I’ve been beating my head against a commission this week. Around the edges, I drew some cute, fluffy things:
The first Sonic characters I ever invented back when I was like 14, and they are also the most visually boring. And the same color, lol. Still, people on deviantart were happy to see them, which surprised me.
Kari and Jayesh flirting at breakfast. They don’t even notice the tiny dragon about to steal the coffee.
My lightning super and healing/fire super from my Vid:ilantes books. They’ve been dragging out this relationship for three books now, and it’s about time they put up or shut up, if you know what I mean. 😀 It’s finally 2021 so I can finally publish some more of their books. Next project: Book cover art!
One thing about videogames is that sometimes they offer up a tantalizing paragraph of story that just begs to be expanded.
I did that with this little dialogue snippit from a recent quest in Destiny 2: Beyond Light. This is from the Hawkmoon quest, when Crow is telling you about the various keepsakes he’s stashed away in his lair.
Here’s the sketches:
Most of the work happened in the sketch stage, really. Painting it was just putting meat on the bones. I could have made it look even nicer if I’d had more time, but alas, I had to paint as fast as I could for an hour and a half and that was al the time I had.
I love doing comics like this. I hope I can do some more soon.
Just a smattering of artwork this week. I’ve been working on a commission and haven’t had time for much personal stuff. Here’s one where I was concepting my heroes as kids. Too much time spent looking at the sketches for the Valiard Mansion, a graphic novel that never got released.
I wanted to draw more Sonic the Hedgehog art this year, so here’s a fan character:
Zephyer
She made my Sonic fan followers very happy this morning. 😀
2020 was quite a ride, wasn’t it? At the beginning of the year, I decided to take the Publishing 12 Books in 12 Months challenge. I had a baby due in June, so I figured that I would be doing really well to publish 6 books. I wound up publishing 5 books and a novel-length fanfic, so I figured that counted. Here are the books:
They’re all the same series. I have to figure out how to have the Vid:ilantes series labeled as happening inside the After Atlantis series. You’ll notice that Guardian’s Vow is book 2. I redid the cover for book 1 when I launched the paperback:
Once I had the baby, my writing mojo went out the window, of course. I wrote a few very short fanfics because fanfics are easy. I also drafted all of the next Vid:ilantes book, where the HeroTubers meet up with the characters from the After Atlantis trilogy. It’s still in edits, and I’m hoping to launch it late January or early February.
My goals for 2021 are to write one more book. And one more. And one more. I don’t have a set number. But I’m halfway through writing the book after the next book, so that’s at least two books for 2021 already. Maybe this year I can actually get some advertising traction so folks will hear that this series exists. It’s superheroes who film their own exploits and put them on HeroTube for those sweet ad clicks. And everybody’s powers come from Atlantis, which sank and is a modern-day island chain visited by tourists and cruise ships. It’s terrific fun, and I can’t wait to write more.
As for resolutions, my only resolution is to write and improve my writing, and to continue to improve my artwork by studying fundamentals. We’re hoping to move sometime in 2021, so I’m not planning anything beyond that. Moving is a brain-suck, just as much as having a baby. I’m going to keep on posting my weekly art blogs, with the occasional opinion piece here and there.
Speaking of art, here is a Destiny Christmas art, which I finished on New Year’s Eve:
A warlock takes his daughter to the City to see the decorations.
And that’s my very simple goals for next year. Let’s make it a good one!
K. M. Carroll, Author 