Art!, MicahxAndrew, The Heartwood Trilogy

academia

I fell down a gay boys in crop tops rabbit hole on Pinterest and needed to put Micah in one because of course. And in the epilogue chapter of The Heartwood Trilogy I sent Andrew back to school for his PhD and made him a professor at St Kate’s so I’ve been thinking about the two of them in their student years, except that Micah’s 8 years older than Andrew so never would have overlapped BUT WHATEVER IT’S AN AU NOW
After raging about the various attempts I made to color this, I decided to do what I used to do and just prettify the sketch. It honestly looks almost identical to the traditional sketches I used to do haha
like this old one of Micah and Ingrid who are now siblings aaahhhehehe and Micah’s head in that is SO BIG
We watched The Queen’s Gambit and there’s this scene where this guy seems like he’s about to kiss Anya Taylor Joy and then his BOYFRIEND walks out of the bathroom in these cute tiny shorts and I wanted to put Micah in them lol. And Andrew’s European so of course he needed to be in a speedo. chicken legs
Holiday Drawings, Original Characters, Redefining Evil, Sun-Walking, The Heartwood Trilogy

love day

I knew I wanted to make a Valentine’s Day picture. It finally occurred to me reading someone’s post on Instagram that I hate Valentine’s Day as a corporate greed and performative holiday that make coupled people feel pressure and single people feel miserable, but it’s always so tempting because I love pink, hearts, and kisses.

Surprisingly, I decided to make a smooch between Lucienne and Ingrid rather than Andrew and Micah. I was actually working on a concurrent kiss but not Valentine’s picture of the boys, but I knew I wasn’t going to get that finished in time. Thinking about it on my drive to work, I think I’m going to have to make a version of this with some line art, but I finished this at 10:30 very specifically to have it done on Valentine’s Day, so without further ado.

I was going to stop at a sketch for this and I actually think the sketch turned out really pretty too. The angle of Lucienne’s face was a bit better in the sketch.

I had some smooches in mind with them and other partners they’ve had in the past thinking I had several more that were done on Valentine’s Day, but I think this Lucy one from Sun-Walking was the only one.

Circa 2012 I believe
I kept picturing this one until I realized it was a Christmas picture. Circa 2007.
I thought this was a Valentine’s Day picture but that’s not when it says I uploaded it to this blog, so I’m confused and scared. Anyway, it’s got a bloody heart and a smooch about to happen. And Ingrid. Which gave me the idea, I’ll record here, that since I killed off Erik I can turn him into a faerie challenging Ingrid for the throne in the Redwoods, so now I want to write that ahahha.
A spicy 2008 shot that makes Ingrid look like a harlot but I think that was the point
I was immensely proud of this braid crown, and I was immensely proud of the braid crown for the one I finished yesterday, so I had to post this one. Funnily enough it’s actually from the same scene as that purple one, but this was from my rewrite of Wind-Running. And yes, their ten year age difference DID end up feeling yucky. lol.
Art!, Farewell Fairytale, Original Characters, The Catcher, Writing Journey

i’ll never go

New Fall Out Boy! Got the vision of Andrew being a nerdy shut-in hanging out with his cat. I feel like he had a black cat a million years ago too. But this is Arwen.

The manuscripts were super fun to throw in there. And yes, trying to get his tum right required some interesting results on Pinterest from what me and my client described as “the rabbit hole of gay men in crop tops”

Andrew circa 2009 when he was cursed to turn into a dragon lol
This is supposedly from 2013 but somehow worse, must be from the beginning of my digital art era haha
Art!, MicahxAndrew, Myoku Needs a Tag, Original Characters, The Heartwood Trilogy

lots of color and line art

After spending a few months doing soft airbrush lines that I would generally cover up, I switched things up when I made a Micah character sheet. I’m teaching Super Stories again this summer and I wanted to give the kids a bit more they could do with their character development. I made them a pencil version too, but I finished a version for myself.

hehe
inspired by me
Super dumb that I pulled this off so easily when I tried to make Micah with his staff when I first wrote about it last summer and I ended up with a very different kind of painting haha

This is what I wanted to make to compare him to his old era of staff fightings.

I’ve been thinking a lot in the revisions how similar Andrew and Ingrid are

Here are some old ones of this adorable trio

I’ve also been thinking about this intense one from approximately the same era for a while haha

This was literally just a concept drawing, it was loosely for Time-Painters where Andrew was a master painter and to some degree Micah and Ingrid were his apprentices? But one of the two of them goes off the rails. I don’t know, it kinda flopped
Emotional Breakdowns, MicahxAndrew, Myoku Needs a Tag, Original Characters, Other Peoples' Work!, The Heartwood Trilogy

honing skills

i added some lovely lines and it makes me happy
this fine line portrait turned out soooo preeeetty
WOLFGANG AND SHIN AS HIGH SCHOOL SWEETIES GAHHH
this is really fugly but it was lineart practice
shin soohyuk is the most magnificent and unusual character of all time and i want to tuck him into bed and smooch his forehead

but also i don’t know how he can be so delicate, so yesterday i spent the day studying him and actuallly ducking traced him like i’m a fucking 10 year old to try to understand his weird wonderful anatomy better.

i fucking can’t
Art!, Original Characters, The Heartwood Trilogy

Heartwood portraits

I’m meeting with a local vanity press tomorrow to explore how they could help take The Heartwood Trilogy to the next level. I wanted to include some interior illustrations but I was stressing how I could ever set up a proper scene illustration. But I just finished this portrait of Andrew and it occurred to me that THOSE should be the portraits in the books – the portraits I’ve been passionately and carefully constructing as I’ve been writing the trilogy. So, at least that’s out of the way. Here’s Andrew, looking full Druid! I kind of want to add more to it – I don’t love how the book cover turned out – but I’m going to let it lie for now. ...Maybe

This is also the first finished work of 2023. 😀

Holiday Drawings, MicahxAndrew, Original Characters, The Heartwood Trilogy

Happy Holidays 2022

Good morning and happy holidays!

It’s been a vast and varied holiday season in my house, so it should come as no surprise that I ended up with several drafted Christmas illustrations before ending up with one I was happy with.

So that means you get lots of bonuses – the finished one I’m very happy with; IT’S SO COZY – and the drafts for the other versions.

<3
I really liked this one and everything, but it was too much the same tone as the Halloween one, with Lucienne being a goblin. I also got freaked out with how similar Andrew and Ingrid looked ahahha.