Book launch: Vid:ilantes book 2 – Bloodbound

I’m so excited to announce that the second Vid:ilantes book is live!

One by oath, one by blood, one by election.

In a world of superheroes, Jayesh has a rare healing power that he uses in the local hospital. When teenagers are admitted with feather-patterns burned into their backs, Jayesh is reluctantly drawn into the underworld of black market magic smuggling.
A chance encounter with Omniscient, the villain in charge of the smugglers, leaves Jayesh with his magic shattered. A portal to the hospital goes wrong and Jayesh is instead sent to an island in another dimension: an island that has awaited its Bloodbound for centuries. In exchange for healing, he is magically bound to the island, and half his magic is turned into a tiny dragon.
Now, with the help of the Islesworn, James Chase, Jayesh must go undercover to recover the mysterious Pandora. But this means facing off with Omniscient, a villain who can bring a person’s fears to life—and who is increasingly ruled by his own power.

Grab it here!

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This is one of those stories that was just so much fun to write. Jayesh is the gentle, quiet, introverted type, very much a healer. And he goes and gets himself into very hot water, just because of trying to do the right thing. I wrote it as an escape, mostly, so all the parts where he hangs out on the island Sanctuary, just walking on the beach or resting, were because I wanted to go to a place like that, myself. I hope readers enjoy the visit as much as I did. I’m already messing with a followup because I just can’t leave this universe alone.

The third book in the trilogy will take it full circle and plug everything into the After Atlantis trilogy. Tane might even appear in Bloodbound. Everybody from After Atlantis will meet up with the Vid:ilantes, and things are going to get really crazy.

Progress on Max and Jay pic

Since I have a few nice progress shots of this pic, I thought I’d share them and show how this pic got started.

Max: She’s gone. I just can’t get past it.
Jayesh: You have to move on, man.

This is the finished pic. I really had fun with the smoky bar atmosphere, and I looked at a lot of bar and grill interiors on Google. They all seem to have the earth tones and low lighting in common. (Heck, I wouldn’t mind having lunch in some of those places. Some of them were really cute.)

Anyway, since I couldn’t find reference of the exact poses I wanted, I posed some of the 3D models in Clip Studio Paint.

It’s a painstaking process, getting the limbs and hands and heads and everything positioned just right. But it’s sure a lot faster than combing Google for somebody sitting in kind of the right position, then the arm doesn’t come out right and you can’t quite fix it because you can’t see it and just … argh.

Next comes the sketch:

Here’s the initial sketch, tracing over the models, adding clothes and gear, hair, faces, etc. The models are a nice shortcut, but I have to look up how to draw eyes every single time. Eyes, why are you so hard to draw?

I’m also trying to draw with more expressive hands, since human beings talk with their hands as much as they do their faces. I was pretty proud of the way the hands convey each character’s mood, here.

I guess I skipped taking a screencap of the inking stage, but you can see it here. My inking isn’t that great because I’m too impatient. So I went straight into making a value study. I wanted my characters to be sitting under one of those lights above the bar, with a darker background. Then I had to figure out what that kind of lighting does to the human face, so I had to go find reference for that. This took a lot longer than I expected, but it made the final version go much faster.

Some of the value study, I just painted over with a color set on Overlay and let the study show through. Other parts I repainted entirely because the study was messy. Since I am abysmal at drawing mechanical things like cups and bottles, I just grabbed some off Google and painted them into the scene.

This pic took me most of the week, so that’s all I have to show off. See you next week!

Sketching hands

I sketched a lot this week, rather than really finish much. I’m trying to get better at using hands to emphasize expressions.

Concept art for Vid:ilantes 2. I needed to draw the wyvern, since he’s kind of important, and of course any excuse to draw Jayesh is fine with me. I also wanted to try a Studio Ghibli style for the background. Landscapes in Studio Ghibli films always have

1. Puffy clouds,

2. Deep blue skies

3. Green landscapes with a complementary undercolor,

4. Flowers,

5. Often a picturesque cottage of some kind.

Well, I put in everything but the cottage, but I might try that in a later pic. This was just a speedpaint, and I left a lot of things undefined.

And now, the sketches:

I really tried to convey the sense of the scene with the hands, here. Max is saying, “She’s gone. I just can’t get past it.” And Jayesh is saying, “You have to move on, man.” The hands are instrumental in conveying their expressions, here. I’d like to finish this one up, even if all I do is ink it. Love my Destiny characters. And their hair. So much fun to draw their hair.

My husband has been getting into Warhammer: Age of Sigmar lately (I blame you, Jeff!). He’s teaching the kids to build models with the eventual intent of playing the game, but you need a ton of minis to even play a small battle. Anyway, there’s these creatures called gryph-hounds, which are like griffins, except eagle/grayhound instead of eagle/lion. I have been amused by the mental image of the warrior dudes petting their hounds and going, “Who’s a good boy?” I mean, somebody has to train these beasts and give them treats when they kill people. 😀

And that’s all for this week. It’s been really relaxing to just do quick sketches and not worry so much about finishing things, so I’m hoping to do more of that this week.

Wizards and critters artwork

I tried to make more art this week, but it’s been kind of hit and miss.

Here’s a Destiny warlock with a bearded dragon, kind of keeping with the pets theme from last week, of the guy with the sun conure. I forgot how much I enjoy drawing reptiles.

This pic started out as anatomy practice in a kind of fun pin-up pose. But anatomy is hard and I got frustrated, so I turned her into a Dawnblade. I also found a really cool fire brush in Clip Studio Paint that does perfect fire feathers. More practice is needed.

And then sometimes, you just have to draw dinosaurs. Dinos have always kind of been my comfort subject, so last night was just this fun scribble.