Writing! – Dreaming in Color

Art!, Lilydale, MicahxAndrew, Myoku Needs a Tag, Original Characters

lots of color and line art

February 2, 2023 mary v.

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.

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

Art!, Cadence, Lilydale, Original Characters, Rebels, Redefining Evil

ensembles

January 26, 2023 mary v.

I scrawled this since I didn’t want to type this to start the blog entry for…some reason

This took me like a week and I finished it after I was done with Agassiz

Andrew in front in his minor arc as a pastor looool

Andrew and Micah over on the left there lol

Emotional Breakdowns, Lilydale, MicahxAndrew, Myoku Needs a Tag, Original Characters, Other Peoples' Work!

honing skills

January 12, 2023January 13, 2023 mary v.

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.

Art!, Lilydale, Original Characters

Heartwood portraits

January 9, 2023 mary v.

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, Lilydale, MicahxAndrew, Original Characters

Happy Holidays 2022

December 25, 2022December 25, 2022 mary v.

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.

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.

Art!, Lilydale, Nikkei, Original Characters

mikara

December 5, 2022December 6, 2022 mary v.

Had to do a quick drawing project when this showed up on my timehop today.

Her boob window came from Ingrid’s original FHV uniform from Nikkei

Eheheh I forgot she had wings for a second dear god

Some other similarly toned Ingrids

Lilydale, Myoku Needs a Tag, Original Characters, Sun-Walking, Writing Journey, Writing!

more heartwood doodles

November 26, 2022December 6, 2022 mary v.

I’m revising Superior and added a scene where Micah makes Ingrid and Lucienne go to Target to get gifts for the Folk and…doodles ensued

And okay so when I was writing the original draft I kept debating whether or not Micah and Lucienne would kiss/have a thing/briefly be together and I opted for this awkward Trial scene where Lucienne tricks Micah into thinking they slept together, but I ended up squeezing another scene in in its place and Micah ends up in Lilydale

So I talked it through with, you know, my monogamous partner, and ended up deciding one one kiss between them

and

GOSH THEY’RE A GOOD LOOKING COUPLE WTF

what a weird little world this trilogy exists in

Lilydale, Myoku Needs a Tag

triangle!!

November 23, 2022December 6, 2022 mary v.

So my mom wanted art for her birthday and when I forced her to tell me what, she said, “Oh, I just love your Myoku drawings.”

I was like loool don’t mind if I do

Then a client brought in a bunch of records and I got really inspired by an Alice Cooper album cover and

VOILA

Art!, Lilydale, MicahxAndrew

wedding kiss/first kiss

November 17, 2022December 6, 2022 mary v.

I’m trash so I wanted to make a parallel kiss pic to Andrew and Micah’s forest kiss from Lilydale. I’m not quite as squealy, over the moon about it as I was about the first one, but I am into the TONGUES hahaha

It gives major Cirrus/Syracrus vibes from that picture I did of them in high school which is hilarious because Cirrus is The Ultimate Badguy in the 3rd Heartwood book. Really there’s visible tongue because MLM manhua has taken over my brain

I had the first flash this day talking to the receptionist about books where I’m like, excited to have some more brain space left rather than terrified of finishing this all-consuming trilogy.

The evil Cirrus + tongue picture in question lol. Kinda looks like Syr’s tongue is like a probiscus hehehahahaha

Art!, Lilydale, MicahxAndrew

heartwood wrapping up

November 8, 2022December 6, 2022 mary v.

I’m not done yet!

But I feel like I’m trying to emotionally prepare for it. Good news is there will be plenty of edits ahead of me I’m sure teheh. And it’s gonna be extra tedious since I wrote both of the last two parts without editing!

But I love them all so much and I’m sad already to be moving toward the first of the last two (large) scenes

Which of course culminate in A WEDDING EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Gotta throw in one of the OG couple pics of Andrew and Micah from Code: Compromised

An unexpected scene led to Andrew getting a concussion which was very goofy but potentially insensitive to the seriousness of concussions