The holiday season is upon us! I mean, we kicked it off a little early since we slaughtered Bennie last week (still working through the meat), but now everyone else is getting into it too.
This weekend I'm just prepping to go up north. Ebina is basically better, just being finicky now, so I had to order some kidney safe soft food from the vet to mix with her food and rice (and in the soft food you can see the rice, so she's eating exactly what I feed her just wet and ground up mixed with the non-wet and non-ground up 🙄). She'll probably sleep downstairs with Fifer since the heat is on. I have the heat set to 65 upstairs since the kotasu futon is really hot. Fifer can't stand it which is why she now sleeps downstairs. Ebina just tries to fuse with me. I could go colder too, but then she'd really be a nightmare. But, anyway, I got to get the upstairs cleaned up before I go so it's nice when I come back. I had it all vacuumed and nice he other day, but I got this psycho dog that ran up there with muddy feet and... yeah. Also have to re-wash some stuff.
I brought winter clothes to Latvia, washed them when I got back, and only wore a sweater to two since, but it just feels like they need to be washed again. Like... they got stale sitting in the closet. Which... I opened my suitcase and found all my dresses from the opera house visits still inside. 😬
So, Monday there is a Manga Monday (thanks to @thewildfire for pointing out the scheduled tab thing, I was able to check the date). I haven't had time to record the two others I had planned to record before I left, so there won't be another MM until Dec. 12th. I wanted to have stuff scheduled so the page was updating with some regularity while I was gone since I might not bring a laptop, but... I jumped the gun a bit with the hero forge figures 😅. There's still three scheduled for next week and two for the following week. Who knows. Maybe I'll find time to do more over the weekend. My computer hates the site really bad. (Yeah, I did start saving for an actual computer to go upstairs that'll run detailed websites and games, because this is getting annoying, lol. I just want to be able to play Skyrim sometimes.)
Ebina is also going to the groomer on Monday. I'm guessing I'll have a tagalong, but I could get lucky.
Have a good weekend! Any plans? Last minute prepping?
I've been thinking more about Mioko as I continue the rewrite, and heres a bit of the process of discovering if I need to (gasp) change his name!
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In the video I forgot: Mioko's sister is now named Haru 😁
I also forgot to mention that some of the coolest bits in keeping his name the same is that one of the possible meanings of his name is "waterway" or "channel" which goes really well with his connection to the sea/the fae and his channeling of their power. So yeah!
HEY LOOK I finally recorded something again. It's audio only since I was driving... ha
But basically, I'd been tossing around new thoughts for Mioko's backstory (how he becomes bound to the crystal) and in the time it took for me to get to record this, I made up my mind on which route I wanted to take. It's kinda rambly, and there are car noises, but it's not bad! I may have to do more like this.
I talk around this in ep. 15 and mention it in the second intermission story spitballs. Time for research; here comes the marriage pool episode.
Who has dressed you in strange clothes of sand?
Who has taken you far from my land?
Who has said that my sayings were wrong?
And who will say that I stayed much too long?
Clothes of sand have covered your face
Given you meaning, taken my place
So make your way on down to sea
Something has taken you so far from me...
Nick Drake, Clothes of Sand
The haunting mood and lyrics of this song begged me to draw Sapphyre for it years ago. It fit her story of being taken away as a human and returned as a mermaid (aka... clothes of sand!). My first attempt in pencil was intricate and detailed, but I was never quite as happy with the more overhead/head on angle.
When I rediscovered the original drawing while scanning in some older pieces, and I decided now was the time to try drawing it again. I drew it digitally and tried a different angle, and at last, I have a piece I am proud of!
They added clydesdales to Hero Forge, so I upgraded Ember! And of course, you can't have Ember without Gemini 💙
“Courage friends,” came Prince Rillian’s voice, “whether we live or die, Aslan will be our good lord.”
- C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair
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I an continuing through The Chronicles of Narnia, and they are such interesting books. C.S. Lewis is such a clever writer, creating books that can be understood as children and continue to grow in meaning for adults. And if you're a Christian, the symbolism and parallels with Christianity are very powerful.
So, of course I wanted to draw Aslan, and I wanted to make sure I got his splendor in all the waves of his mane. Wisps of magic and power flow, and the light itself is created in his step.
The amount of layers and layer blend modes I used in this one is insane... but it came out exactly like I had hoped :)
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"Are-are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.
"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a ...
I have no idea what to call these anymore lol
In 2006, Wildcard happened! Finally a use for the random instrument choices lol. While I did write them into forming a band in the first draft of book 1, I removed it because it just seemed weird. Mioko still has his flute, and Ace still plays guitar, but forming a whole band is no longer happening canonically.
What ended up "spinning off" Wildcard into a modern band setting was a web forum where we all shared stories and wrote crossovers with each other. One guy had a band called The Outcasts (which was made up of mostly Disney animals) and Wildcard went touring with them.
See? Adorable lol. From an artistic/character design lens, I was still not quite there with different body types. Everybody's just super skinny at a different height, heh. It was still only 2006 tho.
And in 2007 they had matching shirts?? Absolutely adorable lol. Side note I forgot I designed their logo and it's actually still really dang awesome. You can't really see the whole thing but it's a spade on one side and a guitar on the other and "strings" between. Snazzy.
Modern Crusaiders, December 2008
Getting back to the main story, this was both a way to make a cool group shot and also try out new outfits. Always really liked this one; I have a digital version too somewhere.
Angel of the Odd, September 2006
Out of order, but I forgot this one also started off as pencil. I think this was the first drawing of Ed ever; his appearance was loosely based on Steve Balsamo from Eric Woolfson's POE musical, and his outfit similar to what I wore in the old The Raven video me and my brother did in the olden days of YouTube lol. I kept the two-winged motif as tattoos on his back.
It's the knights! The jousting tournament story is one of my favorites, and it really ends up being a pivotal moment for a lot of characters now, so that's cool. Ace tries really hard... and looks so out of place lol.
There's no date on this one but I assume it's around the same time. You get 'em, Sir Gallagher!
