Month: August 2011

Don’t shoot

For some reason, I hear the dragon saying in a British accent, “Blimey, I think they’re going to shoot me!”

My grasp of anatomy, poses, and the structure of a humanoid cat-person are tenuous at best. I was just trying to capture the feeling of the situation.

One of these days I’m going to have to actually draw something worthy of coloring.

Space/world ship

This is a concept sketch of the Gravitrix, an inter-dimensional ship that jumps from world to world via the power of gravity. Traveling on it isn’t much fun because of the nasty G-forces you get during transit.

It’s been described as a mushroom and a ‘UFO on a stick’. It’s flying over one of the shattered continents of Tyrona.

Revi and the rue

Concept art for a story I’m working on.

Revi watched the reflection of the evening sky glimmer on the water, and sighed. The movement of the water was tranquil and repetitive, making no demands on her psyche. For a while she stood, gazing over the water at the distant horizon beyond the trees, drinking in the solitude.

Finally she turned to retrace her steps, and froze.

A huge black thing also froze in mid-step in creeping up behind her, and they stared at each other. It was about twenty feet away. The black thing stood man-high, and reminded her of a gorilla. A vast, black gorilla on all fours with a long, lithe body. She made out the gleam in its eyes and nothing else. No other features in the black. But it had wicked long claws on its forefeet.

Kid sketches

I need to work on my figure drawing, so I started trying to draw the munchkins as they were playing.

The trouble is, they noticed I was drawing them and wanted to watch.

This is great practice, though. I think I’ll keep doing these. Well, as long they don’t keep trying to watch. :-p

Racing centaur

I guess the Secretariat movie really got my brain back into race horse gear. I grew up reading (and rereading and rereading) the Black Stallion series, so I have all this race horse stuff waaaay deep in the subliminal parts of my brain.

So here’s a pre-race centaur, wearing his silks and having a mug of coffee or tea.

So now I have this itch to come up with a fantasy version with racing centaurs. They’d run horse-style races, and have the speed ones and the jumping ones and all those different horse-type events, but the centaurs themselves would be more like athletes. They’d do commercials and fish for sponsors and be all about the exercise and the diets and the vitamins (and there’d be drug and steroid scandals).

Except they’re, you know, centaurs.

And now I want to draw a centaur at a farrier, getting his shoes done, while he reads a newspaper. XD

Referred to this horse tutorial for reference.

Writing characters

I can’t write plots. I write characters.

I have to have characters that I can ponder, and mull over, and analyze. Characters who I want to spend time with, because, let’s face it, writing a story means spending six months to a year with these people talking in my head. I’d better like them an awful lot.

Writing fanfic was easy, because all the characters and world were pre-built. I was just writing my own spin on it all, and it was great fun. But lately I’d begun to chafe at the restraints of fanfic. If you venture too far from the characters or setting, it’s not fanfic anymore (or you’re accused of writing Mary Sue).

My husband has an original modern fantasy universe that he’s been messing with for years (I’ve written in it before). I’m working on my third story in his universe. It’s way better than writing fanfic. For one thing, even though I’m using his characters, they’re his, no one else’s. They’ve lived in his head for so long that they have a second room in my head, too.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to sum each of them up in 1 word. It’s a fun game to play, and see if we both come up with similar words for the same characters.

Carda: Cocky
Xironi: Responsible
Jake: Focused
Revi: Conflicted
Deirdre: Angry
Charr: Grumpy
Eddie: Humble
Dusk: Cheerful
Seamus: Handy

The bad guys:

Spectre: Paternal
Ghost: Crafty
Shade: Quiet

The trouble is, this third story is starting to need a Big Bad. Not the Biggest Bad (aka the Voldemort), but more of a Head Baddy who hired on the Bad Guys. I just don’t know who it is yet. I love making bad guys, and I hate it, too. Because this bad guy has to take up residence in my head along with the good guys, and if I build this bad guy right, I’m going to despise him.