Some doodles and designs of the Aconae cast for your viewing pleasure. Incidentally, I would like to mention that my redesign of Icarus has turned him from one of the hardest characters to draw, to one of the most fun. I consider this a triumph.

Have good evening, you all.

Spin.

Above the curly line we have: A new character who is now named and placed, and character who is not mine and has a bad case of skin-rotting-off. Below the curly line we have some feverish sketches detailing a vivid dream I had. Only the last scene and some of the background information stuck, but those were so fascinating that I'm positive there will be a story to come of it.

Thassal for now though~

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Eos belongs to Jordan.

Here we have a weird thing from later in Aconae, a bunny rabbit, and a problem. A good problem this time, as opposed to a distraughting one. This pretty young thing is a combination of recycled designs of which I'm fond, and baseless randomness. Though I adore her appearance, she is currently homeless. I've narrowed the options down to two worlds, and I'm sort of mulling it over. My guess is that she will suddenly pop up in one storyline or another and everything will be set straight from there.

Cheers.

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SO YES apparently I can draw maggots now. They don't look much like real maggots, more like fat little zombie grubs, but hey. And they even have a fungus-zombie to be friends with them~

I've also been reworking the Ilrydikan again. Trying to move their design away from 'generic cat-like hominid'. I've toyed with the idea of giving them horns or antlers for some time now, so here we go. And Patrick now has a tenuous new haircut, which I think I like better. Other than that we have Sasheen, Sasheen's knife, and a somewhat younger version of mister Jrag. This is all.

The maggot loves you.

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Plenty of things today, my hearties!

First is a series of animal sketches that have been hanging around for a couple of weeks. I kind of gave up on the whole thing. Hence the half-bat.

Second is a study of some uniforms from various places, just for future reference. They always give me trouble when I have to improvise for each drawing. If you can't read my cramped little text, the uniforms are, in order: Police Uniforms for SS, (Strigmortis Setting. Haven't figured out the political border yet.) Old Military Uniforms for SS, World Military Uniforms for the Wasteland setting, and a conceptual design for the Ziathan Priesthood.

Third is a myriad of things. Some drawings of pre-infection Ellis (methinks he takes a little too much joy in the whole warfaring thing...), an unintentionally adorable zombie, another of Jordan's characters (who, though playing a minor role, has a very kicky design), and a faerie with some butterflies.

Enjoy.

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Raganokk belongs to Jordan.

Today is a day for random creatures and a somewhat long-winded post. You see, my dear and silent readers, I have a rather insidious dilemma.

I once read it suggested that most artists would rather lose a fine finished painting than a full sketchbook, and I must agree with this statement. It is stressed often that an artist's sketchbook is his best friend, a constant and invaluable companion, and it is this line of thought which brings me to my problem. I fear that my relationship with this compatriot of mine is (as, unfortunately, most of my relationships are) a distant and wary one. Into it go my studies of fact and fiction alike, but there is a marked absence of actual story content. The scenes I run through my head again and again remain untested, and the interactions I deem so important rarely, if ever, grace the pages even as doodles. The reason for this is a simple yet maddening one:

my sketchbook is not private.

People, be it the imagined audience I have on these sites, my family, or the nice lady who asks about my drawings in the museum, always end up seeing it. And what's a lass to do? Refuse? Hide from passers-by?

Ah, it probably seems as if I'm exaggerating terribly. That's an understandable impression. But you see, it's not so much the revelation of deep dark secrets I fear, it is being misunderstood. Not in the adolescent 'nobody understands my aaaaarrt!' way, but in the fact that a moment, an image snapped from the midst of a winding tale, is nothing without context. Laid bare without support or background it is robbed of its depth and meaning, bereft of the love with which it was crafted. It is like laying my innards bare before a fellow who has no knowledge of human anatomy, a mess of ugly pieces to the uninformed, in spite of their absolute  importance to me. That vulnerability as their eyes scan the page, slight puzzlement knitting their brow, is... Unappealing, to say the least.

And again I plead, what do I do? Do I keep these things locked to my chest, as I have for so long? Do I sketch them and endure the sickening weakness, mumbling a halfhearted explanation which sounds more and more to me like and excuse? Or do I begin treating my sketchbook as others would a diary, drawing what I will, but ferreting it away from the world?

I know intellectually that no one cares that much about a few scribbles. However poorly I explain myself, they would forget in the ensuing weeks. I also know how ridiculously trivial this is in the grand scheme of things, but then, if we always compared our trials to the 'grand scheme of things', we'd never get much done at all, would we?

Alas, my fingers are stiff and chilled, and I don't really want to spend much more time on this.

Enjoy the cavalcade of monstrous faces.

Love.

Spin.

Very Strigmortis-y doodles this time around. Likely brought on by the fact that I recently read about the new vampire lore in a newspaper, of all things. Anyway. Ellis, Nameless girl-vampire, Patrick, and Desirae. Then Mark, Ellis again, Mark's crazy brother, and an epic robot duel.

My only major issues are with Patrick's design. His ponytail is up for debate, and I haven't yet designed to police uniforms for that storyline, so his is rather arbitrary and vague. I also think that I expended all my pretty-hand-drawing abilities on Ellis in the first picture...

Cheers.

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We've been long overdue for a study of dear Kelistri, no? For some reason, I'm finding his face rather difficult to draw... Which of course means that I'll probably get ticked off and completely redesign him one of these days. Alas, such is the process of these things. The little row of faces on the bottom doesn't make much sense.. It might eventually, but I'm not going to let it bother me for now.

Toodles.

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Nine and Heshiskelil, being all badass and pistol-y like. Nine's armour has been bothering me lately... Something to work on, I fear. Fairly happy with everything else.

Best wishes.

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