft's plot, which could cause me to fall into one of the pit-falls of the first draft--having the characters aimlessly wandering. (I usually plot out my stories, but in that case I made the mistake in forgetting to plot and improvised it most of the way.)
My plan instead then is to work on Becoming the Body Thief during NaNoWriMo in November, so as to give me time to re-plot it and create connections between episodes. And in July, I will be working on The Haunted Sketchbook.
My Writing-
There are two storylines going on at the same time, which I ignored in my first and second write through of the story. This time around, I am giving the characters equal attention. There is a mystery in both of the plots, and I need to give clues to the reader in both of these without revealing too much. So, I am using detective shows I've seen with plots like that for inspiration.
Since the first day of Camp NaNoWriMo was yesterday, here are some things I've been thinking about while writing this draft. My goal for this camp is to write 20,000 words worth of rewrites for this story, and so far I've written 3,218 words.
I have been looking at Greek and Irish castles as models for the castle that Arisias lives in. Greek and Irish culture were the inspirations for my elves in general, and their religion. I don't want it to look fully Irish or fully Greek but a hybrid. I don't want someone to react to it like "oh, the elves are Irish" or "oh, the elves are Greek" but instead for there to be a mixture of both cultures, so that it becomes its own thing. This is a challenge, but it's going to be a fun one.
(Fiáina the goddess of nature in festive clothes).
I've been also working on a holiday related to the goddess, Fiáina. I only have one holiday figured out for that world, and that is the Festival of Magic. I want to make another one. It's not simply there to show world-building; rather, it has a purpose to the plot as a whole (that I can't reveal because of spoilers). So, I want to pay attention to what rituals would happen during that festival and what mythological importance it has to the goddess. And, I should add, this song by Spiral Dance was an inspiration to me for the holiday:
Spiral Dance's music in general has reminded me of my fantasy world, so it is neat that it inspired a holiday for my world as well.
I have been continuing to improve the descriptions of my elves.(I mentioned last time that I was working on this.) I've been avoiding mentioning that they have pointy ears. While it may eventually be mentioned off hand, the part of my elves that is important is not that they have pointy ears, but instead that they are deeply connected to nature--even if their duties do not lie in the protection of or caring of nature. So far, it has been going well, but like the writing I have done with description for my other stories, I am going to make several revisions before I get a perfect draft.
This year, I am also doing a writing prompt challenge, which involves getting to know your characters better. The characters I am doing it for are: Karleon (The God of Mischief), Salissah (The Goddess of the Moon), and Ophelia.
Responding to the prompts has been helpful in understanding the characters more and also allowed me to get into Ophelia's backstory. I felt as if I had not thought a lot about it, which is strange, because I feel I should have given it more attention, since she has been alive for so long (being an elf). What I've found out about her backstory has added nuance to her character in the current story, and how her past affected her, since in hundreds of years a lot can happen. And if some humans aren't comfortable with events that happened in their past, elves are likely to have some past regrets too.
I am also exploring Karleon's and Salissah's friendship. When I first made them, I thought they'd be enemies, but they ended up becoming friends. (Karleon is not on good terms with Fiáina; however,when around their devotees, they act more as colleagues even if they're not on good terms.) In regards to Salissah's and Karleon's friendship, I guess they became friends because wit (what Karleon has) and wisdom (what Salissah has) work well together.
While I am not currently writing All is Not Lost For All Will Begin Again, I am working on the characters and the world. I've been doing a ton of research for it, but I've been thinking about two characters: Veraly and Seth. The story has many main characters (as opposed to only one), so, it is going to be a good challenge to plot out the series. The world itself is still in its early stages in terms of world-building (unlike Arisias's world). I have an idea about what I want to do with it, but I have not figured out everything yet.
(Moodboard for Veraly. Images from Wiki commons, Pixabay, and Pexels. The template I used to make this mood-board was made by Ayzrules).
As for the characters, Veraly is a performer and Phoenix's (adoptive) sister. She has water magic and enjoys performing arts of different kinds. I've been thinking about what creative things she does and how those creative things affect how she views the world.
And Seth is a shapeshifter spy. He's also incredibly religious, and the reason why he is doing that is due to that world's religion. An object important to their religion was stolen, and he has to find it.
And I want to figure out how he feels about being a spy given that he is religious: how he handles it, whether there is guilt from it, and things like that.
Both these characters I am trying to develop more, so hopefully I will learn more about them too, along with their world. Even though I am not writing their story at the moment, I thought I would share.
Playlist for The Mystery of the Body Thief
And also since I shared the playlist I made last year's camp, here is the playlist for the novel I am currently working on.
Fun (Non-Writing Related) things-
* In March, I went to an online S.J. Tucker concert: it was so fun. And as a songwriter myself, it was fun to find out that she too was inspired by books in writing her music. Since the concert was collaboration with a library, there were a ton of book recommendations that came with the songs she sang.
I've previously never found a way to go to concerts for the singers I love (since they are either in a different country or don't do concerts at all), so finding out about this was so fun and I am glad I went. It was a fun way to celebrate spring equinox. She ended up playing "Rabbit's Song," which was a song that served as an inspiration for Karleon's myths in the myth collection and was one of my favorites of hers. And I was introduced to some new (and unreleased) songs that I had never heard before.
One of these was "Kashkash," which was inspired by a book, In the Cities of Coin and Spice.
*
(Image from wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_You_Like_It#/media/File:Rosalind_-_Robert_Walker_Macbeth.jpg)
I attended and participated in a dramatic reading of As You Like It and read some parts in it (Rosalind, Celia, Orlando, and a few others). I had not read or seen the play in a long time, so that was fun. It was fun to perform with a group again and to play different roles. It makes me want to try to get Rosalind or Orlando as a part in a full production of As You Like It sometime.
And that's the end of part one!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------How was your March? Are you doing Camp NaNoWriMo or another fun activity this April?
It was fun reading everyone's answers and coming up with a character based on them. It caused me to end up with a character, who is different from my other characters.
The Video
Here's the video of the finished character, showing how I ended up coming up with her from your responses. It took me some brainstorming to figure out how your ideas should come together to create a cohesive character, but I like how the end result turned out.
🎸Find out more about Denisse Grigory🎸
Denisse Griggory is a rock-star touring with her band in an urban fantasy world. She has the ability to shape shift and often shape shifts into a wolf. Besides that, she has nature healing spells that she can play on her guitar. She mainly uses her electric guitar to perform magic, while the shapeshifting was a power she got at birth. Her parents were trying to make her stand out when they had her, so they decided to name her Denice with a double s, instead of a c. (And also she views them as being weird for naming her that, but despite that she has never changed her name and wonders if her parents were obsessed with snakes).
She wants to be known for her work and for her band to dominate the (music) world. While she isn't religious (instead she is more spiritual), she would like to be enlightened spiritually, as she views her magic and her music as beneficial to her spiritual journey. She lost her parents (they vanished mysteriously), so her immediate goal is to reunite with them.
Denisse is someone you don't want to cross: while she is a healer for her band mates, she is intimidating to those who aren't. She also has a dark sense of humor, which is well received by her band mates, but not by everyone, and she sometimes worries she will lose a friend over it.
However, the stability of her band-life doesn't last, because one of her bandmates gets murdered-- and it appears that not everything is what it seems, for everyone could be lying.
(Denisse in wolf form).
🎶 Playlist 🎶
While not all the songs in this playlist ended up being the character's theme song, I thought I would compile all the songs that people suggested into a playlist.
If you don't have a Spotify here is the Youtube version, which you can listen to here.
Anyway, this was fun! Thank you to everyone who participated in this. It was awesome seeing how the answers came together to create a character.
I found out about a challenge by a Kick in the Creatives that involved drawing portraits throughout the month of February. I decided to do the challenge as a way of drawing my characters, who had not gotten a lot of attention.
Like my Inktober posts, I will be dividing this up to into parts of 9 drawings per part, with 10 at the end. And for context, for those who don't know my characters well, all the gods (and also Ophelia) in this post come from The Princess Arisias Mystery Series, which is my fantasy/murder mystery series. As for the non-god/goddess characters I will be saying where they are from.
Here is the official (optional) prompt list:
And here are the drawings for the first part:
Day #1 Glamorous, I decide to draw Nisis/Nyro. They're the god/goddess of love, beauty and marriage, and can appear as anyone someone loves (romantically or platonically). They can also look similar to a type of person an onlooker is attracted to without looking like a real person they know. Because of this, Nisis/Nyro doesn't have a defined form. So, this isn't exactly as they appear because their appearance will always change depending on who is the onlooker. I always when drawing them drew one side, and never did a split face drawing showcasing both sides (Nisis (the female side) or Nyro (the male side)). So I figured, I should draw that, and I like how it turned out.
Day #2 Baby, I find babies incredibly hard to draw so I challenged myself with this one.
Day #3 Hidden Face, Ophelia putting on her cloak for a ritual/healing ceremony. Her cloak doesn't so much "hide" her face, as it is only partially covering her face during rituals. But I thought it matched the prompt of "hidden face." This was also inspired by a Pre-Raphaelite painting of Olivia from Twelfth Night by Edmund Leighton.
Day #4 Bored, I decided to draw Felix Moore from Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass for this one. He probably went somewhere and is thinking about something, so not exactly bored, but more thoughtful.
Day #5 Sad, I drew the god of time for this one, since I figured out his design. One side of his face is young and the other is old. In the drawing, I wanted to draw attention to time passing with the depiction of one of the flowers wilting and dying.
Day #6 Hairstyle, I drew, Salissah (pronounced sil-is-uh), the goddess of the moon, for this. She has hair with stars in it, so I wanted to draw attention to that.
Day #7 Makeup, I drew Skunk Girl from my super hero story for this. I decided she would use green lip-stick. My backstory behind this image is that Skunk Girl and the other super heroes got brand deals for merchandizing for things such as action figures, makeup, etc. This is done in order to get money from visiting tourists (who travel to see the super heroes), and to pay for the damage that villain and hero fights cause.
Day #8 Pouting, I drew Tesariel "Tess" Short for this one. She is from the first novel ever I finished the first draft of (Eyes in the Night). I've gotten back into drawing her, so, I decided that I should draw her for this one.
Day #9 Tongue Out, I drew Karleon, my trickster god of mischief for this one. While most of my characters (whether they be gods, elves, super heroes, or 19th century gentlemen) would not make this facial expression because they feel it would be undignified, Karleon and Skunk Girl are the exceptions. I already drew Skunk Girl, so, I decided to draw Karleon.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which portrait is your favorite? Are you doing the February Faces Challenge or another challenge this February?
I figured it was time for another drawing post. I have a lot of new drawings to share.
Let's begin:
This is The Mother of the Elements, the mother of the gods from this post.
I had not drawn her before, and her design took me a while to figure out. I like how her dress turned out, and I decided give her a different body type than the other gods.
I figured it was time to update Detective Inspector Time's profile photo. In the original drawing, I had made his hair the wrong length, and it didn't fit the current version of him.
Fiáina and Mother of the Element doing each other's hair. This pose was tricky to draw, but I enjoyed drawing it.
A drawing of Ferdinand Diggory from the Haunted Sketchbook.This is the first time I've drawn the character, and I like how his appearance turned out.
You will be hearing more about his story soon...
Fiáina's hair changes depending on the season. Since she is the goddess of nature, I thought it made sense for her hair to change during the seasons. The idea came from this drawing I did of her in the past:
I was uncertain when I first created her, whether I wanted her hair to be red or brown. I wasn't sure I'd make her have red hair again, but thensomeone suggested I should have her hair change based on the seasons. So, that is what ended up happening.
This is what Fiáina's hair looks like in the winter. I wanted her to have icicle-like hair for the winter. She wears an evergreen dress during the winter seasons, rather than a leaf one.
A drawing of my dog, Toto. I'm almost done with the children's book about him. I thought I would draw this quick sketch, as a sort of "I'm almost there, yay!" celebration.
Before the Inktober part of this post begins... (I can't believe it's now 2023!), here is a belated New Year's greeting from my character, Karleon (the god of mischief and prophecy from my series, The Princess Arisias Mystery Series):
I figured I would start 2023, with the final post of the Inktober 2022 series. Even though I find it sad that Inktober is over, it will come back this year!
Let's begin...
Here is the official prompt list for 2022's Inktober:
Day #21 Bad Dog. I drew a Hellhound for this one. They are figures from folklore that are usually omens of death or bad luck.
Day #22 Heist. I decided to draw something similar to a room, that would appear in a spy movie.
Day #23 Booger. The first that came to mind for me was a troll who had nasal issues. This character may appear in the future, and will be given more of a backstory (because at the moment I know nothing about this troll).
Day #24 Fairy. I decided to draw Vonivera, my fay character for this one.
Day #25 Tempting. I drew a snake circling an apple.
Day #26 Ego. I decided I should draw the thoughts inside someone's head.
Day #27 Snack. I simply drew a snack for this one. Taking it literally.
Day #28 Camping. I decided to draw a tent inside what could be considered a haunted forest.
Day #29 Uh-Oh. I drew the Wax Witch from my novel, Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass, for this one. It came to mind since the characters probably go "uh oh" when seeing her.
Day #30 Gear. The first thing that came to mind for this one was Galadriel from Rings of Power. Her armor is gear that she gets when she goes to Númenor.
Day #31 Farm. Since day 31 was Halloween, I decided to draw a haunted farm.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Which drawing is your favorite? How was your New Year's? And if you did Inktober in 2022, how did it go?
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