Miscellaneous Drawings #13

Hi everyone,

My blogging schedule will be a bit sporadic in the coming months. But in this post, I plan to update you with the new drawings I've made recently. 

This is a drawing of Arisias. I finally redesigned her outfit to make her more inspired by the new setting and I think it works well. 

I was experimenting with water color pencils here. I don't know who this character is, but I hope to find out eventually. 

This is a drawing of Felix digitized from the one I drew in Inktober. I really like how it turned out. 

So, as it turns out, one of my characters (Elyerin) is a Dullahan (Irish version of the Headless Horseman), so I redesigned him to match that. 

And this is Arisias again using her magic. I wanted to create a Gothic sort of feeling in this piece. 

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Which drawing is your favorite? 

-Quinley 

My Art from Inktober 2023 (Part Three)

Previous parts here and here. 

Hi everyone, 

I have been very busy recently, and because of that I forgot to blog. So, I am going to break the silence with the last part of my Inktober series for last year. I had intended to post it earlier, however I forgot to take the last photos. 

 Here's the official prompt list: 

#21 Chains. I drew Oak with chain-like jewelry on her neck and arm. 

#22 Scratchy. I drew a cat since they are known to scratch things. 

#23 Celestial. Arisias gets a part of her powers from the goddess of the moon, Salissah. So, because of this, I felt like drawing her with the night sky behind her. 

#24 Shallow. I took this to mean shallow water and drew two ducks I had taken a picture of near water. 

Here's the photo. 

#25 Dangerous. I decided to draw a witch's secret hideaway. 

#24 Remove. I decided to draw a Halloween drawing of carving a pumpkin.  

#25 Beast. I decided to draw a sea monster. 

Due to the fact that I forgot to write down the prompts, I forgot which days each of these were for:

 However, the prompts are Sparkle, Massive and Rush, so you can try to determine which is which, since I'm not entirely sure. 

#31 Fire. And finally fire. I watched The Wicker Man (1973) for the first time last Halloween, and felt like drawing the Wickerman burning. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which drawing is your favorite? Now that I'm back, what kinds of blog posts would you like to see from me in the future? 

-Quinley

Miscellaneous Drawings #12

                  Previous parts: #1, #2 #3, #4, #5, #6,#7, #8, #9 #10, and #11. 

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).

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Which drawing is your favorite? 

-Quinley

Announcing My November 2023 Project: The Heist of Dorian Gray

This NaNoWriMo is a bit different since I am working on two different projects. (I divided up my goal equally to focus on both.) I am going to focus on The Heist of Dorian Gray in this post. I made a blog post about the other project, here. 

The title of this novel is a work in progress, and it might end up changing to The Crimes of Dorian Gray eventually. I haven't decided yet, though. 

Synopsis: 

Genre(s):  Urban Fantasy (with gothic elements) | Crime/Caper
Series: The first book in the Dorian Gray trilogy 

In an alternate universe where Dorian Gray went into hiding after the terrible deed of murder and ended up living in to modern day... 

Dorian's potrait is on display in the Art Institute of Chicago, showing his sin and age to all the world. Because of this, he desires get his painting back, and enlists the help of some outcasts  to help him steal it back. 

 But this proves to be more of a challenge than Dorian Gray believed it would be, and his past comes back to bite him. Will he ever get his painting back? Or will it constantly be out of reach? 

Main Characters:  

This is an ensemble based story, so throughout the serial there will be stories focusing on different characters' perspectives. I am still designing the characters' appearances and only know what three of them look like right now (the first three in the listing below). You can view these three characters' profiles (which go more in depth) here. 

Dorian Gray-- a man who wished to stay young forever, which resulted in becoming immortal (also immoral, but that's another matter). He currently goes under the alias of "Damien Gray," who is Dorian Gray's descendent, in hopes this will get the rest of the group to trust him. However, he fears they will find out about his immorality. 

Ivy Hughes-- An art forger/restorer. She currently resides in Chicago, and does replicas of impressionist paintings for her job. However, she does have a mysterious past, which Dorian managed to uncover in order to get her to work with him. 

       Reed Hayward-- He could be called a "wizard," but he much prefers the term "painter with magic" or "magical artist." All his magic is art based. He has distorted and false memories of his past. And he believes Dorian may know the secret of who he is.

             Adeline "Ava"-- - She is a hacker. In her free time, she makes online video games. Her most recent creation is "Giggly Ghouls," a cute ghost game she made for her niece. However, she uses her skills for other purposes as well, such as hacking into security systems and stealing information. 

         Alfred--  Alfred is a rival of Dorian's. He is a con artist who does spirit reading on the side to earn extra money. He is skilled in reading people, and likes using tarot cards and doing card tricks. 

Goals this NaNoWriMo: 

My goal is to get more of the first draft done, even if I don't finish all of it this month. The Heist of Dorian Gray started out as a screenplay which then I decided worked better as a serial novel. (I am glad that I chose to change.) Compared to my previous style of drafting which is just to write as much as I can, I am trying to write well and descriptively especially since I was inspired by real-world art. 

And since I divided my goal into two projects which both complement each other. My goal is to make progress on both. Since The Haunted Sketchbook is on its second draft, I'll be reworking some things like creating a satisfying ending. For The Heist of Dorian Gray, I want to figure out how to write what I'm calling "a novel that reads like a short story collection." In some ways it is similar to a TV show being in serial novel format. I am planning to publish it in a way that is like the original Picture of Dorian Gray which was serialized in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine before publication in book form.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of my favorite books, and I am happy that I finally found a way to write about the characters from it in a way that isn't retelling. I had wanted to spend more time with them but not follow the plot of the original. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you're doing NaNowWrimo this November, what are you working on?

-Quinley

My Art from Inktober 2023 (Part Two)

Click here to read part one. 

Greetings Adventurers, 

Here's the second part of my Inktober series. The post after this one is going to be what I am writing for NaNoWriMo. But after that, I will return to posting the final part of this year's Inktober series. 

 Here's the official prompt list: 

Day #11 Wander. Reed Hayward (from The Heist of Dorian Gray) feeling lost in thought. I decided to go for more wanderings of the mind rather than wanderings in the physical sense. 

Day #12 Spicy. Ocean Guy cooking. I figured he has an interest in cooking when he isn't saving the world from villains. So I decided I would give him an apron with a seahorse on it and draw sea themed stuff in the background. 

Day #13 Rise. Since Zora (the lead singer of Blackbriar) often acts as characters in the band's songs, I figured I would draw a character the song "I'd Rather Burn" which is about a witch,
and one of the lines is: 
"But know I'll return and I'll be dead awake

I'll be dead awake, rising from the stake"

Day #14 Castle. Denisse Grigory going on tour and performing near a haunted castle. 

Day #15 Dagger. This was the sketch I used to create my new header (above). In this drawing, I am imagining that Arcasia found a weapon given to her by the goddess, Artemis (indirectly: Artemis left it for her). This is like how in Clash of the Titans (1981) Perseus receives weapons from the gods. 

Day #16 Angel. I decided to draw Aziraphale from Good Omens.

Day #17 Demon. I drew the "painted" devil, a creature that appeared in this post. 

Day #18 Saddle. This is Ophelia going out for a ride through the forest. I haven't drawn my characters riding horses a lot, so I decided to challenge myself. 

Day #19 Plump. I took "plump" to mean the round kind of plump (referring to the tapioca balls) and drew Dorian Gray (from The Heist of Dorian Gray) trying bubble tea. He does not like it, nor does he get the point of why anyone would do this with tea.

Day #20 Frost. Edith (from The Haunted Sketchbook) walking through a graveyard. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which drawing is your favorite? What weapons would you like to receive from a god/goddess and/or, what's your least favorite type of food? 

-Quinley 

Making a Halloween Decoration

I was inspired by a video about painting a ghost on an old thrift store painting in doing this project. The video that I'm referring to can be watched here. 

The object I decided to paint was not a painting, but instead a free-standing art piece that looked as if it needed some adjustments. I decided to change her into a ghost girl. 

I began by working on the flowers. I felt as if they needed to stand out more. 

I then adjusted the leaves and decided to give them more detail. 

I placed a skull near the flowers, and drew some blood around it. 

I then painted the dress white, and gave it spider motifs, such as spider webs in her hair and around her dress. I was partially inspired by a drawing of Victorian children in making her dress. 

And here is the final result: 

Before                             After 

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Do you like making your own Halloween decorations (if you celebrate)? Are you excited for Halloween in a few days? 

-Quinley

My Art from Inktober 2023 (Part One)

 In the previous two Inktobers (2022, and 2021) I mostly did colored drawings, but this time around I wanted to focus on line work and on characters. So, the goal for these Inktober pieces is to draw characters (my original ones, my versions of pre-existing characters, or merely ones I like from movies and TV shows). 

Like the previous years, it will be divided up into three parts with ten drawings for the first two, and eleven at the end. 

Here's the official prompt list: 

And let's begin: 

Day #1 Dream. Felix Moore from Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass. 

The drawing was inspired by this quote from Shakespeare's Macbeth:  

"Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing."

      One thing I haven't mentioned about Felix Moore is his philosophical belief 

that nothing is real, and that life is merely a dream and nothing more. This emerged 

during the second draft and has been an important trait to his character. 

Day #2 Spider. The Wax Witch (from Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass) despite having the ability to steal souls has a fear which she cannot get away from: spiders. This is assumed to be left over from when she was human. And since she is an old building this is a rather unfortunate fear to have, for there will be spiders in an abandoned building such as that.  

Day #3 Path. Fiáina the goddess of nature. My idea with this image is that a mortal came across her when she was out hunting. She is slowly approaching them, in her domain (the woods). 

In between the trees is an altar to a minor god, with jewelry and flowers placed on it as an offering. 

Day #4 Dodge. Salissah. Given that she is a goddess of the moon in an endless battle across the sky with the sun god, I figured I would draw her dodging an attack. 

Day #5 Map. It's been a while since I worked on this story (and I don't know what my plans are for it yet) but this is my version of Ichabod Crane from a Sleepy Hollow story I want to go back to. I imagine that this is when he arrives at Sleepy Hollow and is rather lost. 

As for what is hanging out of his pocket (since it might be difficult to see), is a rabbit's foot charm. And since it's been a while since I drew Ichabod, I decided to give him a little redesign and give him glasses. 

Day #6 Golden. Cecile (Ferdinand's wife) from The Haunted Sketchbook. I often describe her as having golden hair, so I thought she was a fitting character to draw for this prompt.  

Day #7 Drip. I decided to do a Dungeons and Dragons inspired tavern for this one, with the tavern owner in the background (so not quite character focused, but I still wanted a character present). The dripping is from the drinks on the table. 

Day #8 Toad. this is a drawing for my dad (who is helping me edit this post 😉).  Since in one of my drawings of a frog, he pointed out that it looked like Hypnotoad from Futurama. So this is a drawing of Leela and Hynotoad in my style, rather than trying to copy the style of the show. 

Day #9 Bounce. Skunk Girl in the middle of a battle bouncing

(probably preparing an attack). 

Day #10 Fortune. I started with the Moores so I figured I'd end this part with the Moores. I decided to draw Matilda Moore reading Tarot cards, looking into her future perhaps or trying to find answers to a problem in her life through them. Matilda has an interest in Spiritualism and the occult (like with Felix, this emerged during the second draft), so I figured I would bring that out in the drawing. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which drawing is your favorite? Which characters of mine would you like to see me draw in future installments? 

-Quinley