Welcome, traveller. If you've stumbled across this little corner of LJ, know that you are taking your sanity and your cosy little perspective on the world as you know it in your sweaty hands. Perhaps you'll be able to preserve their integrity; perhaps not. I'm feeling more than a little capricious on this fine summer day: the grass is shining, the sun is green, and the dragons are singing 'Temple of Love' in four-part harmony, so they must be in a good mood.

It takes just a hint of madness to create things. It doesn't matter what one might be creating, anything from computer code to pictures, a character in a play to music, buildings to literary pieces. The act of creation itself is an individual's tiny rebellion, a way of playing god. Deliberately fucking with the fabric of our existance, the world as we know it, reshaping it and leaving our mark for all to see if they but look in the right place.

I have another domain here within the LiveJournal universe. It's quieter there, and more personal. Here, here is where I get to let my inner demon, the crazed madwoman pounding frantically against the cage of my skull, run free. Expect attitude. Expect coarse language. Expect to see things you may not be pleased with. Expect me to not care if you have a problem with this.

The madness necessary for creation is also necessary in order to put those creations on public display. A created thing bears a piece of the creator's soul, no matter how mean the creation. It had to mean something to the creator for them to want to finish it, and they must in some way be proud of it to want to share it with the world. The madness all creators possess is what enables us to accept the barbs and praise aimed at our work with equal dignity, to shoulder the weight of criticism and let it slide off without shattering.

Which means that what will be displayed here will be baring quite a bit of myself for public scrutiny. There will be drawings, paintings, writing and poetry. Works in progress. And musings on the process of creation. It will be far more manic and surreal than what is found at anjylle. It has to be. Some of you will be my friends. Others of you will be utter strangers. As in every new social situation for me, the madness is a comfortable cloak in which to wrap my shyness and cushion my sanity.

How's that for baring one's soul to the public domain? So make yourself at home. Help yourself to a canapé and wander around. It's not as neatly ordered as my home at Midnight Sun, but there will be a few things here which might not be found there,and vice versa.

Been a while, hasn't it? Sorry 'bout that...

I went on a Mighty Quest for the Key of Nap'yer. Short version is that I didn't succeed, but I did find the Key of Tel'frd. Needless to say, I'm rather disappointed, but it may prove to be a blessing in disguise. Time will tell...

In the meantime, this is what I've been spending most of my time toiling over. It'd be helpful to get some opinions (what works, what doesn't, whether there's something that looks a bit 'off', etc).

Through my other journal, I stay in contact with fangs_fur_fey, a community for writers of urban fantasy. Only published authors can post, but we lowly mortals are permitted to read and comment. I've gotten into quite a few fascinating discussions with various people there.

One recent query posted was on the subject of superheroes and if nyone would be interested in reading/attempting to write superhero prose. As in literary format rather than comic books. I got involved -- I adore comic books, but most of the superhero genre just isn't interesting to me. It's hard to sympathise with someone with a secret identity, who is practically invincible and nances around in brightly-coloured Spandex. Amongst ourselves, we came to the conclusion that written superhero fiction would definitely require a shift of many of the old comic book standbys (the cheeze and the ridiculous and utterly contrived plotlines to make up for everything having already been done before, to name a couple) to something more dramatic and more... well, comprehensible. And beefcake/cheesecake is kind of pointless when there're no pictures to look at.

Which means a free-for-all in taking the piss!

swan_tower, unfortunately, inspired me to try my hand at writing superhero urban fantasy...

( Nick of Time, chapter 1 )

It's been a while, hasn't it? The pixies need trimming, it must have been a while.

I've been off on an adventure... well, more of an anticlimax than an adventure. See, there's this place called Steven's Zone. Located in a barren vale where the winds can slice through flesh and the sun rarely breaks through the overcast, Steven's Zone is a tower filled with unspeakable horrors, with torture chambers on every floor and populated by such dire creatures as the Burberry Chav and the PerkySquealy Fashion Zombie.

I wouldn't normally consider entering such a place, but unfortunately it contains something I very much need, the Key of Napier. The Key is highly important to me, and alas! it is not enough to pay a gullible adventurer to retrieve it; one must seek it personally.

Unfortunately, I failed to locate the Key. I uncovered something which may be a Key to something else, but I need to take it to a specialist who can advise me as to its nature. I'm pretty certain it's not quite as precious as the Key of Napier, but it may turn out better in the end, for in using the Key of Napier, I'd be embarking on yet another, longer and far more strenuous Quest.

I've not been slacking off, though. I received a commission which I've been working on steadily.
( Here's a small wip glimpse, if you're interested... )
Sorry it's so big. If you click on it, you may be able to see it a bit smaller...

Because I have a Maths exam at 9 tomorrow morning, I have, of course, been drawing rather than revising.

I now have a rough sketch for that painting I mentioned earlier.
Behold! ( The Pirates! )

I'm debating using that sketch (I rather like the results) or doing a redraw to clean up some of the trouble spots (there aren't many I can see). Definitely going to be a Photoshop job. I'm going to try the same technique I used with the alternative dandy and see how that goes.

(sorry for x-posting)

Been a while, hasn't it? Sorry 'bout that...

( Tears of Stone )

long time, no scribble. I've been busy doing a lot of stuff which I can't in good conscience put online. But here's a small artdump of random things...

( Artdump (3) )

It's been a while. I've been busy with things I'm not permitted to put online right now.

I've been taking a break from game-character designing today.

I'm not quite certain where this one came from.

( the alternative dandy, fashionably dishevelled )

from here

( Charon )

I know that it's not quite true to the mythology, but I've always envisioned Charon as being blind, or at least blindfolded.

Not really certain where this came from. My brain dipped into Greek mythology this morning, and this was the result. Going to do a speed-paint job on it. I'm currently deciding on a colour-scheme, since my other minimalist ones came out so well. Red is clichéd, as is green, and blue to a lesser degree, so I'm debating the remaining options.

Mweh. Finished, finally.




There's only one character shown in the entire comic (believe me, it was a pain trying to vary the angles and even more of a pain getting him to look roughly the same in each shot, but I think I managed alright in the end). His name is Gresh, and like all the other characters (with one or two exceptions; certainly it applies to the major ones), I named him from one of my teachers in school, in particular, my Creative Writing[0] teacher from 10th grade (that'd be about, hmmm, fifth year or so). His initial design was based off lunanocte's unique style (with permission), though the character has undergone some serious development in the last year or so since I started on this thing. It's taken on a life of its own, now, and has both a past and a future which will eventually be filled in.


[0] that was a proper creative writing course, by the way: she ran it like the art classes I used to take and we had tons of freedom to do what we wanted within the framework of the practical activity. The story I was writing as my final project, however, suffered the demise of most of my early work; that is to say, I went back and looked at it a couple years ago, cringed, and deleted it. Utterly irredeemable.

I started Entropy before I knew its name, or that it would go any further than a rather vindictive three-page comic (I'll be uploading that once I've finished the inking). While I was working on the art for the comic, though, other characters -- named, like Gresh, from teachers I had back in school -- began to appear in the back of my head, along with an extended plotline: what happened afterward, what led up to the event in the comic, who Gresh, the only person in that three-pager, is and why he's so bug-fuck crazy. It's reached the point where character development is beginning to occur in the back of my brain, and little bits and snatches occasionally appear in the form of properly written narratives which will probably never enter into the extended comic at all.

Hel is one of those characters who appeared in the first couple weeks, based partly off a random guy I saw in the street one day and partly off my old ShadowRun characters. Well, he's rather more realistic than an rpg character can afford to be, and far more human, as I discovered when this little section scrawled itself out during lunch-break a month or so ago. A sketch of him, plus Zan, can be found here.

( Entropy: Survivors )

Another new piece. It's a speed-arting exercise... I wish all my stuff would go so fast and look as shiny, it can't have taken me more than eight hours in total for this.

( Fighting My Own Reflection )

I took this back in 2002 when I was experimenting with a roll of (expensive, both in itself and to have developed) black-and-white film. It's a drainspout (not a proper gargouille, though) on the side of Gillette Castle in East Haddam, Connecticut.

( The Castle Guardian )