Showing posts with label Comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comics. Show all posts

Sunday, July 7, 2013

A bit of flash Fiction: Moonlit Sonata

Hi all, a good Sunday afternoon! It's warm, sunny and the sounds of sweet summer are filtering through to my apartment.  I so love watching the sunrises and sunsets at this time of year....they always remind me of impressionist paintings. So lovely...I even find myself getting up a little extra early....and 7 am is early for me...*laughs*, just to watch the cool morning sun.

So, I did this little bit of short fiction writing for something I saw on another blog, Imagine, Create, Write! , which I love to visit and read.  I always leave feeling so inspired.  She was holding a "Create a female superhero" flash fiction writing contest....which was such a great idea.  Comics could use more strong female superheros.  I didn't get my entry done on time as is was on one of the hottest days and I just could not stand my apartment, which reached over 100 degrees, so, I avoided my laptop like the plague.  I still wanted to post it and share it with all of you, though. 

I used a mechanical pencil and three different sizes of burnishing tools to buff and smooth the pencil lines and to add some small details I used a white ink pen.  I didn't have quite enough time to finish the back ground, as I thought I could still make the deadline at 3 minuets left. (Nope...got too involved with the background. Heehee) So, the background is digital.  I used some stock images, from where I can no longer remember where I got from, but it suited her nicely and finished it up in CorelDRAW.  This, in all, took me about a week to do. Which is rather quick for me.




Name of Female Superhero:  Dark Star

Name of Human Alter Ego:  Amnesia December

Superhero Appearance:  Same as Human appearance.

Human Alter Ego Appearance:  A young woman of 18 who stands at six feet tall.  Her hair is long and shiny black with a slight wave to it ans she wears half of it up in two small buns with short kiddie bangs.  Her eyes are white with little pink flecks in them that turn blood red when angry.  Her skin is has pale and white as bleached bone and an icy skin temperature.

Costume:  Black lace corset, black pants and a long black hooded cape. She also has a set of black crow wings.

Personality: Aloof, strong, sarcastic, yet is soft and kind deep in her heart, honest, intelligent

A Brief description of how the super heroine gets her powers: She's a dampyre or half vampire.  She has no memory of where she has come from, who she really is or who or even how she came to be cursed as a halfling. She does suspect that she has always been this way, however. She simply awoke one evening on the floor of an abandoned hospital floor, the entire town where she lived, all mysteriously murdered.

Powers:  Can throw her blood into multiple flying razor blades.  Can fly with crow wings from her back, which disappear when not in use.  She is also telekinetic and can move things or break things simply by glaring at them.  She can summon fire with a snap of her fingers and direct it at her attackers.  She uses a long silver sword that she acquired from a sword master in Wales.  She can also sing a siren's song to hypnotize those around her.

Anything Else Important:  She fights all sorts of underworld creatures to find a cure of the illness before it consumes her, body and soul. Leaving her a full vampire.  She has a haunted past and a very haunted presence.  To solve the mysteries of her past and find those who broke her, she will have to search far and wide before looking to the clues of things beyond her own grave.


Moonlit Sonata
 
 
 
Moon. Bright, beautiful, pale, red moon. Moon...floating softly, serenely through the dark starless sky.  Enchanting moon.  Making everything drunk with rapture as her ice chilled, luminous fingers of bare light caresses every inch of the dark earth within her grasp.   Even me, as I alight upon the highest tower possible, in this country that is awash with endless neon orange artificial lights, spilling out, and stretching eternally away below my feet into the pitted black of the distant night.  Just the wind, the glorious, fat golden moon and me.  Cherry blossoms, with their blushing faces, whirl exquisitely past me, away to their dusty death in the cool spring air.  Just the wind, the moon, the blood-drunk cherry blossoms and me. Ah! How sweet is the smell of fresh, new spring!
          I stand, gazing dreamily up in reverence at this glowing, pocked marked rock that has served as my false sun for the last few hundred years.  Its soft light shines down upon me, illuminating those odd, night eyes, causing them to glow unnaturally green like a cat. The moon is as bone white and dead as I, although, it is not a monstrous, dark thing as I. If anyone dares but wonder the kind of creature that I subsist as, I am a Dampyre; or a half vampire. How I came to be this way, I do not know.  Some of my kind, who are proud to be what they are, prefer the term Lilin, Dark Prince Charming or Strix over using the term “Dampyre”.  The sound is far less vulgar, and threatening, making it a great deal more elegant, as well as exquisitely beautiful.  Nothing scares off a potential prey more than saying that you are “Dracula” when they ask what you are, before you kill them.  Akin to most of my kind, my looks are charmingly deceptive. A cunning, vicious wolf wrapped in a fine human skin.  Most human beings construct us to be genuinely ugly, repulsive, senseless devouring fiends.  Salivating, drooling and stupid just waiting to eviscerate the next human to cross our path, also, for some odd reasoning, extremely hairy. I myself, hate overly hairy things, I find body hair particularly repulsive.  Hence, my deep hate for the Werewolves, which have far too much for my liking.  This human folklore about us I find extremely funny, as do most of us. For if, we actually looked like some horrid, inhuman demon, how would we lure the leery into our pretty web?  No one human would dare trust us, let alone come even a foot near us. Who would trust a monster that truly appeared to be one? Armed and dangerous, but only to those weak enough to trust our carefully lying eyes.

  The moonlight tracing and retracing the cut of my figure, fresh evening air caresses my skin, sending my carefully coiffed, long black hair dancing madly around me.  The sudden gust caught and blew free some of the coal black feathers on my exposed, lone wing, on my right side.  I lost the other in a violent battle many years ago...but that...is an entirely different story.  I watch as they drift slowly down into the blinking lights below.  Wondering if they sent a signal to the other Lilin’s, that a foreign night walker had entered their territory.  All the little feathers I shed are singing, as are all the other night things.  I can hear them, singing to the moon of all shapely newness.

I pause atop Tokyo Tower in Japan; my ardent search has shepherded me here. I stand, unkempt waiting for some strange reaction. To what, I do not even know myself.  Gifted with wings, albeit only one, in addition to being able to travel at an inhuman speed, I arrived here in only a day from my home in Wales.  Ah! Japan!  A city of buzzing neon lights, noise, contradictions and offerings of every pleasurable temptations and delights ever imagined; all under the rising crimson sun.  All exists here.  From the most sadistic, Hellenistic acts, to the annoyingly fluffy, cute and pure.  Here on this tiny spit of land, is where tradition and the freaky, anime-fuelled pop-culture collided seamlessly together.  The smell of the mortal beings rises up to me like vapours, making me dizzy, hungry and angry.  Angry knowing that I came here not to taste, or hunt, however to end my pursuit. I have travelled this far, to this place to find my death or the cure of the illness that eats at me.  My beautiful, final death.  There comes a time in every Lilin’s life, where they become life weary.  The constant night, in and out of boredom, the loneliness that wells up and crushes what little is left of the soul, tired of the hell we achieve by our own brutal acts upon ourselves and the human lives we touch.  Weeping as the past falls away without footprints to follow back upon and our future always the same as the century before, immortal life soon feels like a cancer, eating away what little human remains in us; until life is like a hollow ledge with a little tepid pool left there by the sea, dying inward from the edge.  When we reach that point, we long for death to take us away upon its dusty wings, and feel the thrill of something different happening to our bodies.
 
Oh wow! That took a lot of writing....but very good practice.  I haven't created a female superhero in a long time. It was fun! And I hope fun to read, albeit, a little macabre.  I don't normally go for vampires as they are everywhere these days, but I couldn't resist just this once.
Thank you for reading my lovely bloggie friends! Wishing you a happy creative week! Cheers!
 
 



Sunday, February 24, 2013

The Gilded Lady



Hello my munchkins!  How have you all been?  Man, I really hate having a laptop that's half dead.  I'll be opening up commission slots here soon to help up my funds for replacing this old one of mine.

But, in the mean time, I have been steadily working on what now has become a middle grade book, these past months.  I had to up the age of my two main characters given what they are now faced with in the world created for them. I will be sharing all that I can with you lovely people...I'm working on a blog for it that will feature maps, characters designs and profiles, city profiles, the language of the world, short fairytale stories and so much more.  All that is still a work in progress, but I have the banner for the front sketched out and ready to colour.  I'm aiming for the end of March or April to have it up...so I'll just cross my fingers in hopes that I'll meet that deadline....if my laptop holds out.

Anyway, this is one of the characters from the story.  I'm not going to reveal her name though, as it gives away too soon what the story is all about, but, for now she'll be known as the Gilded Lady.  She's a very essential part of the book and she won't actually been seen until the end.  Her gold bonnet there, (those aren't horns on her head. *winks*) though holds a clue to what she is though, and she's not exactly human.  Okay, my lips are sealed for the rest of it though. *Evil laugh*

She's done in my usual way, watercolour pencils, used dry, sepia coloured inks and a little clean up editing done in Coral DRAW.  She took a fair amount of time to complete though, as I was doing the Christmas rush where I work, which took all my energy and left me super lazy after. *laughs*

On a side note, I've moved my giveaway to next month, seeing that I missed The Our World Our Art blog even because of my failing laptop. *sigh* Ah well, there will be other events to attend right? Yay!

So, that's all for now my luvies.  I was wondering though, I have part of a short story written out and I would love to share part of it with all of you, so I can have a feeling for how my writing practice is coming along.  Would you guys like if I posted it here for you all to read?

Wishing you all a happy, wonderful and creative week! Cheers!

Monday, January 7, 2013

Small Facebook Button Drawing

Wow...I had trouble with thinking up a post title for this. It's not what I wanted to blog about, but, for some reason blogger wont let me up load anything from my picture file....which is really frustrating.
Anyway, I did this a little while ago, hmmm...maybe October, I wanted a fun, pretty button to put on my blog that would link to my facebook page instead of just having a plain link instead.  This took me only two days to finish as it's very small.  I guess you could say it kinda of represents myself as I do have really long hair, (down to my waist) and have to wear glasses when I do my art, and, I absolutely love rams horns. *laughs*  Though I am glad not to have any in real life....that would be strange. Oh! Let's not forget the lovely roses, another one of those things I can't resist drawing.

Oh man, it's so nice to be on my blog today!  How was every one's holiday?  Have a good New Year's as well?  My New Year's was very quiet, had one very delicious chocolate beer and that was enough to knock me out all evening. *laughs*  My neighbours across the street on the other hand, sounded like they were having a total blast!  I wonder if any of them remember it at all.  I'm hoping for a good New Year for 2013.  A year of new starts, of actually getting the chance to do what I long to do in this little life of mine...which is to write some young adult novels and to get the opportunity to do some illustrations for children's books.  I want this to be a year of wish and dream fulfillment's, so I'm going to get my rear in gear to make it happen...this year I will do it! Yes!!

For starters, a new laptop is in order to get going.  Mid-December my current laptop started dying and I've been having major problems in keeping it running, as it will only stay on for no more than 2 or four hours at a time and even when does work, other major problems crop up.  I've been working hard at trying to pinpoint and fix it, but I've found out that it's a hardware issue.  So, all I've been able to do it pull everything off of it for now and hope it lasts just a bit longer.  I've missed being able to get online and do my blog though.  I never knew just how much I've come to rely on the Internet until now. *laughs*   I've been shopping around these last few weeks for a new laptop and from what I've seen, I'm super excited to get an upgrade to something new and get blogger to work better. Woo hoo! 

Whoa, I better dash before I ramble on too much and bore you all. *laugh*  I hope I can upload a drawing I have waiting soon, can't wait to get it on my blog!  I'll be having another giveaway in February, so keep you eyes peeled for it.

Well, my dear wonderful friends, I am wishing you all a great, wonderful and art filled New Year of 2013!! Cheers!

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Wondervixen: The Kitsune Superhero


Hello blogger munchkins!  So fall is in full swing now, it's been raining almost non-stop here in Vancouver...which has made for perfect excuses to stay snuggled at home with movies, good books and art! 

I was asked recently by a good friend, who runs a comic in the UK called Reynard City , who is hosting a calendar contest and asked if I'd like to make an entry.  How could I say no?  I love his characters!  I've been following their adventures for just over two years now and what a joy it's been to watch the growth of his brain baby.  It's about three crime fighting hero's that transform into foxes.  I chose Wonder vixen for this contest since she's strong of will, mind and body...plus she has a wonderful showgirl like figure that I always like drawing in my ladies and gorgeous flowing hair.  ( I just cannot go on enough about how much I love to draw lots of hair. *squees*)  I originally intended to go with a summer like background...but changed my mind once I saw how nice the fall colours complemented Wonder vixen's fox fur and tail.  She took a little longer to complete...about three weeks as I've been distracted with job searching and pounding my brain over what to name my Etsy shop.  Which I've been stumped with for the last few months. *laughs* I'm so slow to start anything. Ha!

Oh! And before I dash, I wanted to share an awesome pinterest find I stumbled across.  This little cup of heaven is perfect for a cold night and will warm you from head to toes.  When I first made it I thought I died and went to heaven! 


This originally came from a Tumblr post (the art for the recipe is theirs too) and I thank them deeply for posting this...for it is gold!  It's very easy to make.  Make sure though, that you do not use whipped butter...but just plain regular butter.  I stood in my kitchen on my first taste of this...unsure if was a good butter beer recipe...but ended up yelling out, "Yum!" at least 10 times. *laughs*  Try it...if you love sweet things, you'll love this.

Now, off to watch some Harry Potter movies and finish my current paper doll.  Have a wonderful, creative weekend, dear friends.  Thank you for reading.  Cheers!

Sunday, September 16, 2012

A 1940's inspired Catwoman


Helllloooo out there!  I never did thank my lovely readers and fellow bloggers out there from my last post for all the helpful advice and hints you all gave me to make this an awesome blog to come to. I give you a great big internet hug...you guys are awesome, awesome people.  My next step is to be a more active blogger and see if I can join in on some blog groups, so I plan on doing some searches to see what I can find. Yay!

So anywho, I know I have a lot more projects to be finishing up on, I just finished a mermaid paper doll for my lovely friend Cameron.  Which I have to print off and assemble, she'll be up a little bit later.  But, I had this burning desire to create some Batman fan art.  Catwoman has always been one of my favourite villans.  She's a strong, no non-sense kind of girl, nobel, but not so self-confidant all the time...she tries to be on good's side, but the darkness that's in her heart sometimes takes control of her.  I love her character for her complexity. 

I borrowed from the library a huge...I mean huge book on all the characters of DC Comics throughout the years...from the 1930's throught 2012.  When I came to the section of Catwoman, my muse decided to tickle me until I couldn't ignore it.  I loved Catwoman's out fit during the 1940's, where it was a long black dress with a deep plunging neckline and she sported one terrific mask.  Though the one I created here, is more along the lines of what Batwoman wore in the '40's.  I liked it and wanted to see how catwoman looked in it.

I used a plethora of different multi-liner pens and inda ink.  Sadly two of my pens died in this drawings creation. *laughs*  I also had to apply ample ammounts of white ink to clean up very messy lines in the after math.  It also gave me good practice on my inking skills...and inking smoke.  In all, took me about two weeks to finish her off, as my hand kept cramping up.  I think I need to get a stress ball for that problem, to exercise my fingers.

It's also Rosh Hashanna this week!  So to all my lovely blogger friends and creatives...I wish you a very happy Shana Tova Umetuka!!!  May you all have a prosperous and sweet new year!

Have a wonderful and creative week!! Cheers!

Friday, July 6, 2012

Illustration Friday: Suspend


Woo...blogging again after last night. *laughs*  Blogger is working much better today...which is awesome.

Anyway, this is for this week's Illustration Friday's topic, "Suspend".  I love looking through what other artists have contributed.  I decided to take a character from one of my mangas I'm working...this fellow is Dorian...and I hung him upside-down.  Looks like he likes that with the little wink on his face.  I don't know how well this goes with this weeks theme, but it was fun to create and I haven't submitted to an IF topic for a long time now.  So, I really wanted to do this weeks theme no matter what.

I haven't done screen tone work for about a month or two now, and I can't wait to get back to this comic so I can do more.  It's so great to work with them and being covered in little tone bits and dust.  I highly recommend every artist to at least experiment with it once.

Have a great, creative week my dear friends...cheers!

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Tanpopo


Hello dear friends!  I hope you are all having a wonderful June.  Though I don't know what happened to May...it seemed to have zoomed by so quickly.  But here in Vancouver, you wouldn't tell it was June at all, it's been very chilly and rainy and more like March weather.  We are all doing our sun dance here.

I didn't mean to wander away from my blog for a whole month!  My day job has been a bit crazy as of late and all I do when I get home is just crash out on my bed.  I've got my mum giving me some good kicks in the behind to get me moving on getting my projects done, which is helping.  I'm about to dust off an old graphic novel I was working on two years ago, so I'm really excited about revamping the main characters in it. Yay!

But first things first, one of my favourite artists, Camilla d'Errico, is holding a fan art contest and it was something I just could not pass up.  All entries will go to a gallery showing, so even if you don't win, you still do in a way...by having more people become exposed to your art.  Which I thought was freaking awesome.  Part of the rules were that you had to draw her two main characters from her manga "Tanpopo" and give it a poster treatment.  I went through a lot of rough sketches trying to figure out what would look best.  I wished I had scanned them in so I could show all of you.  I had the biggest trouble with Kuro, the fellow in the black cape, I just wasn't certain where to put him in the drawing and how close he should be to Tanpopo.  But I thought that having him sort of emerge from out of the drapes like black smoke would look pretty cool.  Although, I feel like I could have done a little better.  But overall, I'm quite happy with this.  This was my first time colouring in cut jewels!  I had about two books open as I did the colouring to get the light just right and to make them look like real cut pink diamonds.  I was also listening to the last Harry Potter book when I was colouring this, and I didn't realize until I was done, that a bit of Hogwarts had included itself in the drawing as well. *laughs*  I mean, how can you draw something and not be aware that you're drawing it?  I'm still stumped at that question.

So, this little lady will now be put in a mat frame and shipped off this weekend.  I have butterflies just thinking about it. *crosses fingers*


Wishing you all a very happy and creative week! Cheers!

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Sneak Peek at new short comic: "Fool's Gold"




So these are just of small taste of the new one shot comic I've been working on since last month.  The inking is taking me a long time as I'm trying very hard not to rely on the use of screen tones too much, which is proving to be a very hard challenge for me as I love to use screen tones to excess.

It's actually been quite fun discovering how to use inks and all the different effects that you can render with a pen.  I took out a huge book from the library on pen and ink effects, I love it so much that I wish I didn't have to return it. *laughs*  I will though.   I feel like it's helped me with improving my lines so much so, that I've become more confidant when I set out to ink a drawing.

This little tale is of a more scary twist on an old fairy tale from the brother's Grimm and a more urban Japanese myth of the slit mouthed woman.  I'm not going to say anymore than that...does this have a happy ending or a sad one? I'll keep you guys updated once it's done.  While drawing this though, I kept in mind the simple question, will the fairy tale monster be vanquished or will it feed?  Gruesome, yes, but it helped keep the dark mood of the story.

That's all for right now, my dear friends.  Are you all looking forward to Easter celebrations?  Ah, another holiday full of chocolate...did I mention how I love this time of year? *laughs*  Have a creative week everyone!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Two page comic preview: In Softness

I have started a short 12 page comic(manga in Japanese) story.  I have most of it inked and it's just a matter of getting it toned now.  Two pages are done, and I thought I'd give you lovies a little preview of it.  Since I seem to be failing at getting any publisher to even consider me or respond in that matter, I'll be self-publishing when this story is all finished. Yay!

Here's page one, the cover....



Annnddd...page two....


The story is about a young woman trying to cope with the loss of a loved one and cherishing some fond memories.  Sounds a wee depressing, but I hope to make an emotional impact with this. Love to hear your thoughts on this. ^_^

If anyone is at all interested in seeing a small tutorial on how to use traditional screen tones(which are like a grey scale sticker similar to zip tones of olde), I will gladly put one up. *wink*

I've been really pushing at this publishing thing, I've been out of work for almost five months now, I used to arrange flowers...which offered me a perfect opportunity to get really creative with improving my art skills...but man, this marketing stuff and pushing to publishers is no easy matter like I thought. Ha!  

Again, I want to thank all of you for your wonderful comments here...they really mean the world to me. ^_^

Happy week all!