So, this post is a bit different than my other posts. It's a cross between a review and a question-oriented post. So let's begin.
I learned from other artists online that a recommended way to protect your art from A.I. is through a new program made by people at the University of Chicago. This program, which provides a mask for your art, is called "Glaze."
I was working on updating a character page, and just to see if I could get Glaze to work, I attempted to use it in three different ways. Unfortunately, the mask that it puts on my art ends up distorting it in ways that are obvious to me or just completely ruin the art.
To give you an example, here (above) is the unglazed drawing that I am using to demonstrate.
Now, here it is on Glaze's highest mask setting (most distorting). This one was put on the longer exporting setting compared to the other two (this one took about an hour and a half).
The other two I am going to show were set to the shortest exporting limit (twenty minutes):
I set this one (above) to the default setting, and it still made it look wrong. It ended up distorting the background, no longer making it smooth.
Lastly, with this drawing, even when I put it on the lowest possible setting, it still looks distorted texturally. The distortion is more seen in zooming in and in color difference than in distorting the whole image. It also has a tendency to remove the transparent background of an image, so if you want to mask a transparent image, it seems (but I could be wrong) that you have to do the transparent background part after you mask the image with Glaze.
If anyone who follows this blog uses Glaze to protect their art, do you have the same problems as me? Or is what I am running into going to happen always, since my art style tends to be flat in terms of shading?
Usually, these types of posts are for characters who have been created recently. However, I felt it was time that I reintroduce some characters that have very recently gone through a lot of changes. The characters are Matilda and Felix Moore from Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass. They have developed since I first wrote about them in 2021, and I want to show how they have changed, since I mentioned it briefly in an Inktober post.
I plan to update their character profiles soon, but I decided I should also reintroduce them here via a blog post. So, let's begin:
Felix Moore
Felix is the older of the two siblings. He believes that the world itself is a dream and nothing more. Because of this, he thinks that there is no meaning to life, and all events, actions, etc. that one experiences or takes essentially mean nothing.
He enjoys spending his time reading, thinking about different philosophies, and having discussions about controversialphilosophical topics with his group of friends. Due to a situation within their family (which he won't discuss), Felix has gone from being simply a brother to Matilda to having to act as her guardian. This has caused disagreements between them.
Matilda Moore
Matilda is the younger of the two siblings. She is a quiet person; however, she can also turn rebellious if she feels strongly about something. Matilda is a Spiritualist: she believes one can contact people from beyond the grave. She also has an interest in the occult and supernatural. Matilda often likes to daydream about different adventures that she could have, based on her favorite books. And, like her brother, she often spends her time in the library.
However, since Felix has become her guardian, there have been disagreements between them. Mostly, these disagreements come from Matilda's rebelliousness toward her brother, but they are also influenced by Felix's (supposed) desire to keep Matilda safe.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Between Felix and Matilda, which are you interested in learning more about (after their changes)? And how have your own characters grown and changed throughout the years?
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?
It's time for another drawing post. I've been practicing a lot of digital art, so I figured I'd show the recent drawings I've made.
In other news, two characters now have profiles here and here. I am also steadily working on the characters for Arisias's series and there are two categories in their Meet the Characters page--gods and mortals.
I've been busy, but sometime soon I plan to respond to the comments on my previous posts. So keep an eye out for that.
But anyway, let's begin:
Salissah is the goddess of the moon, wisdom, and strategic warfare. I played around with the background a lot in this drawing and with the lighting, so that the stars in her looked more like they were glowing.
And here's a video showing the process of how I drew it.
Here is my version of Dorian Gray from my novel, The Heist of Dorian Gray. I took some inspiration from the 1945 film version for his outfit (since in my version, Dorian has been living for a long time, into modern day, I thought it would make sense for him to wear something more modern). And I like how it turned out.
If you're wondering why my Dorian has blond hair (since other versions of the character have black hair) it is because of this quote from the book: Dorian was“wonderfully handsome, with his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth’s passionate purity.”(The Picture of Dorian Gray, p. 17)
This is Edith Porter from The Haunted Sketchbook. I had drawn Ferdinand before in this new style, so I wanted to draw her next. I wanted to make it look as if there was spilled paint or paint being laid out on a canvas, and I think I managed to achieve that.
Here is Ivy Hughes from The Heist of Dorian Gray. Ivy is an artist, so I wanted to emphasize the splattered paint in the background.
This is Reed Hayward from The Heist of Dorian Gray. He has "art magic"-- while I do not show him actively using magic, I wanted it to be present in the background. I also had a lot of fun designing his outfit.
Finally, this is a drawing of Ophelia. I've been thinking recently about how Ophelia sees her herself, versus how someone else might. She is an elf, and so others (i.e. humans) would see her differently.
I'm also drawing this to help figure out what aspect of Ophelia's character I am missing, as I feel as if I am missing something but I am not sure what.
I've been busy and not able to post. But, I've been working on my digital art and I wanted to share some of the pieces I made, along with some much less recent artwork.
I've been doing a digital art course, and this was one of the drawings I ended up doing of my character Matilda. I plan to do this style more in the future.
I decided to do a black and white drawing of Ophelia. I like how it turned out.
A character sheet for Cheetah Girl. It was fun to draw her for it.
This is Marigold. I'm currently working on concept artwork for Arisias's story, and this was one of the drawings for it.
This is the water snake woman who appears in Arisias's story.
A drawing of Ferdinand. This is close to how I imagine him appearing, and I like how it turned out
I have some drawings I want to share, and I thought it was time to share them.
I have some longer posts planned, which I will post later, but for now here is a drawing post:
This is a drawing of Ophelia. I thought I would draw her smiling since I have a habit of not drawing my characters smiling.
This is a drawing of my characters, Edith from The Haunted Sketchbook meeting Felix from Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass.
Here is the Wax Witch staring at the moon. I was inspired to draw this after reading Hoffman's "The Sandman."
A drawing of Karleon I did in a celebration outfit based on this drawing I found. I remember making a drawing of the shield for Dragons' Province a while ago and including a blue-haired figure who looks oddly like Karleon 🤔 (with makeup and tattoos).
Here's the drawing in question.
Here's a drawing of Salissah, I imagine her wearing this when adventuring with Karleon.
I did some drawings of characters I made in the past for an old Percy Jackson fan fiction.
Dorothy (top left)- the daughter of Hermes.
Susan (top right)- Daughter of Hecate
April (bottom)- Daughter of Aphrodite.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which drawing is your favorite? What stories have inspired you to create art?
I have a lot of new drawings to share, so I thought it was time for another drawing post. I plan to do a Using Polls to Make Art post soon, also.
This was the first drawing I ever drew of the god of time. I like how it turned out.
A still life drawing I did of a candle for an art class.
I had a lot of fun figuring out how to draw the reflective surface.
Here's a photo of candle that I was using as a reference.
This is a drawing of Oberon, Arisias's father. I like how his hair and clothes turned out.
Someone on NaNoWriMo suggested that I draw the Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera (the musical). So, here is my drawing of him.
I thought I would draw Fiáina without the prosthetic arm. And I like how it turned out.
So I drew her prosthetic arm wrong in previous drawings (in the February Faces Challenge and another post). But I got it right in the first drawing I ever drew of her. It's supposed to be her entire arm, not only hand and wrist. But I blame that on reading myths about the Norse god Tyr, who also lost a limb but instead of an arm, he lost his hand. That made me get confused when drawing Fiáina.
These eyes, like the candle drawing, were also done for an art class, and I like how they turned out. They were fun to shade.
Finally, here is a drawing I did of Ferdinand and Cecile from The Haunted Sketchbook. This was difficult to draw, but I like how it turned out.
This is the final part of the series about my adventures in Camp NaNoWriMo for April 2023. Next year, I may do something similar if I am working on a project that I've already talked a lot about. But in terms of posts relating to Camp NaNoWriMo, you can look forward to hearing about the project I am working on in July, sometime soon.
My Writing
On April 14th I got to my word count goal! The story is far from finished and I still have a lot of work I need to do in terms of writing it. But it feels good to have a better version of it written than my first attempt at the third draft. It still needs a lot of editing and rewriting, but I am getting closer
in terms of publishing.
However...I am going to have one of my standalone books be my debut novel, since this novel lands on a cliffhanger and is a part of a series.
In the meantime, I finally rewrote the summary. The original summary I had written was from 2018, so it was outdated. Here is the new summary:
“Arisias” is the only thing Horatio remembers after waking up from a coma. He doesn’t remember who he is or what happened to him before the accident.
At the same time in Dragons' Province, two detectives are working on solving the case of the murdered royalty. It’s unclear who the killer or killers are, for a different person is always seen leaving the scene of the crime. Will they be able to find out who or what is behind it all, before it is too late?
(Two pages from my writing notebook from 2016)
I feel the story is becoming clearer and clearer, though it is very different from the first draft. I found the first page of the notebook I had written about the characters, when I first created them. They were so different then. And it's interesting to see how it evolved. I don't know what younger me would have thought of the story as it is now, but the fact that I've been able to work on it for so long and have not given up is an accomplishment.
I do, however, have a to-do list of things for the story from writing this. I figured out some world-building elements, which I will now need to decide how to fit in. And I need to redesign one character's clothes--while I may end up using them somewhere else in a different project, they now seem out of place in this story. They were inspired by 18th century clothes, and most of the other characters' clothes are inspired by Ancient Greek and Irish culture.
However, I am not going to completely forget about the clothes: they will be reused somewhere else. I have done this before with other story elements. For example, Ophelia's former boyfriend, Austen, ended up getting a project of his own, which I hope to explore sometime. And a character who changed appearance wise, but is still in the story, had their appearance used by another character in a different story. (Admittedly if someone heard this out of context, a person using another person's face would sound incredibly weird.)
(Image from wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_De_Morgan#/media/File:Cassandra1.jpeg)
In the writing group I am in, there was a fun exercise to "post artwork that reminds you of your project." It reminded me how much of my project-- character wise was inspired by Pre-Raphaelite art. Besides being inspired by Tauriel from The Hobbit (movies), Arisias took some inspiration from a painting when I first created her. And more recently, there are paintings that remind me of her, one of which is posted above.
(Image from wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Waterhouse#/media/File:Waterhouse,_JW_-_The_Sorceress_(1913).jpg)
I even found some paintings that remind me of Ophelia, in particular this one by John William Waterhouse.
The writing challenge I mentioned in the previous post has helped a lot with understanding my characters more. I not only figured out the relationship between Karleon and Salissah, but I also figured out the inner workings of other relationships that they have with other characters-- which is great.
What I've Been Reading and Watching
While in the past I have read fantasy and murder mystery books to get into the mood to write, now I am mostly reading classics. I'm currently rereading Jane Eyre. It's fun to delve back into it since it has been a year since I read it. (The last time I read it was for a book club.) It's nice to read about the characters again, and I also am appreciating the descriptions in the book, upon rereading it. I particularly enjoy the gothic elements spread throughout, with the red room, and Jane thinking she sees a figure in the mirror.
I've also been reading Middlemarch and watching the BBC adaptation. I love George Eliot's writing style, and it makes me want to read more books of hers. I will have more to say about it on a later date.
And I've been loving watching the Sleepy Hollow tv series. Istarted watching it recently and am on the second season.
(Fan art I did of Abbie).
I love Abbie's and Ichabod's friendship. While the main story is nothing like Irving's story, they sprinkle elements of the original story back into it.
I also love the aesthetic of the title sequence.
So, from reading Jane Eyre and watching Sleepy Hollow I may have gotten ideas for my gothic novels.
Anyway, that's the end of my posts about April 2023's Camp NaNoWriMo. I am looking forward to July's.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------How has been April been? Have you been reading or watching anything good recently?
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