Hi blog! I have been very distracted and consumed for the five or so weeks since joining a writer discord server which has propelled me into the writing world in an exciting, but overwhelming way. I’ve gotten three critique partners who are blazing through my work and responding to it in the way I always hoped readers would respond to Andrew and Micah and co.
I also found an absolutely phenomenal typographer who’s been working with me to decorate Deny Me, The Nightshade Boy‘s cover.
Um, also, I don’t know that I’ve announced on DIC that Deny Me is the final name of the book? The trilogy is:
Deny Me, The Nightshade Boy Relinquish Me, Your Broken Knight Promise Me, Lord Heartwood
Overall I’ve been happily committed to my self-publishing route, but I’m also looking at indie presses going…if they would pay for printing, is that so bad…?
I’ve really hit my stride with Twitter and I’m happy with my growth trajectory within the writing community. I wanted to write my numbers but it feels lame, even though it seems like for unagented writers that I’m hitting the Sweet Spot for good engagement and a sense of community.
I’ve also been working on lots of promo art and just ordered some acrylic pins and glitter stickers this morning of Micah looking ADORABLE
But I had to neglect Andrew during this round and that makes me sad because he turned out SO SWEET
Anyway these will be fun to display for Super Stories next month.
My discord server was pretty jazzed about Pride Month starting yesterday. I’d already decided I wanted to make Pride-themed stickers for my cast but yesterday I got the itch to just start a full-scale drawing of them and add them with their lil Pride flags. It led to some interesting discussions regarding Micah since he evades any sexuality identification for all of The Heartwood Trilogy. There’s an undefined sexuality flag, and a couple of clients and I thought that there was a flag with question marks, but when deciding Micah’s design re: flags it ended up being the snappiest just to do a queer rainbow flag.
Sam is a favorite among my readers so I was excited to include him in this. Just so weird since he’s the only new character in the cast!
I was also yearning for the beach so I made this painterly one of Andrew and Micah looking super queer, and also because I’m obsessed with bucket hats rn because I drew a pfp for one of my readers (Olive!) and they were wearing one and I fell in love hehe.
And yes, I did draw Micah’s rig too exaggerated the first time and had to shrink it ehehehe.
We’re re-watching New Girl (again) and my first CP Vic loves New Girl too so I ended up turning Andrew into this Nick Miller quote hehe.
I want to release bookmarks as a bonus for preordering so I cooked up this whimsical magical beauty.
So yeah, as you can see, my focus right now is on promotional work for DENY ME, but I’m excited by how good a lot of the stuff looks.
I tried to force it on darker stuff but it didn’t work, so I started a drawing yesterday to practice on fine lineart and ended up putting a line from one of the new Fall Out Boy songs in it BECAUSE OF COURSE
The new All Time Low album comes out in TWO. HOURS. and then the new FOB album comes out next Friday and I. CAN’T. AHHHHH
Like literally how could they do this to me I’m not going to emotionally be able to handle myself O.O
Micah lookin’ real fruity
Mm okay so I ordered a print of that painting I did of Andrew a few weeks ago and didn’t wrap my head around the dimensions and
it turns out I ordered a POSTER SIZED PRINT of him ahhahhaha I love it and it’s really intense
My office has an A-frame ceiling and I posed with him tonight and then found out how creepily he lines up for a bad under-chin selfie with me so, you know. Weird times. Bit surreal. My handsome gay.
He wasn’t a leprechaun until I showed Ryan and asked him what the outfit sans vest looked like (Five, from Umbrella Academy) and he said the Lucky Charms leprechaun so now I can’t unsee it
But anyway his Pocket Gay is pretty cute
I was thinking about the Andrew doll and it occurred to me tonight that I was thinking about a really old Danyil/Erik/Eripmav doll and so I dug it up out of my drive and it turns out THERE WAS ONE OF MICAH TOO
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 NOWAfter 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 hahalike 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
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
i added some lovely lines and it makes me happythis fine line portrait turned out soooo preeeettyWOLFGANG AND SHIN AS HIGH SCHOOL SWEETIES GAHHHthis 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.