Month: October 2022

Exalted Art Challenge 2022 Collection

Happy Halloween, everyone!  I have a treat for you today in the form of the completed collection of challenge pieces for this year’s Exalted Art Challenge!  We moved right in the middle of this challenge, so I only had time to partake in the weekly topics, instead.  Still, this challenge is always a lot of fun and a great excuse to experiment with different methods and styles!

I created all of these entries in Procreate.

Week 1: Your PC (Player Character)

Rather than draw the same old characters I’ve been drawing lately (cough Kalara), I thought I’d shine the spotlight on Laughing Fox, a trickster Kalara has met in her travels as a young demigod.  Laughing Fox is a Lunar, chosen of the goddess of the moon in the Exalted RPG setting.  He prefers seduction over murder and prides himself on his clever schemes and collection of secrets.  His Tell, or the characteristic that marks him as moon-chosen, is the white tips of his hair which is reminiscent of a fox’s tail.

He wanders in and out of Kalara’s tale as he pleases!  You’ll no doubt be seeing more of him before too long.

The inspiration for Laughing Fox’s animal shape is the gorgeous cross fox.  Just look at this majestic creature!

Week 2 – A Meal In Creation

Next comes a fun topic featuring food from the setting!  This meal comes from the celebration of Plentimon’s Day, the god of gambling.  Inspired by the real-world King Cake from Mardi Gras, those who find the Plentimon’s dice in their serving of cake will be crowned royalty for the day and have the god’s blessing for the next year.

Plentimon Day’s feast consists of goat kabobs marinated in yogurt and spices, with a almond-based cakes in the shape of a D6 die with slivers of almonds to represent the numbers.  The dice cakes all have different flavors stuffed inside to emphasize the Plentimon’s theme of gambling. You never know if you’ll get bitter or sweet flavors!  Finally, you can’t have a feast day in Gem without an alcoholic drink, in this case, date wine.

I’m a big fan of the aesthetic of the food in Monster Hunter, which definitely shows in my choice of design for this dish.

Week 3 – Fave Charm

This one started off as a Fave Charm (or magic ability), but quickly got off-topic with drawing FX for Kalara’s anima aura, the glowing halo of energy which appears when she channels divine energies at different levels of intensity.  When she’s at ‘fall blast’, a phoenix appears rising behind her, an animal that is part of her personal symbolism as someone who rose from her near-death to take on the world.  This will be my first time drawing an FX sheet and it was quite fun. I will definitely be adding them to Kalara’s proper reference sheet!

Week 4 – Fave Fashion

For the final topic, I was going to keep it ‘simple’ and sketch a concept for glass armor, but the topic ran away with me and I ended up with a full portrait!  The glass remnants of the magnificent buildings of old Chiaroscuro magically retain their luster and strength and are usually used for sturdy, but sleek armor.  I figure why not armor AND a gown for Kalara?

This portrait also provided me with an opportunity to paint Kalara in a more realistic style, as well as test out a new style I’m currently evolving which combines a soft and painterly look with hard-edged elements for a look inspired by Klimt and tarot cards.

—-

Fave Fashion was undoubtedly my favorite topic from this year!  Which one is yours?

As ever, if you like Kalara or any of the imagery I put out for the Exalted Art Challenge, check out the Exalted tabletop rpg from Onyx Path Publishing and Kalara’s stories and art at The Uncrucified or check out the older Exalted Art Challenge collections for art you may have missed!

Now that the EAC is done, I’m turning my attention towards some fun surprises I’m working on for this Patreon’s re-launch and the topic you all chose for me for NaNoWriMo (Flame of the Sultana).

Till next time!  Stay tuned for more writing and art peeks from Rabs’ NaNoWriMo adventures.

♥ Ang

Our New Home (Finally!)

It’s been a long journey, but we finally made it to the new house!  Consider this the pre-tour, since right now all of our stuff is currently in a ‘thrown on the floor’ state.  We got very lucky finding this place since our first contract fell through, leading us to take a peek at this house instead, which was incorrectly listed, making it quite a lucky find!

We learned a little bit more about the place, which has had some custom renovations which made us fall in love with it.  In particular, the garage has been converted into a fully heated and insulated workshop where the previous owner used to make bullets.  Now, it’s the perfect studio space for me!  

It’s SO much space, enough to have a corner for my computer desk, a nook for traditional painting, another corner for model photography, and a dedicated shipping/fulfillment station to help with future crowdfunding endeavors.  We have literally combined about 2 and a half rooms worth of art junk into this one giant room!

The view from the studio! I love these shady trees in our front yard at the end of a quiet cul de sac.  All the sunlight and windows were the major reason I fell in love with this home in the first place!

The reading room, which will also double as the guest room!  I’ve been collecting art books for years and I’m ecstatic to finally have a space to fully enjoy them.  On the left, my mannequin is putting in work scaring people for Halloween.  She’s already made one set of delivery folks immediately walk out of the house and ask questions because she scared them hah!  Sorry, guys. Not an axe murderer with a wrapped-up torso. Just an artist with display things!

My other favorite place in the house is the sun room overlooking the pool, which almost became the studio, if not for the easier to clean tile floor of the workshop.  A part of the reason why we got such a good deal on this home was the fact the pool was a horrible mess we were going to have to have to fill in because it cost too much to repair and it absolutely tanked the home’s appraisal.  As you can see, however, by some fluke of fate and red tape at the real estate firm, it was actually repaired before we moved in, much to our shock and surprise!

Honestly, after the hell that’s been our past few years (from cancer to COVID to shoulder surgery and the unrelenting burnout of it all), we’re happy to see a little kindness from the universe!  We’re going to enjoy the rest of 2022 settling into this new place for the holidays as I work towards tentatively relaunching this Patreon in early 2023.

In the meanwhile, I’ll still be sharing smaller endeavors here in the blog, like the sketchbook posts and the fruits of my NaNoWriMo story in November.  I’ll have some compilation posts soon!

PHEW!  Thanks to everyone who has chosen to stick around my Patreon to support me, even if I don’t have a lot of new material to share lately.  It’s done me good to take an extended break and I look forward to returning fully to my ongoing projects next year with renewed vigor!

Cheers!

♥️ Ang