Damn I Am Pretty Art Laboratories

PREVIOUSLY Inktober is a challenge where one inks a sketch once a day for every day in October.  This is my third year on it.  I've found it helpful for building up my own habits.  And, tbh, it's why I draw a thing every day now.  It has a collective effect, albeit glacial in its pace, to improve my art.  I've also decided to do the  official prompt list  too.  It's a creative challenge.  It helps me to draw if I have a puzzle to undo in the process.  Figuring out what "Lost Undead" or "Hidden Undead" will look like, are challenges I find satisfying to attempt. On  twitter  and  instagram  I post these sorts of images every day.  If you are looking for some place to follow and get these in your feed, check those out. NOW Three more of these to go after this week.  Here's the last (full) week of Inktober sketches.  All undead.   I've included deviantart links with these, in case anyone w...

A #Crux story .  Twenty years ago, events rocked the City of Curses.  Maralda had to find out what was happening that Night of Fire, but things got complicated.  It  started here , continued in  Part 2 ,  Part 3 , Part 4  and Part 5 . The western edge of Crux ended in a massive cliff.  The Docks below it had long since taken over the cliff wall.  Cranes, ladders, stairs and all sorts of mechanical works looked busy even during night. But that night, during the Night of Fire, the bright light and smoke changed it in Maralda's eyes.  She, Wish and the talking dead ferret looked down at what Maralda thought had to be some semblance of hell. Gears, smoke, and metal glittered.  They looked infernal.  Like some sort of demonic machine, even though Maralda knew that the smoke and fog only hid the infrastructure of the docks below. "The Unseen Sound,"  Maralda told herself.  The water wasn't the same. She'd seen...

PREVIOUSLY Inktober is a challenge where one inks a sketch once a day for every day in October.  This is my third year on it.  I've found it helpful for building up my own habits.  And, tbh, it's why I draw a thing every day now.  It has a collective effect, albeit glacial in its pace, to improve my art. I've also decided to do the official prompt list too.  It's a creative challenge.  It helps me to draw if I have a puzzle to undo in the process.  Figuring out what "Lost Undead" or "Hidden Undead" will look like, are challenges I find satisfying to attempt. On twitter and instagram I post these sorts of images every day.  If you are looking for some place to follow and get these in your feed, check those out. NOW Too tired to ramble on this one.  Just arts.  Enjoy!

A #Crux story .  Twenty years after events rocked the City of Curses, Maralda has to help fix a problem her sister caused with one of the prime movers of that event, the Night of Fire.  It started here , continued in Part 2 , Part 3 and Part 4 . Ranza is odd.  That isn't a bad thing.  But it still is odd. At a distance, the island looks like a small village.  Forests, fields, and squarish limestone cottages.  Herds of animals.  A massive building dominated the northern part of the island.    Next to that big building lies the airship ferry terminal. The gigantic building confuses one further because it looks like a pub.  Then, as the airship nears Ranza, your sense of scale adjusts. The large pub isn't some bizarre giant temple to some long forgotten god of booze.  No, it is the only normal-sized building upon Ranza.  Everything else is tiny.  Scaled for mice or rodents.  Or for humans the size of such. ...

A  #Crux  tale.   Starting here , Maralda goes over an event that changed the City of Curses. Wish poured dark purple flames into the tiny ferret's form.  Maralda watched, hesitant.  She'd never gotten used to necromancy.  Wish seemed to be a savant at it now. Those purple flames seemed to flow into each blood vessel.  Muscles spasmed.  But it wasn't life. Maralda felt her father's blood in her.  The Inculti part knew what the fire of life was.  This wasn't that.  It wasn't a spark of life.  Wish was pouring more death into the tiny animal.  A semblance of life. Maralda remembered her father's lesson to her on that part of pyromancy.  Fire magick could reignite a still heart, but not a dead heart.  That there was a point where something was more dead than alive.  A point where the fire magick wouldn't bring back life.  It would just begin a charnel fire, turning the corpse into a candle...

PREVIOUSLY Inktober is a challenge where one inks a sketch once a day for every day in October.  This is my third year on it.  I've found it helpful for building up my own habits.  And, tbh, it's why I draw a thing every day now.  It has a collective effect, albeit glacial in its pace, to improve my art.   I've also decided to do the  official prompt list  too.  It's a creative challenge.  It helps me to draw if I have a puzzle to undo in the process.  Figuring out what "Lost Undead" or "Hidden Undead" will look like, are challenges I find satisfying to attempt. On  twitter  and  instagram   I post these sorts of images every day.  If you are looking for some place to follow and get these in your feed, check those out. Also, if you want to support images like this, the stories on this blog and more, check out my   patreon .  It isn't necessary for this stuff, but it'd help with expanding some...

#Inktober has gone well. My theme this year is undead.  Undead because I haven't done a lot of undead in awhile.  I like them as monsters and a theme.  It's been too long.  And Inktober is the perfect excuse for it.   Inktober is a challenge where one inks a sketch once a day for every day in October.  This is my third year on it.  I've found it helpful for building up my own habits.  And, tbh, it's why I draw a thing every day now.  It has a collective effect, albeit glacial in its pace, to improve my art.   I've also decided to do the official prompt list too.  It's a creative challenge.  It helps me to draw, if I have a puzzle to undo in the process.  Figuring out what "Lost Undead" or "Hidden Undead" will look like, are challenges I find satisfying to attempt. On  twitter  and  instagram   I post these sorts of images every day.  If you are looking for some place to follow and get t...

Part three of this tale of fire in #Crux , the City of Curses.  Back twenty years to the future, with Maralda taking her younger sister to apologize to an enigmatic figure called the Delver.  This started here , and continued previously here . We climbed to the top of the Tinkerer's bridge.  Railcars bustled past.  Aethertrains and airships flew by.  I moved to a rail, scanning the Unseen Sound below us. So much had changed in the last twenty years.  So much had happened.  So much had changed. "People really never saw the land across the sound?"  Olain asked.  "It just appeared?  That always seemed..." "A bit much?"  I finished. "I guess so." "I remember when this just was the docks.  And the highest point in the city was that."  I pointed to the clock tower atop the Skullmount.  The first Tinkerer had built it. Before I had been born. For decades it had been the tallest thing one could see.  Bu...

A #Crux tale.  Starting here , Maralda goes over an event that changed the City of Curses.  An old acquaintance gives her an unwanted gift.  Unwanted news comes with it. The spring of 1788 marked a change in the City of Curses.  A night of fire.  A night where the three years of conflict with the Ithish government ended.  Things changed, perhaps for the first time in thousands of years. Knock knock. For Maralda Inculti Tyranus, she remembered it with annoyance.  The Dhampyr bard had been woken up by a knock on her tiny apartment door.  Groggily she got up from where she'd fallen asleep at her desk. Maralda rubbed the streak of ink from her left cheek as she went to the door. Knock knock. "Coming,"  Maralda grumbled.  "I'm coming.  Hold on." She opened the door, stifling a yawn.  The young dhampyr woman had no idea of the time.  But it felt late.  Maralda reached down into her blood.  The raw ...

Olain tossed the book aside.  "You wrote a lot of these." "I still do."  I looked up from my parchment. My younger sister didn't like books.  She didn't like to read.  She tapped her fists on the table. "Olain, you're bored."  I observed.  I would've asked, but I knew that look on her face. "Maralda..."  Olain shrugged.  "I don't know.  Papa keeps insisting I spend time with you." I tried not to grit my teeth at that word.  I distrusted my father.  The Inculti Vampyre seemed to procreate at the same rate only some rodents could match.  Olain, yet another Inculti dhampyr.  One with just the Inculti name, not the Tyranus cognomen. This generation, they seemed to be shaking off the old Tomasi tradition for the sake of something new.   "I've noticed it."  I continued to look over my writing.  Editing.  Proofreading.  My hands looked the same as they always had.  Yet I still for...