Art!, MicahxAndrew, Original Characters, The Heartwood Trilogy, Writing Journey, Writing!

Updates & Pride Month

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.

Art!, MicahxAndrew, Original Characters, The Heartwood Trilogy

better vibes

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.

Art!, MicahxAndrew, Myoku Needs a Tag, The Heartwood Trilogy

leprechaun

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’m sensing another project revolving around the plush lol
Continue reading “leprechaun”
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!, 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. 😀