Month: June 2010

The Ex-RPG Character

Guest posting continues at Hayley’s blog, Eventide Unmasked! Today’s topic: How do you transplant a character from an RPG setting to a novel setting? What to watch out for, advice, and discussion. Come share your ex-RPG characters with us!

The Ex-RPG Character

Ah, those were the days.

Giggling friends gathered around a table, your very life dependent on the next roll of the dice, the sly smile on your game master’s face as he plots your downfall! Creating a character was as easy as picking a class and race and your standard fantasy character back story (ie. family killed by evil bad guys, leaving home to find your fortune, etc.)

Sometimes, though, there are just those characters that adhere themselves to us, become more than just pre-rolled stats, character sheets, or vicarious reflections of our inner selves. A character begs to be something more than what they are and we find ourselves attempting to pluck that character out of their pre-existing world and put them into one of our own making.

Sounds fun until you realize your character just screams “I come right out of a Dungeons and Dragons game!” when you’re trying to rewrite them!

(Read on at the full blog post)

Color Pencil Tutorial Suggestions?

So it’s been a long while since I first uploaded my Color Pencil Tools tutorial. It’s about time I got off my duff and made some new videos! I’m doing this for all you folks out there, so what would you like to know about color pencils and working with them? Here are a few topics I’m pondering thus far:

=> Coloring Skin (including different tones of skin)
=> Smooth Blending with Colorless Blenders
=> Coloring Hair
=> Coloring Feathers
=> Mixing Media with Color Pencils

Disclaimer! These tutorials will be covering the way I personally work, meaning that I may not do things by the book or how other artists do them. It may be a little while before I can produce these videos so I wanted to start gathering thoughts now!

Guest Post – Introductions and Trading Spaces

I’m excited to announce my Wednesday posts will be over at Eventide Unmasked while my good friend and writer, Hayley E. Lavik, is off on vacation in England! Join the discussion on literary interests, artistic minds, character creation, world-building, and more! This week’s topic: The link between artists and writers.

Introductions and Trading Spaces

Well met and hello, all! I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve kidnapped Hayley’s Wednesdays while she’s on her folklore hunting adventure in England. I feel much like Mr. Rogers coming in, adjusting his favorite sweater, and settling on a chair to tell a story when I’m here, but I’ll refrain from singing about neighbors for the good of us all.

Hayley briefly introduced me, but I wanted to divulge more about how the heck I’ve come to kidnap her blog. I was a starving caffeinated college student double-majoring in English and Studio Art when I first met Mrs. Lavik through random conversing about lore, logic, and anime through the backways of DeviantART. I have since become one of the apparently many caffeinated sardonic women with which she spends her late night conversation. We have done much scheming, plotting, and debating since we met those many years ago, much of which has bled over into each other’s blog discussions. We share a similar love of empathetic antagonists, character tormenting, and folkloric research.

(Read on at the full blog post)

Aurora Goes to Therapy!

Just in case you’ve missed this plug in my other online outlets, I’m pleased to announce that one of my more dangerously unhinged characters has finally gone to therapy!

You may remember Aurora Adonai from a past blog entry. Jeannie Campbell, the Character Therapist, did an excellent reading of Aurora and what I might need to consider when writing about her to make her more believable as a character.

Treatment Tuesday – The Hitman Hitwoman

“This week features a science fiction/action character created by Angela. Her character is Alaura*, an orphan who witnessed her mother’s violent murder when she was 4 or 5. At age 8, the orphanage caretaker began to engage her in molestation. He liked it rough and would get very angry if Alaura cried or showed signs of pain. Alaura endured for several years before she hid a knife in the sheets and murdered him. The other orphans helped cover up the crime and Alaura moved on to become a hitman for a criminal organization. She feels that nothing she does can make her any more “unclean” than she already is. She thinks she’s damaged goods and irredeemable…”

(Read on at Jeannie’s blog)

At this rate, perhaps Melakim might show up on her couch? I always did say they went to the same therapist.

Many thanks to Jeannie for providing such an excellent service to writers. Where psychological problems are involved with our characters, it’s definitely helpful to look beyond our own scope of experience.