Well then, 2023 continues whoopin’ my butt! I spent a few days in the ER with food trapped in my esophagas thanks to a chronic condition that suddenly got worse, which caused me to be down for another week for recovery. The docs are on my case to help me make sure this doesn’t happen again, but I’m beyond frustrated with how much time I’ve had to take off this year because of my fragile meat shell. It’s been a lesson in patience and in recognizing I’m going to have to work at the pace I can work at and nothing more or less.
I’m definitely looking forward to our beach vacation coming up in April! Kev and I haven’t taken a proper vacation outside of a staycation at home since we’ve been together and had always planned a trip for our honeymoon, which we have not taken in the years since we’ve been married. We’re finally taking the time to spoil ourselves rotten after the past few years we’ve had!
The Little Victories
Thankfully at least I did manage to get back in the studio to clear out the mess from the move. I still have little bit to go, but it’s finally looking sane inside! In the meanwhile, I’ve been slowly, but surely learning how to use Clip Studio Paint, which has some fantastic vector inking features I’ve been utilizing for my amulet designs.
I chipped away at the medallion designs to complete the Goddesses of Winter set (December, January, & February). I was supposed to have all of them done by now, but I’m trying to be kinder to myself when health things happen and let things develop as they can!
Here’s a little sneak peek of January’s pink carnation motif:
Forgotten Sketches
I realized putting together sketches that I had forgotten to share a couple! Back in November when I was playing with my Flame of the Sultana story for NaNoWriMo, I was inspired to do some concepts for my Fire Genasi’s sister, an Earth Genasi named Badeema. While I began this sheet last year, I’ve been coming back to it every now and again to play with more crystal hairdos for her because it’s just so very fun! I’m sure I’ll wander back to this character to play with more agate-inspired skin striations, too.
She deserves her own dedicated sketchbook post, along with Rabs’ other Genasi sisters, methinks! I’d love to have my own illustrations to use for this story’s Campfire Writing story bible.
Next, we have an idea that came to me while I was pondering a story you all haven’t really ‘met’ yet. Tentatively titled Sacred & Profane, this D&D inspired tale did show up in my NaNoWriMo poll as the ‘story of friendship between a pair of dysfunctional monster hunters with werewolves, vampires, and ghosts, oh my!’
One of these pair of monster hunters is Nils, a Ghostslayer, who often trains by willingly enduring near-death experiences, which opens him up to experiences like the one pictured. The angel has a deeper significance later on, but I’ll leave that for future exploration.
I’m excited to play with the notion of the surface of water breaking up the perspective plane for an extra trippy composition if I end up polishing this image later!
More Character Sketches
My go-to ‘my body betrays me and I must control my stress levels’ happy project has been continuing the party line-up I’ve been working on during my dedicated ‘carefree sketchbook play time’. The goal is to end up like this with a whole spread of clothing/armor looks for the party!
I finished Rabs’ armor base and now Cal, the flirtacious circus Tiefling, is up next! I adore Cal’s carefree attitude and parti-color theme and had a lot of fun exploring his armor base in gesture sketches. For Level 0, I wanted him to seem a little unsure of his skills, but with the potential to improve, while his Armor Base is meant to show off the confidence he gains in his skills since those training days.
Cal’s player and I have already picked the final poses for his Level 0 and Armor Base poses, but feel free to try and guess which ones we picked out of each row!
A little reminder of what Cal looks like:
Well, that’s all for now, friends! I hope to have a more significant update next month as my body hopefully does not implode. But also I have a lot of looming medical tests which may mean more downtime or slow time for me, depending on the outcome. So here I am, just trying to go with the flow without raging too much about that anymore.
Bless you kind souls who still remain pledged here! Your support when I’ve been in Tip Jar mode warms my heart.
♥ Ang