Dandelyon's Worlds

And, of course, other stuff. I try to clear out other errands to leave open time for sketchfest and muse fusion, but it rarely works out the way I want. This weekend, not only do we have both Sketchfest and Muse Fusion, but tomorrow is the only Sunday this month that the others in our writers' group could get together, so I have to review the stuff we're critiquing and head out do do that instead of staying in my own little creative cocoon.

Part of me is yelling, Make room! Make room! Clearly, I need to get better at making room time-wise as well as space-wise. Ah, well, I'll get better at it. I am determined.

But in the meantime, I have a couple of things to share:



Both of these are on 12x12 canvasses, though I like the closeup picture of the Gryphon Nebula better than the other pictures I took--I took a bunch, but the others look less in focus. Maybe I can get a better pic in daylight? Mostly, the cell phone camera is great, but every once in a while, it's ornery. But life is like that in general, isn't it?



You're welcome, still, to stop by Sketchfest or the Muse Fusion, check out what other people are doing, and if you want, leave some prompts.

I spent part of Sketchfest with a needle and thread, having come to the conclusion that I'm better at free-hand embroidery than at sketching embroidery! 

Below is a pocket watch, a feather, two winged keys, one wing, two gears, and three styles of "rivets". 



We have finally had some rain--the mint is no longer badly wilted, though the grass is still brown.  The chicory doesn't mind the drought, but the thistles do!


(Why take pictures of the brown parts when you can take prettier photos?)

I'm still trying to figure out where I put my Scraps costume--it's moved out of the closet that needs painting, but not to where I thought I put it.  It would make a great display piece for the workshops in a couple of weeks--IF I can find it.

I've been researching horse and goat births, trying to imagine how that will scale up to snow-unicorn size--those critters are bigger than Clydesdales!

And there's work to do tomorrow, starting at O-Ghawd-Awful.  So I need to go sleep soon.  *sigh*

How's you summer going?

Sketchfest is still on--there's a bunch of art uploaded already, I encourage you to go look.  The artists range from beginners to very skilled, and everyone is welcome to leave prompts or to join in and sketch.

Thinking about art, recently, always reminds me I want to get some of my stories available as e-books.  To do this I need cover art, and the day job hasn't given me time to try to level up in art and create it myself. 

If I'm not to create it myself, then I'll need to get cover art from someone else, which has had me pondering payment for art.  Now, I know that Ms. Rusch has talked about the foolishness of not simply hiring cover art, that giving away royalties for your art is, in the long run (if the book sells) not as good an investment financially for a writer as buying it outright.  Of course, she doesn't point out that if you never sell enough to make up your costs, that doesn't matter at all--and the introduction of easy self-publishing does not, in any way, guarantee sales.  I also thoroughly approve of Torn World's policy of treating all creators--poets, writers, and artists--equally, so that artists get royalties on the Torn World Anthology.

Other things have impacted my musings.

Talking at a recent convention with a traditionally-published author who is glad that she could put her out-of-print books up as e-books and, as she said, "there's no reason to ever let them go out of print again".  So what if she sells just one or two books in a month?  That's a trickle of income for her and happiness for her fans, who can now buy books they couldn't before, to fill in the holes in their collections.

No reason to ever let them go out of print.  That sounds really good to me.

Then, I thought more--if a work is in print forever, and I owe somebody else part of the royalties, then I have to keep accounting records forever--and keep track of where my artists and/or co-authors are forever too. 

Um...that's not so attractive. That is, in fact, rather appalling.  I hate the paperwork part of this business--it's part of why I didn't make my ten submissions per month.  I do nothing but paperwork at my day job, and I want to do creative stuff once I get home and relax a bit.  

The more I think about it, the more I'd rather take the gamble of sinking my money into buying the right to use the art for my cover outright.  By doing that, I'm buying more than art.  I'm buying freedom from spending my time on administrivia that would be (for me) decidedly an unpleasant chore.

Now I guess I should start considering who to hire, and when I can afford to do it.  Happily, looking at art is not an unpleasant chore!

This was a hard week; I was sick and dragged through things. I was just starting to feel better on Friday, and I do try to do sketchfest every month. I don't want my art skills to rust away, I want them to get better, and sketchfest is good for that.


But Friday night I was too tired to do more than start to clear space and look at the prompts. I did get my "angry tree" finally scanned, from last month's sketchfest.  So now, in it's belated world premier appearance, my angry tree:




Oh, hey--LJ changed their rich text editor, and now there's no easy way to set pictures to the right of the text--or to edit their size!  *sigh* Time to learn more html.


That was my only sketch last month, and I was too busy and tired to even scan it.  So, I guess despite being sick, I'm getting more adapted to the new day job.  Because this month I managed three sketches:s


The first two you see on the easel, before they dried.  They're both too large to fit on my little printer/scanner in any case, so you're stuck with photographs.


Will You Trust What the Wind Tells You?




The next one was inspired by the prompt, "Is that a spaceship or a castle?"  This is definitely the one that suffers most from being "just a sketch"--all of the ideas this prompt inspired were complex and fiddly with dozens of details, and sketchfest limits you to an hour per sketch.  'll have to find time to finish it later, I think it has a lot of promise. 


Gothic Castle for an Astral Elf Princess






And finally, Mutant Dandelyon:






Now, more house cleaning and I've got to do some writing!



Next weekend:  Muse Fusion!

After doing my best to impose positive thinking onto my brain, I did manage to do a sketch last night, and several more this morning:





The first three are for sale at the sketchfest site, the funds to go to pay for improvements to the Sketchfest site or for costs related to bringing out the first Torn World print anthology.

The antibiotic seems to be slowly helping My Angel feel better.  I'm still tireder than I like to be, but today, at least, I've got words in my head and may actually get a few onto the page.  Or I may return to that first girl, and see if I can get her jaw to look less lame...

People might ignore this, but I'm going to make a prompt at Sketchfest for drawings of any of the types of human beings in my Fireborn stories. In that world, the different forms of humans arise from basically the same genetic code, since any two humans can mate, and their child is often the same form as one or both parents, but not always--and could be any form, depending on how the genes are expressed.

So the basic form is the same--a skull and body structure much like our own--one spine, one pelvis, one set of shoulders, four major limbs. However, they also do have tails with two tips, and opposable big toes. All are mammals, and have thick head hair unless otherwise specified.  There's a number of different physical forms, though in Fireborn, there are five mentioned:

So, we start with the landborn. These are most like Earth humans--about the same amount of body fat, short (normal length to us) fingers and toes with nails like our own, soft skin and sparse body hair and thick head hair. Their tails are monkeylike and prehensile, but not particularly strong. The tail tips are hidden in longer hair, much like head hair or beard, and if the hair doesn't obscure them, they are expressive enough to gesture with.

Next are the woodborn. These humans are designed for climbing trees. They tend to be a little skinnier than landborns, longer of arm and leg, with thicker body fur, strong prehensile tails (strong enough to hang from), and strong claws instead of nails. The tips of the tail are longer and much stronger than landborns' tail tips.

Lakeborns: Lakeborns are designed for warm freshwater. They are nearly hairless except on their heads, and their tails are short with webbing between the tips. They could use them to propel them through the water, however, it is customary to twine the tail between the legs, covering the genital area much like the bottoms of a bikini swim suit. Their fingers and toes are quite long (twice as long as our fingers), and likewise have webbing between them.  Lacking hair, lakeborns tend to be heavily tattooed in adulthood.

Seaborns: These humans are designed for cold waters. They have a very thick layer of fat and also are heavily furred, much like an otter. They also have webbing between their fingers and toes, but the fingers and toes are shorter. I'm still considering the best way to do the tail for seaborns.

Windborn: These humans are smaller than the rest, and (by our standards) quite gaunt, with thick skin and dense fur instead of fat. They have fingers and toes much like woodborns, but a little longer, and have very long--well, they don't call them arms, because they have webbing that turns their arms into wings. Their tails are wide and long enough to provide some stability in the air, and are covered in longer hair, like their heads.

In addition, of course, we have fireborns--people that can be of any of the physical forms, but who have a talent for magic.

Now, off to sketchfest to leave this as a link, and see if anyone wants to try their hand at drawing my strange people!

And then to sketch!

I started the day tired, having had my sleep interrupted the night before (nothing dreadful). After work, I needed a bit of time to change frames--it was my last day there, and I had been talking with my primary attorneys about stuff like my job hunt, as well as saying goodbye to everyone.

I had hoped to do a bunch of sketches; I managed three.

I'm finding the process valuable, in a number of ways. First, trying to do something worth sharing in just an hour is a challenge. It pushes me to try different techniques.

Second, seeing the "thumbnail" as I go, on my cell phone, is surprisingly helpful--seeing a drawing or painting at a different size is like seeing it through different eyes.

Third, posting not only the finished sketch for comments on the Sketch Fest website, but also progress pictures here, where people can comment on the different stages of the work.

So I'm really glad that many of you are also enjoying the posts.  Thank you for your comments! 
( Cut for netbook users! )

Each snowflake falls so gently, like a mother's kiss, it's hard to remember how powerful the snow is.

That's my first hour's work.  And now, on to the next sketch!

Come on by and leave a prompt, or do some sketches!  http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/sketchfestprompts.php

It's hard to believe that tomorrow is my last day at this temp job. I wonder what happens next?

Well, tomorrow after work I come home to Sketch Fest. And Tuesday is the Torn World Muse Fusion. And I have plenty of writing projects to complete. But so far those aren't paying the bills. And I didn't win 300 million in the Megabucks this week.

So I need to be looking forward toward (or at least looking for) a new day job.

The adventure continues.