The Art Of Book Covers

Another one of these since i haven't done it in a while! Sketch -> finished illustration

Thoughts & process below the cut :>

Out of Bounds: i deleted the sketch of this off my ipad because i didn't like it, and for months it only existed as a screenshot on discord. finally in january of this year i was like Wait Actually and decided to keep working on it. I didn't achieve the look I was going for (kind of foggy and vague. It came out too sharp and high contrast) but it was fun to throw the kitchen sink at it for an afternoon and then call it done finally. I don't remember which horse this was originally supposed to be, I think Macha?

I reused the pose, you'll find the same one in my Pascal sketchbook from the section on gait studies. That's the cool thing about doing 30 sketches at once, you can finish them up any time you like for a different drawing

The Fool ft Islin: the original concept for this is from [takes a moment to decipher the american date system on discord] January 2022

It wasn't dynamic enough, but I've had this on the backburner for sooo long. I think I completed like 4 cards in between this sketch and the final version lol. But, for a bit of background, this is from my series of major arcana based in Inver, and in particular the events of the 1860s-era book series, Moth Viper Foal (a demo of the first book, Said The Black Horse, is available for free/pwyw in my shop). This scene is a companion to Said The Black Horse, depicting the aftermath of the traumatic fight that caused Islin to storm off. He had been working at the mill as a semiprofessional back alley surgeon when he received an offer to join the church and work as a trained surgeon in their hospital. But when he brought the good news back to his friends it was met with utter rejection, driving him to basically run away to join the church. while gay and trans. thus the card.

he didn't actually bring a bag with him when he ran out but for the sake of the card i drew him with one

Gryfon and Pantera: This is how 99% of holy beast drawings start out, even the super stylised ones. I struggle a lot to draw them in procreate so they start in sai and then i transfer them over. The story of this is already explained in the caption of the original post so I'll just talk about the process which was... honestly torturous. I actually don't like too much textures and effects on things (wild, I know) and this one and Out of Bounds are ones where I kind of preferred it pre-texturising.

The text on the side is the official in-universe report of the event, detailing the casualties, the valiant actions of Gryfon's knight before he died and so on. There's also spoilers in there :>

My main struggle with this art style is how it always ends up slightly TOO sharp and crisp in a way the just a blur filter never can correct. There's not a lot of immersion to break, to be fair, but I think this still does it a little. I need to get more comfortable doing the lines with larger and softer brushes, and allowing imperfections.

i’m already on my knees for him and they haven’t even shown us the front of his face…

For the Star Wars Day (May the Fourth / May the Force Be With You) there was shared (with the permission of the Pratchett Estate ) a Terry Pratchett story from the Star Wars Universe that was only published in a newspaper 45 years ago! Very excited to read a new Terry's piece! :)❤ (tweet)

Also, Terry Pratchett writing fanfiction 45 years ago, can I hear a wahoo? :)

Once Kallus won the sparring match. 

But bo-rifle cockbloked them again.

For all my worries over Thrawn in live action, I can rest easy knowing I live in a world where he isn’t played by Benedict Cumberbatch

So I started a world in Dwarf Fortress.

I poked around legends mode and found that the world is quite accepting of the other races. There is a Dwaven civilization who has a goblin queen and a goblin civilization with a dwarf master. There is also a human eleven princess. Also, one of the old kings is currently a necromacer and he has a crow man apprentice.

Ar'alani: How many kids do you have?

Thrawn: Biologically, emotionally, or legally?

The Unicorn Rests in a Garden

I was thinking on my walk home from work today. I've always imagined Thrawn's exile as a vague blob of three ish years but it hit me that he spent four years in exile. Alone, with no sentinents. With only a token from Ungali and Thalias to represent everyone who loved him.

Waiting for the day his plotting went into action.

Looking at the ring. Thinking of all he had lost. Thalias and Un'hee and Ar'alani and Samakro and everyone else. (I like to imagine he keeps it close for the rest of his days. Eli learns of it when he commissions it to be painted onto the bottom of the Chimaera. He never learns the full story of it. It becomes a thing that he only takes out on certain nights.

And I was like wait, so he was in exile all of Eli's time at the Myomar Academy pretty much which makes it seem so much longer cause wow. That puts things into perspective. But I was also thinking...

So Thrawn spent those four years in exile while Eli was beginning his military career. And before that Thrawn had his military career. And after they met they had their golden 12 years, in which everyone knew they were a pair. Even people that didn't know them knew that Eli Vanto was a name that followed Thrawn's.

And then they parted. Eli was techinally military, but mostly desk job, while Thrawn stayed active. And then when Eli got a promotion Thrawn got purrgilled and he was grand admiral of nothing.

Basically, the point I'm making is they don't have separate military careers at the same time. The timeline was unintentionally made so they take turns making their names and chess moves. But they only move at the same time at each other's side, together. When the only one that can beat them is... Nightswan.

Idk if it means anything but little thing I noticed.

star wars week 2023: underrated characters & details

[Blackmail!] No. Business.

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