Okay, I'm a little late getting this out. I've made a mental note to get these things ready on Thursdays to release the Friday after.
There's much in this update to look at and read over. No, this is not a chapter release. The first chapter release for Arkayia is in fact planned for next Friday (now that I've made that official, I'll need to buckle down and start working mah friggin' tail off!
In this update there are other things to look at. And I decided not to split it up into multiple updates like I did last Friday. Everything will be put into this single update to help keep your inboxes (and forums) clean and sanitized from my silly update spamming =P
So, enough of the gab and more of the updates! Here we go!
--Artwork Update: Dwelling of the Fairy Folk (continued)------------------------------------------
I've only got one thumbnail done this week. But regardless of the lack of quantity I feel the quality is very rewarding.
This would be the first time I worked this piece on plain white paper. This was done on a very small index card (the second step up for the thumbnails from the composition notebook paper)
Just to give you an ideah of exactly how small this thumbnail is, I included the following snapshot, using two pennies, a nail and the butt end of a pencil. Behold my skills in very tiny detail!
Let me know what y'all think! =)
-- Literature Update (Recent Songs and Poems from Various Literature's)----------------------------------------
For the literature update this week, I decided to include some of the songs from the more recent literature's. From Arkayia, Longfeather and other things, as I will explain with each individual piece. None of these songs or poems are final, but they are worthy of the public eye. And for that, I'm quiet proud of my work here. =)
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The first piece is the Psalm of the Four Daughters. Originally the opening poem for the first book of Arkayia. The poem tells of the four daughters of the mother goddess of this fictional world and the four keystones they were given by their mother.
Poem of the Four Daughters.
Once there were Four Stones
That shined with the Light of Eve
The heart of the Mother Goddess, a gift to the
And to the Four Daughters, they received
Their powers infused, the stones ever glowed
To bound the world of shadow.
So that life shall ever flow
Oh Four Daughters, guard our world so
Your will shall light the paths of old
And to the four corners, separate, you shall go
Until the world's end
So shall it be
To the Promised Land
We shall be made free
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SONG OF THE FLOWER MAIDEN
(NOT FINAL)
From the literature: The Children of Arkayia; Book One; Escape to Ceria. This song was originally written as Princess Aria's song from chapter 12; The House of Dukes. Though I did want to keep the song in the literature, I decided it wasn't the right song for that particular scene. I'll still attempt to keep it in the text elsewhere, perhaps in the current book or one of the latter. This also may not be the final version of this song.
Once upon a midnight moon
The maiden flowers in full bloom
There, a lady in elegant white
Stood atop the tower's flight
Oh where the prince of shinning light
The maiden would not know that night
Long a past the valleys wide
He fought endlessly against dark side
The battles, long an endless fight
Yet the Prince held no fright
He fought hard, steady and strong
Yet he'd not last much long
Oh where the prince the maiden knew not
He would not return that night
Yet she waited each mid moon
For the Prince's return, might it be soon.
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THE OLD MOUNTAIN TRAIL SONG
(SHORT LITERATURE VERSION)
This is the first song I wrote for another book series titled Longfeather. Here, our hero character sings a short version of this song (as shown here) as he and his steed friend trot down an old mountain path down into the deep Maiden Valley lands.
Hai-Didi! Ho-Dilli!
Down the mountain path we go
Here I'll sing, fiddle and dance
Where trees and flowers grow – o!
Mai-Didi! Ho-Millie!
Come on my friends, let's go
Where the streams bubble and fall
Down into the river below!
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IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY!
(SHORT LITERATURE VERSION)
This piece is from a short children's book series called: Tales from Woodlynn Hill. The main characters are these anthromorphic children who go on many adventures together. This is a special birthday song that I put together in the first book titled The Great Birthday Treasure Hunt.
It's a special day
To go out and play
And sing a grand ol' song
Just put on your hats
And twirl like that
We'll do this all day long!
Oh its your birthday!
Twas once your first day!
Oh don't you know?
It sure does show!
You're another year older!
-- This Weeks Extra (Old Artwork from Longfeather)-------------------------------------------------------
This is a special Extra (something I' may be doing on some fridays along with the big updates) where I'll be showing off some older art projects the early years (2003 to 2005). This week I decided to take a look back at some scene artwork I did for my screenplay on Longfeather.
This is where I started to learn my style a bit and found my love for excesive detail (as you can see in the art). I've had the complaint that these pieces look way too busy and can hurt the eyes. My style still has this issue, but its something I hope that can be fixed with a bit of time and effort.
I've only included a few of my favorite pieces for this little gallery. Most of you have already seen these pieces. But I'm sure there's a few heads out there who havent yet =)
Comment and let me know what ya think!
--Life in General---------------------------------------------
Okay, as I said in Tuesday's update, I've decided to cut back on my project work so to give myself some space to breath.
I've decided first and foremost that I shall put the webcomic work on hold until I get a job. This would allow me to see what my work schedules will be like so I can figure out whether I can make another long term commitment to web comic publications.
Acting and singing can also wait, as well as the video blogs. These such things are not really neccesary at the momment (the video blogs were nothing more of a scheme to get more comments from folks)
Graphic novel works are something I'm really excited about doing, but before I can move along to the bigger stories that I have in mind, I decided to make Percy my first graphic novel experience. So the other big graphic novel projects hit the back burner for now (I still cant stop daydreaming about them! =P )
I am also to be putting my children's short books on hold for a short while and put my focus directly on Percy.
Arkayia and my main artwork projects remain in the forefront of my current work.
And as for job hunting. I'm still waiting to hear back from Voc Rehab to see what they will be doing for me. I'm a bit nervous to go out and find a job while waiting because I just know that the schedules for work and important rehab meetings would conflict and I'd have to pick one over the other. For the momment, I am doing my part here around the house by watching the kids and thouroughly cleaning the apartment each morning (dishes, dusting, vacuming, moping and everything above and beyond) so its not like I'm being a lazy duddy... my sister seems to really apreciate my efforts and has not made one mention about money or a job to me, so I think everybody is on mutual ground with me...
I still wish those mates at Rehab would hurry up and call though!
A few weeks back I found a whole computer in the dumps while I was making my usual morning rounds of trash hauling. It included the main computer, the monitor, mouse and keyboard and all. I took it home to see if it works.
The machene is an old HP computer that runs windows 98 and contains 32 gigs of space (I'll need to look up the ram, but judging from the slowness I'm sure its pretty damn low...) The CD Rom is a bit busted and you have to punch the eject button on it some hundred times to get the cd tray to slide out (it still works, but is a bit faulty with some cd's) the monitor that came with it is a rather old one but has two built in speakers on both sides (one side works, the other has a snipped wire) and it works, but its such a small blurry screen that I swapped it out for one of my better monitors. But regardless of what monitor I use, the computer somehow causes the screen to have horizontal lines going across it (from various graphics that are on the screen)
I cleaned the computer up a bit, deleted a huge junkpile of games and spyware and completely customized everything on the hard drive to my liking. This computer is now my new work station (until I get that new laptop) for writting and graphics uploading. I'll have to get used to Win98's layout again, but that's okay. I find it less distracting than the newer XP/Vista stuff. Somewhere down the line I may upgrade the computer to XP or Windows 7 (if possible) I do have an XP cd somewhere in storage, but finding it has proven close to impossible (sister had it last)
For some reason, its always rewarding when I salvage something like this. Whoever threw it away, I feel just let so much go to waste... And now what one person thought trash has become another man's treasure! I shall perhaps write a few books on this machene and piece together wonderful pieces of digital art for the world to see!
Anyway, that is all I have for now.. whatever I've forgot this week can be brought up tuesday or next friday =)
Cheers!
oh.. and PS: Please comment! **begs**
