Curios and Trinkets, part the thirteenth

Spring is a good way off, yet, so I finally snapped and set up the camera indoors to take care of the jewelery backlog. I think that when I finally go back to using the logs in the backyard, I'm going to have to find some way of getting the camera closer to the surface as I did this time. The little details actually show in this batch. Brace yourselves for spam!

Copper and Czech glass. The chain for this particular one was done by a neophyte smith from Gimli (and at the time I purchased it, had been housing a Mjollnir that I wanted to put on a leather cord and send to B for his birthday).

Gunmetal, adventurine, candy jade, and some silverplated brass.

Brass and glass.

Another attempt at catching a character in a necklace. This one was Ismial, the priest that gets all misty-eyed at the thought of messing with complex machinery. Brass and some sort of agate.

Copperplated brass. And springs!

There was at least one mortal maiden out there who was into taming unicorns for the ivory, rather than any interest in the whole magical pony thing. Brass, mystery stone, and some Sculpey.

Gunmetal and some smoky blue-brown mother of pearl beads.

Silverplated brass and some vitrail Swarovskis. They barf rainbows.

Silverplated brass and candy jade.

Silverplated brass and matte crab agate.

You have no idea how tired I am of typing 'silverplated brass'. Also dyed quartz.

Brass and dyed imperial jasper.

Shrinky Dinks, fossil stone, and silverpl--ARGH!

Brass and moss agate.

Brass and a crapload of crab agate.

Glass and dear god I don't want to say it again.

Copperplated brass, candy jade, and crab agate.

Gunmetal and glass. I've had that pendant for well over a decade; the fact that it was billed as a Sidhe knot made it utterly irresistible to me.

A stardial, which Astreja got me for Christmas (I suspect Ms. Kos was using me as a proxy when I requested it). I recently got around to taking it off the silk cord it came on and putting it on something more fitting.

Brass and crab agate.

Brass and crab agate. Again!

And lastly... brass, dyed imperial jasper, serpentine, and a wee bitty bottle.

Various Breeds of Darkness

I am a criminally neglectful blogmother. I disappear for weeks at a time and then toss it a few sketches before wandering off again, rather than spending time with it. No wonder it's doing so poorly in school.

...excuse me. The Society for Humane Treatment of Metaphors is on the phone, and they don't sound happy with me.

Stuff for Myn! Apparently a bunch of UF/paranormal romance authors decided to make little trading cards to hand out as novelties, so here are four to go with A Brush of Darkness. And since I rather liked that last one...

The sketch that became Brystion's card was originally meant as counterpoint to Hecari, and that ended up going full circle after I'd finished the cards.

(Coincidentally, in the realm of awesome things I did not expect to happen in my lifetime, 'Mebrit momentarily appearing in a published novel' can now be scratched off that list.)

Retooling a sketch of Mikala Quethalis from the beginning of 2006. It seems mildly absurd that he's been around for nearly six years.

And noodling around a bit more. He looked vaguely malevolent when I first started painting in the shadows, but apparently somewhere along the line, I hurt his feelings.

Most of these things were done because I'm procrastinating wildly with regard to another painting, but maybe I'll go into that one later.

Defrosting

Am altogether too cold, but have more beads. Cannot decide if I should set out some velvet and catch up on necklace pictures, or wait until spring so I can use the logs as a backdrop.

Yes, I realise that I could just brush the snow off and set up regardless, but it's something like -35 with the windchill and I have not completely lost my mind. Yet.

Anaquiel says, "Be my valentine or I'll break you in half, you sissy wizard."

Ismial and his megalomaniacal sister.

In retrospect, given that I tend to warp the "cute monster girl" trope and use it primarily on male characters, yet when it comes to decorating a face with scars I only seem willing to do so on females... somewhere, there's a second-rate armchair psychologist who'd have a field day with this nonsense.

An Absent Shadow

While I was prodding away at Tea and Sorcery the other day, something occurred to me: Mikala is simply not Mikala without a psychopath in a cage.

The character is many things: a sorcerer, a generally unapologetic womanizer, a peacockish fop, and a deeply benevolent and steadfast creature. That last bit is having some difficulty showing itself as compared to the way I wrote him in the game he was originally from; in it, he spent a great deal of time being toyed with by an extremely charismatic and plaintive murderer whose prison wagon he was escorting. This was made all the more entertaining by Mikala's personal faith, as he follows a god that stands for compassion and forgiveness--but has no tolerance for evil acts.

While there's certainly a malevolent antagonist in Tea and Sorcery, Mikala's had very little contact with him outside of a very civil meeting in which he had no idea what the bastard was up to, and without an opposing force to bring out his less frivolous side, he's not half as much fun to work with.

Ah, well. At least I know how to get under his skin.

"You make a very compelling case and I find it impossible to convince myself 

that you're lying, but oh sweet Bahamut get this lunatic away from me!"

Lifeblood

A sketch from a few weeks ago.

It's highly tempting to make a list of Things That Actually Cause Ms. Kos to Crack a Smile:


Kittens? No.
Being followed around by a flirtatious dragon-disciple? No.
Taking a shot to the arm and contemplating how best to maim the offending party? Yes.

Hecari, part the second

And done.

I started prodding at a sketch from 2006 yesterday, but I cannot decide who these two should be yet. I don't have many robe-wearing blokes in my head, and the only one that springs to mind is lacking in the lady-friend department.

Hecari

As I've likely mentioned in the past, an infrequent hobby of mine is tinkering around with The Sims 2. Armed with a truly alarming quantity of custom content, I constructed all manner of pretty beasties, approximately 98% of which had either pointed ears or horns. One of said pretty beasties was Hecari.

I remember very little about her and have no idea where I put her (or my game disk, for that matter), but dammit if she didn't look good, so I'm drawing someone that looks suspiciously similar to her.