[Art] NBB illustrations for "A Tale of Two Sisters"

When I was a kid, I was fairly good (for a kid) at a number of things: music, sports, art, math, writing, etc. But there are only so many hours in the day, and some activities are always going to strike any given person as more interesting and desirable than others. As I got older, I focused mostly on writing and music. Those were not necessarily the things I was best at -- if you look at my art and my stories from when I was ten or eleven, I am pretty sure the art was better. (My early writing was dire. Trust me on this.) But because I put work into them, I got better. And I did not get better at, say, sports and art.

I still draw like a twelve-year-old, in other words... though admittedly, a twelve-year-old who took a figure drawing course in high school, for what little good that did me.

Which is by way of leading up to: My NBB art is now up. I drew two pictures for pamymex3girl's story, A Tale of Two Sisters. They are done in pencil and colored pencil and then scanned into my computer via a photo editing program, because have I mentioned that I am not an artist? And therefore do have have art or art editing programs? (That is not a thing that ever stopped being true.)

You can also see them on deviantART: Into the Dark Woods and Susan and Lucy.

The reason the sisters have no faces in the first picture is a stylistic thing I fell into doing when I had to write and draw a comic book in 8th grade English, because I cannot draw faces in profile to save my life. I like the coloring job there, though, and the picture went pretty quickly -- I did most of the background directly in colored pencil without a regular pencil outline. Pine trees are dead easy to sketch.

The picture of Lucy brushing Susan's hair was extremely annoying to draw. Hands, how do they work? Also noses. And lips. Argh. (You will notice I completely finked out on any attempt at ears.) I spent a lot of time in front of a mirror using myself as a model, so if the fabric and fingers bear any relation to reality, that's why. The hair is pretty obviously stylized, though. And the frame with the leaf design is there because... well, the frame is both meant to be a mirror and also a device so I didn't have to worry about the background of the room they're in. And then I made a leaf design because I like geometric patterns. I may not be good at most aspects of art, but I can draw some pretty nifty geometric patterns.

[Fic] "Trollstuck," part 2 -- Homestuck

back to part 1

( Trollstuck, part 2 )

continue to part 3

Logically, if the kids are trolls and grew up in Alternia's stratified, adult-free, and violence-tolerant culture, they're going to be a little different. But feel free to tell me if you think my changes are off-base.

ETA, 11:30pm 4/16/12: I edited the pesterlog a little, mostly for typing quirk reasons. The basic thrust of the conversation remains the same.

Remix Madness signal boost

Remix Madness is open!

This is a subsidiary part of Remix Redux wherein anyone can play! You do not have to have written in any qualifying fandoms, and the story/stories you produce do not need any minimum wordcounts. All you have to do is post your name and a link to your own work on the opt-in post so other people also have the chance to remix you. (You can choose one safe story that you don't want other people to touch, if you like.)

It's fun! Last year I wrote Postcards from Naxos (You Don't Have To Go Home, but You Can't Stay Here) for Remix Madness, just because I was in love with With Thanks to Apollo by sour_idealist.

I have not picked out anything to try playing with this year, but you never know what might happen. :-)