Gallery of Shadows and Reflections

As most of you who follow this blog are aware, I've been living with my family for the past couple of years in order to help caretake full time for my grandmother, who has Alzheimer's disease.  It's been insanely stressful, and not only because of the caretaking duty.  I haven't spoken publicly about my family, and I hesitate to do so here, but I will say that this household has been the cause of a large amount of stress.  

I've put a lot of thought into whether I should stay or go.  Any way you look at it, it's not an easy decision to make.  I will say that some of the issues I've had with my family (not my grandmother's condition) are the primary reason that I've finally decided.  It's necessary, for my own mental health and well-being.  I've been verging on a total emotional collapse for longer than I'd like to admit, and I need to get away for my sanity's sake.

So, I'll be, if all goes well, returning to California to live and work where I did before I came here.  The place wasn't perfect by any means, but it became home after living there on and off for several years.

That means that I'll once again be working a full time paid job.  Well, I should say, a part-to-full-time job, as hours vary-- it's a resort, and like most resorts, has busy seasons and slow seasons.  This does not mean that I'm giving up on the artwork in any way, shape, or fashion.  I will continue taking commissions and creating crowdfunded pieces.  I will likely not be able to do Free Sketch Day on a regular basis, but I might be able to set aside a day every now and again to gather prompt requests and work on them over a period of time.  The internet at the resort is... less than reliable, and has limited bandwidth, but it resets once a week.  I'll post updates and such on those days.  

That being said, though, I may need a small break from the art while I get acclimated to Cali again.  A week or two in which I can just be, disappearing into the forest and remembering who I am.  Because I've sort of forgotten.

I still have five portraits to complete, which I will do before I leave.  I've nearly completed the big double-character half-body portrait; just needs a few finishing touches which I will put in today.  The others are all normal head-and-shoulders pieces, so they shouldn't take quite as long.

I've been slipping back and forth between feelings of guilt and immense relief over my decision to leave.

The manager of the resort is out this week, but I will call him up at the beginning of next week and hopefully have a date set for return. 

So after almost a month of struggling to create artwork every time I had time to sit down and attempt to work on projects, I finally had a wonderfully smooth day with few interruptions and ACTUAL DRAWINGNESS.

I did rough line art for all-- read it, ya'll, ALL-- of the outstanding character portraits.  All in one day.

I'm gonna post them here because, well, I'm so happy that I actually got something done without, you know, erasing it five thousand times or getting dragged away two minutes after beginning work, that I could scream.

Fair warning-- these images are still very rough.  They need a lot of work.  But I completed stage one of portraiture and kicked serious ass today, so you all get to see them.

If Photobucket ever finishes uploading them, that is.



( Several unfinished drawings beneath cut. )

And, another week is upon us!

As I've been dealing with a lot of family-caretaker issues this week, with both my grandmother and my brother, I've gotten behind on the portraits, so I am going to exclusively devote this week to catching up on them.  So, no Free Sketch Days this week.  Hopefully I will be able to hold it next week.

I'll try not to leave too much radio silence here, but I don't usually like to post in-progress images of the portraits for reasons not entirely defined in my head.  So I'll probably be posting images as I complete them.  And I might do some work on the crowdfunding pieces, but only if I start to catch up on the portraits, which are first priority.  

ariestessis doing a Free Microfic Day at her blog!  The theme is "Beginnings, Renewals, and Transformations." I left the prompt "Multi-dimensional traveler, a cost to traveling, life-changing.  Where is home?"  Looking forward to seeing what she comes up with.

So, over the past two days, I've done some work on the three crowdfunding pieces I have currently in production, as well as the Prize Drawing piece.  

As I mentioned previously, I've finished "Starcrossed."  


I did the flat colors for "Trickster."




I worked on the background cliffs in the waterfall painting. 


And, I did the inks on "Firespirit."  This is being done for the winner of the last prize drawing, and will be available to the general public.




All three of these crowdfunded pieces are still open for funding!  U.S. Contributors who contribute $3 or more will receive a complimentary print of the image they helped to fund from Zazzle, and all contributors will receive a full-sized image download.  (Size of print depends on amount of contribution; sizes start at 4x6.)  Once a piece is fully funded, the full sized image will be released to the public.

Current funding stats are as follows:

"Starcrossed": $4 of $40
"Trickster": $0 of $40
Waterfall painting (as yet untitled):  $0 of $100

If you would like to contribute to any or all of these projects, click the "Tip Jar" icon, which will take you to PayPal.  Please be sure to leave me a message to let me know who you are and what you're contributing to, so I can be sure to send you your perks!

So, I'd been procrastinating on "Starcrossed" because, well, I was working on other things and it was really promising to be a quick project.  

I decided to go ahead and finish it up tonight.  It's not really a digital-ink-and-color piece, but I'm offering it for $40 anyway since it was a very quick digital painting.  

Here's a small, watermarked preview.  If it is fully funded, it will be released to the general public as a free, full size, high resolution download.  Any contributors will also receive a download, and U.S. contributors who contribute $3 and over will receive a complimentary print (size depends on contribution amount).

Funding currently stands at $4 of $40.

If you would like to contribute to this project, please click the "Tip Jar" icon below, which will take you to PayPal.

Good Monday morning, all.  How is everyone?

After some thought, I've decided that Free Sketch Days will be a bi-weekly event.  I just need certain weeks to play catch-up, and now especially that it's a two-day event, I'm getting behind on other things.  So, Free Sketch Days will be next week on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Be sure to make a note of it and tell your friends!  

This week is going to be dedicated to catching up on the numerous projects I have in production.  I'm going to update my backlog list and post it later today to get a feel of what I need to focus on, and make goal sets for each day so I can be all productive and stuff.  And I'll be posting updates of the crowdfunding pieces, and the prize drawing piece, as I'm able.  I also have a decent handful of character portraits in production that I may post progress images on. 

I just downloaded some day planner software.  Assuming it works, maybe it'll help me keep things more organized.  Who knows?

But anyway, do stay tuned for update posts and various stages of artwork!

Have an original role playing character, or an original fiction character that you would like to see realized in a drawing?  

I am once again open for character portrait commissions!  These will be head-and-shoulders portraits.  Black and white portraits are only $5!  

Color options are also available during Portrait Days at heavy discount-- see below cut for more information.


( Click to read more info; please read it all before putting in your request! )


Some examples from previous Character Portrait Days--click to enlarge

Discounted Character Portraits-- click dropdown menu to select

B/W Character Portrait $5.00 USD B/W 1 Character Half Body Portrait $8.00 USD B/W 2 Character Half Portrait $10.00 USD B/W 1 Character Full Portrait $10.00 USD B/W 2 Character Full Portrait $15.00 USD B/W 1 Character Head and Shoulders + Full Animal $10.00 USD Ink/Color Head and Shoulders 1 Character Portrait $20.00 USD Digital Paint Head and Shoulders 1 Character Portrait $50.00 USD

Good morning, folks.  

I haven't even gotten dressed yet, let alone had my first coffee, but just want to drop a reminder to say that, yes, Free Sketch Day is still open!  I'll be attacking the prompts I didn't get to yesterday, and will be continuing to add prompts to the list until tonight at ten p.m. Central. So if you haven't yet left a prompt, it just takes a minute!  You get a free sketch!  I'm trying to get to these in a somewhat more balanced fashion than I was previously (as opposed to trying to cram every single sketch into a single day), so I'll be getting to a handful of prompts a day.  But I will definitely get to each and every one of you! 

"Trickster" has been inked!

Click the thumbnail to go to the landing page for current crowdfunding projects, which links to the full sized images currently in production.