I’ve almost got it back again! I actually finished the initial ten-weeks’ worth of buffer a couple of weeks ago. The trouble with building a ten-week buffer is that it always takes more than one week to finish, so I wind up having to patch the gap of the weeks I use up in order to bring the total to ten again… if that makes sense. So now I’m nearing the end of batch number two, and then I should be ready to get back into a comfortable routine. I just put down the yellow ochre layer tonight.  

I’ll layer more colours on as the week progresses until these are done. I’ve also got a batch of Jamet pages I need to put shading down on, but the goal is to have it all completed by next Sunday.

I’m also still diligently working on the commission for one of my patrons, Rubje (and, as usual, underestimating how much time it actually takes me to paint something). It’s coming along nicely, if slowly. Here’s a peek at the progress as it stands currently  – the only peek that’s going public until this beastie is done. For those not currently pledging through Patreon, I’m posting time lapse videos of the creative process on this piece as I go and they’re in the $3 tier. 

The next watch-me-make-this video for this commission is going to be the longest one yet and while it’s going to be some time until it’s finished, it’ll also be really cool to see. I’m painting in 30 minute sessions and recording each one to be spliced together at the end. You’ll get to see the whole piece come alive.

I might even put the whole process, from pencils to inks to finished, together into one video if we can. I know some of it was initially rendered in 4K and some is in 1080p (my old desktop couldn’t handle 4K software without chugging horribly and my laptop doesn’t have Adobe Premiere on it because my CS5.5 copy doesn’t like to run on OS X Mojave and I can’t afford Creative Cloud). I’ll let the video editing wizard that I live with sort out those details.

Writing is also still happening, but I haven’t been comfortable posting what I have yet. I’ve gone back to working on Alpha Base again and there’s a lot of the story that just needs a lot more depth. I mostly switched pronouns around a lot and then absolutely covered my original draft with notes and mark-up and talking-to-myself “Meghan, what the hell were you thinking” for later re-writing. I suppose that’s the nature of a rough draft, and if you guys at the $10 tier want to see my scratchy garbage covered in notes, I’d be willing to toss the whole thing up there. Just know that it’s a real mess. 😛

At any rate – lots happening in the background! Many things to come. 

We don’t chat often, but I always look forward to hearing from Alexander. This time he had another really neat batch of art inspired by Prophecy of the Circle. I love these. I swear, there’s so much behind each of these pieces. I can sense a whole story and it just gets my imagination going.

They’re all up in the Fanworks gallery with the others, and if you haven’t seen the rest of the work he’s sent over, you should really take a look (and check out the other artists while you’re over there – there are some stupendous pieces in there!).

I hope it’s not truly an annual thing. I’m really hoping I can just maintain it this coming year and end off 2019 with something to fall back on and a sense of victory. We’ll give it another shot.

I’ve been very close to working deadline-to-deadline in this last chunk of the year. Christmas took that down even further and lit the fire under my butt, so I spent this last week drawing a full ten weeks’ worth of new material. I’m looking forward to getting these all done and having that wiggle room back in my routine. I’m still rather proud of myself for coasting on the last batch all the way to the end of 2018 despite the troubles, though. I’m on to something here!

Now for my next big project, while I work on inking and painting these: I’ve got to get a big commission done that I’ve been posting timelapse videos of for patrons so I can have my drafting table back. 😉 I’m aiming for getting all the inks and paints on that one finished by the end of January and then comes the adventure of scanning it for safety, shipping it, and doing a little “please survive transit” dance. Then I can post the finished work publicly.

Now that Christmas chaos is complete and New Year’s is almost here, I’m also looking forward to getting back to routine in the new year with a focus on doing art and writing regularly. The rhythm I had going in late November and early December was working really well to keep me mindful of all those times when I could squeeze creativity into my day and the results were great. I want to keep that up and bring even more to you guys. <3

On that note, I have more things to do and an art piece to start so that I can finish it in 2019. Look for more from me soon!

– Comment on Patreon –

So welcome to December! Apologies for not posting my NaNoWriMo content this time around. I actually opted to start working hardcore on planning out Chapter Four of Prophecy of the Circle and while I didn’t finish the whole thing, I succeeded in building a framework. I still feel kind of iffy about positing straight up spoilers, especially with Chapter Three not done yet. That work I just did will definitely benefit the comic in the future, though. I absolutely want to level this thing up for the next chapter.

For writing, Alpha Base is my next project that I want to get back in to. I need to reassess it because last time I started to lose the track and meander off into the darkness, but I’ve got a plan to get that one wrapped up early next year. One of my best friends started self-publishing recently and she keeps needling me about getting into it. Step one: complete a thing!

So let’s get back to it. Heck yes.

ETA: I also started a new rough draft of a Prophecy of the Circle short story: Depths, about a certain talented individual being sent into the bowels of the Temple to look for treasure about the Seradin tech in storage.

– Comment on Patreon –

The final piece in my batch of commissions again went to WDG as a companion piece to his first character design. She’ll be popping up in the story somewhere alongside her mate, likely on one the docks of Tieke City.

Thanks again, WDG!

On that note, due to some chaos in my workplace that’s taxing me much more than usual (and the usual state of my being is already pretty taxed so that says something…), I think I’ll put off the next batch of commissions for a bit. I’ve stopped the monthly suggest-a-sketch posts for the same reason. When things calm down again, though, I’ll get the suggest-a-sketches going again on Patreon and for commissions I have two or three folks who expressed an interest but couldn’t get a slot last time for one reason or another, so I’ll be asking them first when I open up again – batch two will be another patrons-only one, but after that I’ll branch out to the public as well. That said, if all three take me up on the offer at Patreon, then there’ll still be one slot free on the next round. If you’re interested and you’re pledging, let me know and I’ll pop you on the waitlist!

This was an interesting one! The prompt Erich gave me was to draw a character based off of the designs of Hotline Miami. Talk about intense! I actually really enjoyed it, though! I spend so much time in an old-world setting in Prophecy of the Circle that getting to hop forward to something that looks present day was very enjoyable. As you can imagine, this fellow’s not getting a cameo (although if I’d been asked to do one, I’d have totally found a way to fit him in and my characters would have been so perplexed).

Here’s the second piece for him: 

 

Heck yeah, that was fun to draw. I had Tim pose for me so I could get the arms right and if anyone had looked in the window then, I’m sure it would have looked every so slightly mad…

Thanks Erich! That was awesome. 😀

Life’s been rather chaotic lately… but I have been completing those commissions! The last one was finished up this past weekend, and this one, for the amazingly supportive Rubje (seriously, man, thanks for everything) is already in his hands. Again, sorry for not getting this up here sooner, but I’m doing it now. It’s time. It’s definitely time.

I love this character. He gave me a little bit of personality run-down for him and a bit of backstory and he’s going to be so enjoyable to work into the story. I can’t wait to map out those cameo appearances.

Here’s his part two. I stuck to my guns and made two for everybody:

 

I’ll get the next two up here shortly. I just want to not bombard you guys with posts at the moment.

Here’s the first of my Custom Character Commissions over on Patreon. (There’s still one slot left for this round, btw!) This one is for WDG, of a diver/fisherman Tieke. He’s slated to make an appearance in the comic sometime in the near-ish future. I hope to work these cameos in relatively quickly after commission completion, but sometimes it’ll take a while for just the right scene to present itself. 🙂

Bonus! He suggested an alternate outfit, so I drew up a second angle:

I discovered that it was easier to do two paintings, so that’s likely how I’ll handle future commissions of this type as well. I’m going to try to give everybody two different angles, like the example image of Sarestra in the original post.

Thanks again to those who’ve commissioned me so far! You guys have been so great and so patient and encouraging.