Still Water and Abject Terror

Some sketches done in between bouts of tossing B into pits of toxic waste in Portal 2.

B's mage and Ismial being cute.

Even sorceresses that waste legions of humans for kicks have to start somewhere.

...even if they do end up freaking out from time to time.

Unnatural History

As chance would have it, I found myself doing a spot of character creation the other day. A story-telling sort of chap, and the equivalent of a walking history book.

Didn't much like his clothes here; made him look too monkish with the staff factored in.

Fur lining, armwarmers, and sepia make everything better.

And for kicks, here's a commission from last week. Painting greyish skin without it looking sickly is tricksy.

Rebooting the Dragon, part the third

More prodding at Mikala...

...and a little something drawn to relax after beating my head against the above painting for hours at a space.

I finally found the Lab colour slider in Photoshop, and used it for some of the background. It may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Rebooting the Dragon, part the second

This painting is turning out to be a touch out of character for Mikala, since there isn't actually any artifice in his expression at all.

And for kicks, his sister being obnoxious. And Faenori's brother. I'm making this into lineart, but not liking the results thus far.

And a tiefling. Because I can.

God, I hate warlocks...

Actually, I don't--I have one, that being Ismial's sister--but my main in WoW is a mage, so one must keep up appearances, yes? You know how it is; you're strolling along, discussing Thalassian politics with a colleague, and all of a sudden some smartass warlock's pet demon is chewing on you.

Something for two friends. The felhunter gnawing on Anasyan's robe is by far my favourite part. Who knew something with no eyes could look so freaking happy?

Oh, and seriously? Don't ask about the dead fish. I don't want to know either.

Rebooting the Dragon

Pecking away at the drawing of Mikala. Still needs backlighting and some shading on the background, but the underpainting is almost done. If not for Myn's timely suggestion of a night sky background for the windows, I'd likely still be beating my head against backlighting him with a snowy daytime sky and swearing a lot.

 

It looks as though his fate has taken a turn for the less crunchy in Tea and Sorcery, primarily because I was more than a little put out at how much wasted potential the original setup involved. He and Lady Kos managed to form an odd rapport that dealt with their respective grievances quite nicely--roughly 20 hours before they were both slated to die. I ended up changing that--not because I dislike killing characters, but because I would have been right pissed to see a character given a new lease on life and never having the opportunity to use it. Ironic, but wholly unsatisfying.

I did still break quite a few of his bones, though, simply because I'm an ass.

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.

Sidhe Has Too Much Time on Her Hands

Dug up from the Steamwick Library employee files:

And I felt like scribbling something this afternoon. Not work-safe until I actually draw her some effing armour (for the moment, I think it'd be a bloody shame to cover it up).

I am horribly rusty. I also picked up Starcraft 2 the other day, so the odds of me cleaning off said rust are marginally worse than a snowflake's chance in hell. Whee!

The Xaotician Revisited, part the third

NSFW, as with the previous versions.

On a completely unrelated note, I have a box of vanilla bean latte cookies and am most assuredly not sharing.

Playing God, part the third

...and this little piggy wasn't going to be anywhere near the focus of the image, so the slackass artist left it in a state of half-paintedness.

Playing God (and catching up)

From a week or so ago, my two current painterly projects:

And some further progress on the mechanymph:

Currently cannot be bothered to take pictures of jewelery, but there are a few new ones waiting in the wings. Beyond that, I managed to singe my shoulders--further proof that the sun is, in fact, trying to kill me--at a wee mediaeval festival. All in the name of looking preposterous, of course...

...despite the fact that I look about as mediaeval as my mother, there. I suppose I could have ad-libbed something about time-traveling aether pirates, but thankfully, no one seemed to notice.

I keep thinking his mic needs a matching chain coif.

And lastly, since I've been working on Tea and Sorcery lately, I leave you with this:

--

“Now,” Mikala said in a low voice, feeling exceedingly awkward as he shifted his burden about, “how do you plan on getting rid of the body?”

“Well, how did you get rid of the one you killed?”

“Would you believe ‘swept up the pieces and put them in the rubbish bin’?”

Lady Kos sighed. “Never mind that, then. Do you know of a place that sells lye at this hour?”

“To a pair of guilty-looking magi carrying a corpse-sized bundle? No.”

"I didn't sign on for this crap!"

Mikala Quethalis, for those who don't know him too well, is a silver dragon disciple. In essence, this is someone who has a teeny wee bit of draconic blood in the family tree (and knowing silver dragons and mortals, that seemed the most fitting species), who has focused their efforts upon bringing that heritage out.

When I played him in Winter's D&D game, he was just shy of halfway through the process, having grown several fangs and some talons, and developed some exceptionally hard and slightly metallic skin. Nothing too terribly exotic, unless you count having breath that could -literally- kill someone. In Tea and Sorcery, he had grown vestigial wings.

As I've chosen to write it, however, that apotheosis cannot be stopped at a convenient level of pretty.* The vain mage has made his bed and now he's just going to have to lie in it.

Let's not talk about how screwed up that hand was, though.

*It actually did during Tea and Sorcery, but I don't think he'd be terribly happy about that, given the reasons.

Playing God

This is the 'underpainting' for what will probably be entered into a contest on the subject of science fiction/fantasy mixes. I have much leftover loathing for the blending of the two from my younger days (though subgenres have done much to soften my heart; goodness knows I prefer my steampunk with a very hefty dose of fey), but the subject immediately had me thinking of Herr Drosselmeyer's Doll, minus the licentious overtones.

Plus, you know, any opportunity to cross-dress as a slightly mad scientist is a good one.

The Xaotician Revisited, part the second

My muse is joyriding me around the Photoshop workspace. Giggling.

The Xaotician Revisited

A sketchy re-visitation of one of the first pictures I did with my tablet, way back. It still gets the occasional drive-by +favourite over at DA, which I assume is largely due to the fact that Ms. Kos doesn't happen to be wearing much of anything in it.

Not that that's changed or anything.