Don’t flex your flaming fingers yet, m’dears. It’s a work in progress.
I realize if I’m ever published, I won’t have much of a say in cover art, so this is me indulging myself in having total control over it while I can.

Cheers!

This is what I mean when I say I’m a binge worker. The same thing happened while I was writing and editing Summeryear before I fell into that unfortunate slump. But the slump served one good purpose, it forced me to either be productive in something or become depressed and mopey for getting nothing done. Luckily, I chose to do something.

And so I pulled out an old painting I had started a few months ago and have now nearly finished it. That’s Suntamer, if you’ve been keeping up with my news lately.

Suntamer scared me a little. Well, no, it scared me a hell of a lot. It’s substantially outside my artistic comfort zone. I’m used to doing fairly simple portraits which, while they have certainly gotten better over the years, have remained just as dull and unimaginative.

So I had started Suntamer. It’s a figure of a woman holding a phoenix. Not looking straight ahead blankly, not with no real degree of actual design involved. I am tired of just painting faces, and I doubt I will again for a long time now that I’ve started experimenting.

While I was taking a break from Suntamer tonight, I sketched up this:

I am going to paint this. I don’t care how freakin’ long it takes, how much I want to gouge my eyes out by the end or if my tablet pen erodes down to nothing but an eraser sized lump. I am going to paint this.

We’ll see how it goes, I suppose. For the time being I’m still working on Suntamer, two art trades with two of my best friends which won’t be quite as detailed (probably) as Suntamer, and thus shouldn’t take months to complete like this has.

I think this is important. Just as important, maybe, as having decided that one day so long ago to sit my ass down and write a novel, and then actually doing it. This is my novel in digital painting, it’s my mountain to climb, a be-all-end-all test of how serious I am about art and getting better at artsy things.

Funny thing is, I said the same thing about Suntamer and now that it’s almost finished I feel I could have found a higher Everest. So, here we go. I expect this piece (calling it Zaxamara Stone for now) will have the same feeling once it’s done. Just the nature of improving.

And so the thoughty in today’s thoughty gobbet is this… do not believe in comfort zones. They are simply cages. Experiment more. In whatever artistic endeavor you feel connected to – experiment more.

That’s all.
Cheers.

But now, because I wanted to damn well finish something, we have a portrait of Fiona Breens. I was trying out a new style, and I think it was a moderate success. It was a very quick piece, but altogether I think I’m happy with it.

http://amorebravekitten.deviantart.com/art/Fiona-Breens-137932907

For those interested, Fiona is a character from a Harry Potter fanfiction I am in the process of outlining.  I’m going to write the first half of Rusalka for NaNoWriMo, and then start writing this fanfic (titled Novem Ursus for the moment…I seem to like non-English titles) in December.

Most of this week has been spent brainstorming on the potential of a graphic novel alongside my other projects as well as painting through the days.

I’ve been trying out a few cartoony styles, varying from not-quite-anime to not-quite-realism, and I haven’t really found one I’m comfortable with yet. I do want to tell this story (it’s one that’s been in my head for the last four or five years), but a graphic novel might just be outside my talent. Or else, I’ve just spent too much time working on realism that I need far more practice with comic styles before I can put it together. Maybe it’ll end up more like a heavily illustrated novel than a comic, only time will tell.

I’m going to be out of town Friday to Sunday(ish), so I’m trying to get the Suntamer painting finished before I leave. I think I’ve been working on this on and off for about a month now, with something like fifteen hours put in and probably about halfway complete.

Even if I do manage to finish the painting before I leave, I doubt I’ll have time to put together the tutorial. That’s a project for next week. I’m planning for the tutorial to mostly cover colour tips, detail, and textures, but that might change. I’m absolutely not qualified to discuss anatomy just yet, as I tend to spend half my time fiddling with my sketch until it looks at least almost properly proportioned. We all have our strengths.

I’m sad to say I haven’t been working on Summeryear much at all lately. My creativity tends to come in bursts for each of my projects, so once this Summeryear slump ends I’ll zoom through it. I suppose I’m a bit of a binge writer.

Just a quick update to show I am still alive and working.
Cheers.

SUMMERYEAR
- Giving up the wait for two remaining beta readers. Kind of annoyed with them both. Won’t mention names.
- Going to start the second edit on Monday, and that’ll likely take me a week or two. After that, I’ll send a copy to one or two new (or old, if they want) beta readers for any final suggestions. Then, I’ll give it one more quick read through and edit and send it off into the world of agents and publishers and rejection letters. Which reminds me…I still need to research publishing houses and the like. Probably while the last beta readers have their copies.
- In case I forgot to mention, I have a deadline for myself on Halloween to have it ready to send out.

RUSALKA
- Outlining/writing is being put (mostly) on hold while I edit Summeryear. I’m going to try to isolate at least a half hour or so to brainstorm and keep the ideas fresh in my mind during that time.

SUNTAMER (painting/tutorial)
- Hoping to finish the painting within the week. I’m not entirely sure if that’ll happen, but we’ll see. This is the most time I’ve spent on one piece before, so I’m trying to make it as close to perfect as possible.
- After the painting is finished, I’m going to use the process screenshots to write a digital painting tutorial for deviantART and here. Never done that before, so we’ll see how it goes.

THOUGHTY GOBBETS
- I made a bit show of explaining what a thoughty gobbet was, and of course haven’t actually posted any yet. I’ll get to it. Didn’t have time because I was out of town this past week. That’s definitely on the to-do list for probably Monday or Tuesday. I’ve got a few topics I think would make interesting posts.

Until next week.

Cheers.