[This entry is brought to you by , who asked for a journal shout-out after he did a lovely drawing for me, and who am I to refuse such an easy request in return?]

Recently I’ve been fleshing out a novel I’m pretty pumped to begin writing: a fantasy-ish story that I first thought up in my early teens and that has hung around in my subconscious ever since. Back then I wrote, like, 10-15 horrible pages that are painful to read now, and the only thing I’m still interested in about it is a key item the book revolves around – nothing else is getting carried over. I’ve always been a bit reluctant to see it through because I’ve never really done anything with a fantasy flavour to it before, but dammit the thing just won’t stop pestering me to write it, and with my new angle on it I finally feel ready. I’m itching to get all the plotlines and character arcs and everything sorted out so I can start it already.

Anyway, having recently joined dA, I saw a great opportunity to get some visual representations done of the core characters. As much as I love and breathe writing, there are many days where it feels like the words are pounding the living hell out of me and it just becomes a massive grind. For days like that I thought, “Hey, wouldn’t it be great to get some of the artists on dA to draw up the characters to help keep the creative juices flowing?”

Luckily the forum is crawling with artists open to requests. A handful of talented people have already graciously accepted, and I’ve already received one drawing from the aforementioned KitsuneRihatsu, who did a wonderful version of my character Eme Clover.

The great thing about this is that it gives me the chance to realize things about the character that I maybe hadn’t seen yet. For instance, while I still envision Eme wearing an eye patch as a necklace and not actually wearing it on her eye as KitsuneRihatsu drew it (that was my fault for poorly relaying the info in my super cheap reference sheet), I’m now thinking, “Why shouldn’t she wear it on her eye on occasion…to sorta get in touch with her pirate roots?” KitsuneRihatsu also added a couple of scars to Eme that I hadn’t mentioned, but it makes total sense for her to be a bit battered: And I love the contrast of her being so young but having these marks of earned experience on her. I probably won’t have a scar running down under her eye like KitsuneRihatsu gave her, but I like the idea of her having a scar and displaying it for all to see, kinda like a badge of honour. Little things like that are so important when fleshing out a character, and seeing artist’s interpretations of the characters presents a great opportunity for me to think about them and what I want them to be in another light.

I’ll keep updating this journal entry with links to any new art of my novel’s characters and the wonderful artists who draw them. Thanks guys!

Eme Clover [link] drawn by
Eme Clover [link] drawn by
Eme Clover [link] , Doriimaa Brist [link] , Senfalla Gen [link] , Hana Minne [link] , Vaxt K. [link] , Senfalla Gen + Hana Minne [link] drawn by
Hana Minne [link] drawn by
Hana Minne [link] drawn by
Eme Clover [link] and Doriimaa Brist [link] drawn by
Eme Clover [link] drawn by