And There Was Much Rejoicing

What once was lost is now found!
My laptop has returned unto me! It returned to me this afternoon and now sits on the kitchen table, eager for its hard drive to be reinstalled so it can once again join me in my varied and amusing Internet adventures.
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In other news, I return to school on Sunday. I'm ready to head back and see my friends, plan a meal for everyone, and threaten them with knives. I'll pop in the fireplace DVD and we'll all gather around the flickering digital flames and discuss what has come to pass since we last gathered.
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What's with the picture accompanying this post, you ask? Not sure. I'm feeling cheerful and that picture just made me feel satisfied, contented and all warm and fuzzy inside. Looking at it, I realize that I now need to mark any new pictures as copyrighted in 2010, rather than 2009, as I have been doing. Now, to the bat cave! I must prepare for my next glorious, action-packed adventure!

Meet My Friends

The imaginary ones, anyway. I've been doing some drawings of characters from the stories I write, and I thought they're turning out rather well. Keep in mind, these are all works in progress and not yet completed.

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First off, this is Vanessa Lynn.

She's friendly, I swear! Sixteen years old and a powerful sorceress, she is a supporting character in one of my stories. The story is going through a big overhaul right now, so it doesn't have a title at this time. Obviously a fantasy, hopefully an original one.

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This guy is called Matthew from the story, "Overdue". Which, by the way, exists in the same world as Vanessa's story.

Man, he doesn't look very friendly either. He's usually much more cheerful and snarky, and lots of fun to be around. He lives in the mountains and has a fascinating back story which I won't tell you about because it would give away all the twists.

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Now, for someone who actually looks cheerful, Andrew Furlen.

He's a wizard in my story, "Silent Stone". He has a rather deadpan sense of humor and usually pretends to be vague and unfocused so people won't bother him.

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Meet Gray, The Gatekeeper,

Also from "Silent Stone", he is a personification of the magical protection of the palace. He was created centuries ago and then someone lost the user manual, apparently, so not much is know about him or how he works. He is programed to intervene if the royal family or the other palace inhabitants are in immediate danger, but not until then.

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He's not Asian, by the way, I'm just trying out a kimono sort of outfit, trying to get a balance between them and the usual wizard's robes. And maybe give him a hat.

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So, how am I doing?

Something Different

It has been some time since I posted anything to do with my digital coloring and I might as well, since I have improved significantly in the intervening time.
First off, here is a picture I use as my ID online. Ignore the text, it isn't important and needs to be updated.

It's supposed to be a skin-like mask that makes the face look somewhat blank, but still have hints of the features underneath. It's rather fun to color. Here's another example of the same character:

I really liked how this one turned out (above), I think the face looks good and the hands aren't too bad either. I used to avoid drawing hands, so I always feel satisfied when my character has both hands showing and in fairly believable poses.

Now, for a bit of a dynamic piece:

These are all my original character, Currer Bell. He's not meant to be an author avatar of any sort, he's just fun to draw. At the moment most of my completed pictures are of Currer Bell, or of my sister's original character, Jay:

Or sometimes both of them together:

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These pictures are drawn by hand, scanned into the computer, then colored in photoshop. I've been doing this for about six months and having much fun.