Art, Heart & Words
I have been complaining about un-M/Aing their character design for weeks but I think I’ve mostly done it! Nico took a bit more work after this but I think I got him there.
I did a REALLY GOOD first kiss drawing of them though at least in terms of the color
Next I want to make an Outfits page for Alister cuz he a Q-T
THIRTEEN YEARS AGO I guess I had just started Sun-Walking, so I guess even without participating in NaNoWriMo (recently exposed as harboring a moderator who was grooming teen writers so I’m fucking out), November has always been a productive writing month.
I’m 40,000 words 55,000 words! into my latest project which is a huge departure from the type of storytelling I’ve done before. It’s first person with three distinct POVs, and I’m 40k in but not even at the third act yet. I’m pretty excited, it’s looking like a great great story with some of the tightest and best writing I’ve ever done. It certainly shows the effects of being actively engaged in the writing community for the last nine months, and this is just a first draft. I’m feeling a bit frustrated that I set out with the intention to tell another Andrew/Micah story because the MCs are not ENTIRELY like that but they’re certainly somewhat parallel and related, which makes me just feel like I wasn’t able to write new characters. Even though that’s not true, because the gryphon in said gryphonWIP is nothing like Solveig (or Fionna), the little sister is brand new, as are all of the characters in the city. It’s really just Alister and Nico who have some overlap with Andrew and Micah’s dynamics, but not a lot. I’m working really hard to uncleave them from any other characters which ended up meaning Alister’s ash blond haha.
I made it to 50k WITHIN November (I did 5k before the start of the month) and I’m so proud. I’m about to tie up Act II and the slow burning shitheads FINALLY kissed.
Oh yeah here’s new Lucienne > Claire
Time for seasonal art! Yay! We love seasonal art! Go go go! AUTUMN! LILYDALE IN COLOR! COZY SWEATERS! SUNFLOWERS!
And gay boy stickers
Andrew’s shoes say Deny Me and Micah’s jeans tag says Lilydale HEHE
Oh my god I forgot about this comic bahahaha
Well, I survived the preorder week of hell and GOT MY PERIOD TODAY which would explain why I was so wretchedly anxious and sad beforehand so that SUCKS.
But now I’m not, even though I had a dastardly day of pitching because I let my dad talk me into trying at Uncle Hugo’s, even though that 70 year old autistic man had NO interest in buying Deny Me hahaha. I mean, actually, Moon Palace was really nice and I’ll probably do some events there next year. And I got to tell my dad all the cool stuff that’s been going on around my release and he wanted me to read some of the awesome reviews I’ve gotten. And of course he’s been very kind about the not-so-awesome reviews I’ve gotten (most of which seem to be for completely individualized reasons which I do of course respect) and talked about.
I got into sticker-making last weekend partly as a means to cope with the wait for my book to come out and also because I decided to take part in a market at Nine Keys Apothecary a few weeks before my book reading there haha. So I was like “ok yeah I can sell my book but bitches love stickers” and…here we are.
So let’s see, I know Next Chapter is going to carry a few of my books, as is The Paperback Exchange. Moon Palace might, and I also emailed them, and Dream Haven, and Next Chapter about events. Tomorrow I’m gonna be on a book podcast!
Oh yeah and The Kiss is gonna be on the cover of a magazine in October??? what the butt
my silly baby boys, look how we fly
Yes I did copy and paste this whole blog post from December but Bestie Vic wanted another Ingrid drawing and then THIS EXPLODED INTO BEING
Ffffff so sexy
Such progress literally I haven’t grown this much as an artist in such a short time in…ever?
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
God I’ve been woefully neglecting this blog because of all the work it is marketing for the book. I keep thinking about it, but talking about my creative work is kind of a chore right now, which makes it feel strange doing it for pleasure.
I’m down to the last few weeks before release though. Today I ordered business cards and I’m planning to start doing some trips to local bookstores to drum up interest for the launch party. My dad was ready to do that for me today but I wanted my whole package ready to bring with me haha.
I just finished up and sent out for printing six tarot cards inspired when I was talking to my friend Taylor who owns a crystal salon. I had her put together some crystals for my raffle box for the launch party and then we got talking about doing a reading there. Which made me want to finally after years of toying with the idea, make some tarot cards. This would not have been possible before I discovered the symmetry tool bahaha.
I don’t even think I had written in here that I updated Lucienne’s name on a whim to Chamomile hahaha. It was when someone typoed her name to Lucien and I realized that not only is it generic these days, it doesn’t really have any bearing in the Lilydale world. I said Chamomile as a joke and then it just kind of brainwormed into my head.
Ummm what else. I got some new secondhand trauma from a client yesterday but on the bright side it very circuitously made me realize that Andrew’s mom was accidentally based on Jamie Lee Curtis in the new Halloween movie. Shrugs. Haha.
Ummm what else
I feel really happy that drooling over The King’s Maker has made me so much better at hands which has allowed me to give Andrew the sexiest goddamn hands ever like whaaat, every single fucking time 10/10 gorgeous motherfucking digits
ok well I’m out of steam so goodnight
Apparently my class was inspiring to me. The first three days this week I worked on this on the projector during Super Stories and I honestly love how it turned out. The color palette is so autumnal and soothing. And the fox turned out hella cute. So did Andrew’s billowy shirt. I’m not crazy about his eyes but if I really wanted to I could just redraw them. But I don’t want to. So whatever. I posted this process video as my first Tiktok too.
My eyes are bleeding from working for so long on the illustrations for Deny Me and I’m over it. So today I took a breather (well, not really, I was just ALSO doing this) and made this per my editor’s behest. She’s my green-skinned baby.
Here’s some old Lucienne for comparison. She’s always been a sensual girl.
Ryan started clanging Fae-themed puns at dinner yesterday, so I made a drunk Andrew thing.
This gets its own post since it’s too cute not to post.
