Category: Blog Posts

Guest Post – World-Building: Animal Lore

My series of guest posts continues at Eventide Unmasked. Join my latest discussion on animal lore. What is it? How can you implement it into your stories effectively? Tips, tricks, and examples at the link!

World-Building – Animal Lore

Hello all! Angela here again for a Wacky Wednesday guest post. Hayley’s been talking a lot lately about world-building so I thought I’d chime in with a particular niche in the world-building skillset – animal lore.

What is animal lore?

Animal lore differs from generic mythology for the fact that it specifically involves creatures which are a part of the natural or supernatural order of things in any given story’s setting. Some real world examples include Hayley’s infamous black dog, bringer of ill portent, the European and Asian dragons, unicorns, and all manner of beasts we can conjure up with a quick jaunt through our childhood memories.

Animals often convey the mythical beginnings of our universe, shedding light on mysteries that inform a culture’s mystical practices and even methods of dress. The raven who created the world, the spider whose web brings life, or the coyote who stole the secret of fire. A culture rich in animal lore also suggests a culture close to nature, magic, and the mysteries of the world. Most cultures with deep ties to Animalism are less inclined towards industrialization and generally less reliant on science and technology (a situation ripe for tension and change, if you’re looking for inspiration prompts!).

(Read on at the full blog post)

Guest Post – World-Building: Animal Lore

My series of guest posts continues at Eventide Unmasked. Join my latest discussion on animal lore. What is it? How can you implement it into your stories effectively? Tips, tricks, and examples at the link!

World-Building – Animal Lore

Hello all! Angela here again for a Wacky Wednesday guest post. Hayley’s been talking a lot lately about world-building so I thought I’d chime in with a particular niche in the world-building skillset – animal lore.

What is animal lore?

Animal lore differs from generic mythology for the fact that it specifically involves creatures which are a part of the natural or supernatural order of things in any given story’s setting. Some real world examples include Hayley’s infamous black dog, bringer of ill portent, the European and Asian dragons, unicorns, and all manner of beasts we can conjure up with a quick jaunt through our childhood memories.

Animals often convey the mythical beginnings of our universe, shedding light on mysteries that inform a culture’s mystical practices and even methods of dress. The raven who created the world, the spider whose web brings life, or the coyote who stole the secret of fire. A culture rich in animal lore also suggests a culture close to nature, magic, and the mysteries of the world. Most cultures with deep ties to Animalism are less inclined towards industrialization and generally less reliant on science and technology (a situation ripe for tension and change, if you’re looking for inspiration prompts!).

(Read on at the full blog post)

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.

Q&A With Jacqueline Carey Event!

As many of you know (or perhaps don’t), I have long been an admirer of the works of Jacqueline Carey (specifically her Kushiel’s Legacy series of books). With some of the most unique spins on obscure angel and fallen angel figures I’ve seen in modern literature, how can I not love it? Not to mention her sumptuous writing style and palpable imagery always set my muse a-tingling. (This bodes for a ‘top ten novels that make my muse tingle’ post in the future!)

Anyways, the point of this particular entry is to set your eye on an event going on this coming Tuesday, June 1st! My fellow plotter, upcoming author, and friend, Hayley E. Lavik, is having a Q&A event with Jacqueline! Check Hayley’s entry on the matter for details, as this could be your chance to win hand-crafted swag of my creation and a copy of Jacqueline’s latest release in the series, Naamah’s Kiss.

Not to mention how wonderful and rare it is to have questions answered by a best-selling novelist in the themes of world-building and advice for aspiring authors everywhere!

So set your calendars and don’t miss this event!

Con Report – Imagicon

I’ve just returned from Imagicon in Birmingham, Alabama! While my personal artist alley sales were modest, enthusiasm from artists and congoers was pretty high all weekend. I get the feeling from the amount of curious and perplexed parents peering in at us from around the corner that the scifi and fantasy fandom is still a little new in the area.

Come buy my shinies! Or my evil eyes will get you!

Or perhaps it’s because the main part of the con was held in the middle of exhibits nestled in the belly of the McWane natural science center in downtown Birmingham? Most people were there to let their kids bounce around interactive exhibits and maybe learn something scientific along the way. This was good in that we got a lot of foot traffic from museum-goers, bad because many of them weren’t interested in the art show or dealers room and had no clue why they were standing next to an Alien in the elevator wondering whether they should cover their children’s eyes or not.

In truth, there weren’t many signs that even mentioned Imagicon was there. No signs outside the building and most of the noticeable signs tacked up by the elevator which said the 3rd floor was closed for Imagicon, sending mixed signals. There was even less signage to indicate the location of the art show, though due to the art staff’s quick thinking, computer printed signs appeared around the 2nd day. Even still, the traffic through the art show was minimal and I only sold a single piece (Archangel Uriel, which persists as my top seller, despite being an old piece).

What really made my weekend was shmoozing with other artists in the show who attended the panels. I felt like we were really able to give people good ideas in the website development and business panels, even if the number of artists hosting the panel on business outnumbered the people in attendance. It’s a great feeling to be around all these other folks making a living doing the same business of art and convincing one another that we’re not insane for it! I took some great notes on art licensing at Ash Evans‘ panel, who is an inspiring professional and outspoken lady.

I met a couple of ladies who also recognized my Ezio mask from the LeatherMaskArt group on DeviantART. Such a small world, it is! I put my mask to a stress test wearing it all day Saturday and even walking down the street to a hotdog stand, receiving many strange looks along the way. It was a good draw for my table, even if only a special few recognized its inspiration.

All in all, the show has a good heart, but just needs to work out it’s advertising and signage a little better. Art show staff was helpful and receptive and I’m sure the show is going to get more traffic as they improve their setup, especially with the enthusiasm of those involved in its management. I hope that if budget allows, I’ll be able to attend again next year!

Stay tuned for a little video I put together on what we packed for the convention. It will be up on my YouTube channel shortly!

This has been your con report from Angelic Shades. Sasser signing off!

Confessions of an Artist 5 – Why Sketch?

It’s been a long time since my last confession, where we talked about the nightmares of storing art incorrectly. Lately, I’ve come to realize a bad habit about myself that I’m desperately trying to break.

I don’t sketch.

By ‘don’t sketch’ I mean, instead of doing thumbnails or studies, I like to hop right onto the canvas and sketch, let the drawing go where it wants to, and then paint away! While this may work for some folks, more often than not, it’s led to the too-late realization of compositional problems, anatomy errors, or dysfunctional color schemes that made me not as satisfied with my work as I wanted to be or should be.

You may ask yourself, why take the time to sketch when you already know what you want to do? Why bother with sketching at all when it’s not guaranteed that you’ll use a sketch for anything? Just go straight to the finish line!

Only recently have I started to do more thumbnail drawings to figure out the best composition for an idea (a practice my college professors always pushed on me and one which I always rebelled against). But I’m not on my own time anymore, I’m on the clock. When my work is for a company, I just can’t let the pencil loose and trust it’s going to be the best it can be. I have more than just myself to satisfy and even then I shouldn’t just let my standards slip when I AM working for myself, either because I’m in a rush or just don’t feel like doing preliminary sketches thanks to the impatient niggling of my muse.

This realization was especially reinforced when I saw Stephanie Pui-Mun Law’s Major Arcana Tarot book, a lovely compilation including her thought processes and the many sketch revisions she did for each card in the Majors suit. I was amazed by the fact she went through so many sketches before arriving at any single figure.

For instance, in the Justice card, she went through multiple figural sketches. In each sketch, she evolved her symbols and improved her composition, from a sword to a feather (for truth), from a classical blindfolded Justice to a figure with blind eyes. Sketching and toying with the concept helped her to arrive at something more profound and dynamic, in the end, than it would have been if she merely sped through the concept. Even then, many of her ‘discarded’ sketches ended up being used for later work, making it even more worth it to play around with sketch ideas because it helped to prompt even more ideas for future artwork.

So while I may get fussy at the idea of not being able to explode into drawing the final composition that’s bursting to get out of my head, sometimes the muse needs to sloow down. Enjoy a nice cup of tea and coax that coy idea out with thumbnails and sweet nothings.

How about yourselves? Do you find it hard to sketch? How do you go about developing your ideas for a concept? My confessional is always open!

IMAGE SOURCE:
“Justice” by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law