Art: A Drawing of Jessica

I felt like I hadn’t drawn Jessica in a while, and I wanted to try some of the techniques I’ve learned recently on her. I got her hand the right size on the first try, even though the fingers were a bit of a pain. I’m not sure about the size of her shoes; on the one hand, they seem a bit small, but on the other, I kind of want them to be. I also used a bit of crosshatching to give her skirt a bit of depth. Did you notice? How do you think they turned out? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

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Viridity, Part 6: Barriers

“Oh, it’s you,” said Shanna. “Did you just come from a funeral?”

Wallace stared. People were running about, lashing ropes to vast plates of metal and pulling them up into walls. He recognized some of them from headquarters, where Shanna should have been being kept.

“Shanna, what the hell? What are you doing, how did you get these people to help, and why did they let you out?”

The cloaked girl shrugged. “Somethings are too important to wait around for.”

“Like what?” asked Wallace.

Shanna watched as a metal wall rose before her, blocking off the sight of the aftermath of the reactor she overloaded.

“Like avoiding more funerals.”

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Sketch: A Chart of Methods

Forms of magic can be differentiated from each other by means of source, method, and effect. Of these three, effect is probably the most important, but at the same time, source implies method, and method implies effect. One does not have to haggle for power if the power does not come from a sentient being, and it would be weird to grow claws to stick two things together, after all.

The basic concept of this sketch is the difference between theurgy and thaumaturgy (roughly equivalent to D&D’s divine and arcane magic), and something I read on Wikipedia about a real life occult philosophy the differentiated between summoning a spiritual force inside of you (called invocation) and summoning a spiritual force outside of you (called evocation). Mulling over the concepts in my head, I eventually came upon an idea for an external form of thaumaturgy, based around enchanting objects and letting others use them. It is the burning desire to draw an emblem for this method that left me creating emblems for the other three quadrants.

Viridity, Part 5: What Else Could She Do?

The door slammed open, and the guardian commander stormed into the spymaster’s office.

“What the hell did you think you were doings?” screamed the commander.

The spymaster looked up with one eyebrow raised.

“Don’t give me that look,” said the commander, closing the door. “You had your operatives attack one of my ships, apparently to get to someone that was already in custody. I deserve an explanation.”

Again the spymaster said nothing. He simply stood up, and went to the window that used to overlook the ruins. Used to, of course, because the people that the guardians had captured had somehow caused an inert reactor to explode and level everything. Now, a profusion of plant matter had sprung up over the remains. The initial explosion of growth had stopped, but that just meant that they had to prepare for what was going to emerge from it.

The commander joined him at the window. He knew that those two, especially the young woman, had been involved in other strange and dangerous incidents. He had heard the reports of why she was not welcome in her homeland. And standing there, looking at the latest disaster that had followed in her wake, both officials contemplated the unasked question that hung in the air.

Poetry: Moon, Wind, Summer, Glare

The night sky of the rising moon
Spreads silvery light across the dune
I here an echo of nature’s tune
A new world is coming soon

Birth cries are found on rising wind
The origin of the sounds cannot be pinned
Against the past that can now rescind
Future and past are never twinned

On this night of the fading summer
Is your heart just getting number?
The performance of the mummer
Calls up sorrow, beat of the drummer

I retreat now from your glare
Walking down a humble stair
To prepare myself in my lair
Fight for this world, if you dare.

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Art: Fault in the Stars

And my experiments with Krita continue. This time, I found the brushes that stimulate brushing with very thick paint. I like the effect with this picture, but the thing that I find really interesting is that there is a tool designated for making rocks. I want to play with it more, but the biggest problem I have with it is that there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to rotate the tool; I have to open up the tool modification dialogue box and set the angle manually. This will be a great inconvenience to using it for naturalistic landscapes.

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On Taking Breaks

Even though it isn’t getting the response I wanted, I still want to give Viridity a proper ending. When I started the writing, I had an idea of starting to write a serial story without much forethought as to where it would go and how long it would actually be, which could have been potentially forever. I had also planned on taking a break every four installments, which brings me to here.

I had been thinking about a subject to write on for several weeks, but now that I’m here, I find that all I can write about is writing essays as a break. It’s mostly that I don’t want to awkwardly segue into another subject after starting with one topic. This does mean that I can save what else I was thinking of for another essay, however.

Viridity is an experiment. An experiment to see if I could do an indefinitely long serial with almost no prep work. I find myself having trouble getting enthusiastic about writing the next chapter, which is usually a sign that I’m doing something wrong and need to throw something out. I can’t throw anything away until I’ve done work, though.

I think I just have to spend sometime clearing my head; to spend a few days with the things that inspire me to write, without the distractions I’ve been looking at lately. I could think about the things that have been distracting me, but I don’t think this is the place for me complaining about people using the word ‘identity’ to much, or to talk about how capitalism doesn’t exist.

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Poetry: Shattered

The wood is rotten, the stone is shattered
In dust and rubble, what is is that you see?
The images that never really mattered
They were only something to hear our plea

The wind is howling, the house is burning
Can’t you see now, where you brothers run?
And yet the world keeps at its turning
And in the same way, we are not done

Your people are scattered, your plans are broken
What can you do, with no friends in the world?
I turn to what your actions have awoken
At the enemies you have made, banners unfurled

My skin is torn, my heart is bleeding
You must listen to my last plea!
Didn’t you know, from all your reading
That this is the moment that I flee?

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Art: Shanna the Seer

One of the most fascinating aspects of drawing to me is how the image in my head has to change when I put it on paper. For example, when I sat down to start this sketch, I had no idea what the subjects eyes looked like. I simply wasn’t visualizing them. The eyes I wound up drawing for her made Shanna look kind of high, or perhaps drunk. Either way, it’s not an effect I like. Still, it’s better than what I did to her legs, which I found myself cutting off during scanning.

But for all of that, there are still things I don’t like about the finished picture. In particular, I didn’t make her cheeks round enough. One thing I did like about making this drawing, however, was that I found a way to get the hand large enough on the first try. It mostly consisted of making sure the palm was about half the size of her face, and that the fingers went the rest of the way, but at least it works.

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