I had an interesting development this month: a recommendation for a scholarship at Superstars. A friend of mine strongly recommended it, and she gave me some great advice for my application.

I don't know if I'll win or not, but either way, I appreciate the advice and the opportunity.

I also rewrote a significant segment of Wisps of Memory, to patch a plot hole I accidentally introduced when some characters started seeking information that they'd already gained via a scene I'd added earlier in the book. Whoops!

I swear, dialogue is like dominoes; each piece sets the next in motion, and if you remove or rearrange them, it creates a gap that ruins the whole thing. I tried to patch it neatly with a minimum of rewriting, but it still felt awkward.

Partway through that effort, I realized that, if I let go of the original version and heavily rearranged a certain series of questions, I could build organically and ominously toward a revelation that would shake some of the characters to their core.

So while this plot hole slowed me down a lot, the process of fixing it greatly improved the tension and the resulting "Oh, SHIT" moment.

I'm rereading the parts of the dialogue that follow that moment, to make sure there are no lingering offshoots of that plot hole, and then it's onwards and upwards!

Before the creation of the Mortal Realm...

50,000 years before the story begins...

Beings of pure magic and energy danced together, not knowing that the parts of them that mingled would blend into something new, something separate... something dangerous.

This was the birth of Sarovak.

The beings in this artwork are Raina's grandparents, the God of War and the Deity of Emotion.

I was recently given the opportunity to submit a 500-word short story to to Loom of Tales, so I decided to write about the semideities' origins from the perspective of the God of War. His search for purpose and belonging, his joy at discovering the power to create life... and his horror and his lingering glimmers of hope when everything went wrong.

Loom requested that the writers include images with their story, and rather than grab a generic picture of a war deity, I decided I wanted the artwork to match the characters' canonical appearances.

And so, in the couple of days I had before the deadline, I whipped up this portrait of the God of War dancing with the Deity of Emotion: an act that would lead to the birth of Sarovak, the origin and banishment of the semideity species as a whole, and the creation of the Mortal Realm.

You can see the concept art for Sarovak's daughter, Raina, as well as a lot of additional info about the world and characters, in this Patreon post.

Now that Chielle and Quenzin have their own character art, I'm working on the design for Raina: the Mother of All and Mother of None, First Semigoddess of the Mortal Realm, and the person with the most challenging outfit design I've ever created.

Not that her outfit is super complicated or anything, but it does have to accommodate two wildly different body shapes without ripping, because if she's given a good enough reason to, this woman hulks out and flips tanks.

The fact that she's 1/4 war goddess doesn't show often, but when it shows, it SHOWS. She is as gentle and maternal as she looks... until suddenly she's not. >:)

Here's a little preview of her normal form:
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​My Patreon supporters can see a higher-res version of this artwork, a work-in-progress image of her battle form, and a lot of additional worldbuilding and backstory info in this post.

They can also see an image of her in a swimsuit, because this outfit doesn't do justice to how muscular Raina is.

I finally finished Quenzin's concept art!

Behind the woeful visage of a sad, tired old man, there lies a plethora of mysteries.

​Quenzin first enters the story as the sole occupant of a crashed shuttle he wasn't supposed to be aboard, and he doesn't know why he was brought there, where the rest of the crew is, or why they left him to die alone.

To make matters stranger, when Chielle Havello Sai dragged him from the flaming wreckage, he was covered in blood and clearly in distress, yet showed no visible injuries.

And while he alludes to the existence of a sister he loves and children he may or may not have, most of his backstory - ESPECIALLY the details about his estranged family - is off limits to anyone he doesn't trust.

If the style of his clothing looks similar to Chielle's, that's because it is. Between the shuttle crash and the brutal events that preceded it, his former outfit was tattered beyond repair, so she loaned him the biggest coat and pants she had - and they were still noticeably too small for his 6'5" frame.

You can see the height difference between them in the image below. Unsurprisingly, there were no shoes in the facility that fit the towering rescuee, so he'll have to do without for a while.

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You can see higher-res versions of this artwork, as well as some of the earlier versions of Quenzin's concept art, by joining my inner circle on Patreon.

I decided it was time to make a proper character profile for Chielle, a character in my upcoming novel.

 
You can read more about her in the blog post where I first shared Chielle's concept art.

If you're curious about the naming convention I used for her family, it was inspired by the Spanish method of passing on surnames.

Since I'm writing a sci-fi fantasy world that isn't based solely on white Canadian culture, I didn't want to default to the "kids get the dad's last name and the mother's name disappears" formula from my own culture, so I looked to some of Earth's other cultures for inspiration.

I liked the Spanish model better: married women keep their original surnames, and after their personal names, Spaniards have both of their parents' first surnames, usually with the father's first and the mother's second.

But there were still a few things about that system that I wanted to tweak for this fictional universe.

For one thing, the first surname is often the only one used in less formal settings, so once again, the man's name is at the forefront while the woman's is left out.

​And because the children usually inherit the first of each parent's two surnames, the fact that the father's surname usually comes first means that - again - the mother's surname is erased.

That being the case, for the purpose of this book, I gave the system a small tweak: if the child is a girl, her surname is her mother's first surname, then her father's. If the child is a boy, his surname is his father's first surname, then his mother's. And if the child is nonbinary, it's decided on a case by case basis.

That way, both parents' names have a chance to be passed on.

How close is this book to being finished?

I'm in the process of fleshing out the outline, which means filling in plot holes, making sure no characters inexplicably disappear for days or indefinitely, adding foreshadowing, and removing any parts that no longer fit with the overall story.

I'm also writing the first draft of some scenes where I already have a clear and detailed idea of what I want to happen.

I'm currently on page 84 of 138, and the document is 68,664 words long!

Right now, I'm in the process of rewriting and fleshing out a pivotal scene roughly halfway through the book.

The first draft was already pretty much written, but then I decided that, under the circumstances, it would be more realistic and more emotionally compelling if it took place in another dimension, while one of the characters was bleeding into their brain. >:)

It definitely shifted the dynamic between the characters involved, and it gave me a chance to show off a side of their relationship that hadn't been shown in quite a while, while giving a shoutout to a part of their early backstory. All in all, I'm really happy with this change.

Want to see more?

If you want to be among the first to get updates about this story, to get early access to all my completed art and stories, and to get exclusive access to works in progress like the concept art for the man Chielle rescued, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

The latest chapter of my Undertale fanfic, Just Cause, is out, and Frisk is about to learn a few things about their friends that they'll wish they didn't know.

Read it on this website.

Read it on AO3.

This is the concept art for one of the major characters in my upcoming sci-fi fantasy novel. Everyone, meet Chielle!
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Out of all the concept art I've drawn for my various characters, this is one of the ones I'm the most proud of. She looks pretty much exactly like I pictured her in my head, I love her fashion sense, and she's got such a distinctive look.

Her right hand is posed the way it is because I plan for her to be holding one of her inventions, when I figure out what said invention looks like.

So who is Chielle?

Chielle is a human scientist in a universe where Spinosauruses, spaceships, and immortal semideities can all be found on the same planet.

Her natural hair color is brownish black, but she's always been a big fan of stark, bold color contrasts, especially between light and dark. So when she started to develop vitiligo, she decided that if her favorite aesthetic was going to take over her face, she might as well run with it.

She lost her right arm in a shuttle crash when she was a child. When the rescue workers finally found her and pried her free from the wreckage, that moment when fear and despair suddenly turned into hope made a deep and lasting impression on her, as did the impact that getting her first prosthetic made on her quality of life.

For the rest of her childhood, she was torn between two dreams.

She became fascinated with prosthetics, and started studying them in hopes of someday inventing one that had the same range of motion and sensation as the original limb. She wanted to make life better for herself and her fellow amputees, just as the inventors who came before her had done for her.

But at the same time, part of her wanted to be a hero in a more direct and life-saving way, as those rescue workers had been to her. She wanted to be the reason someone's terror and despair turned to hope.

Even after she accepted a job in research and development, that part of her still hoped that if another shuttle crash happened, she'd be close enough to save the people inside.

Then, one day, she got her chance.

Chielle accepted an ambitious assignment in a classified lab on a remote planet, to seek a technological solution to a magical problem that had cost thousands of people their lives.

Her mission was to use her expertise in technology and neuroscience to invent machines that would block magic Wisps' control over their host, allowing people to wield the Wisps' magic without fear of getting possessed.

When the impact of a downed shuttle shook her lab, she didn't hesitate to race into the flames and drag the only surviving passenger to safety.

She had no way of knowing how this ragged, mysterious survivor would turn her world upside down.

Update:

Chielle now has an official character profile! You can see it here.

​If you want to be the first to get updates about Chielle and her world, to see higher-res versions of my art, and to get early access to all my completed writing and art, please join me on Patreon!

Somehow, improbably enough, its already 2023! This past year was certainly interesting; I switched my focus to a sci-fi fantasy novel whose outline/first draft hybrid is over 52,000 words long, am working on the character designs for said novel, got a few more chapters of Just Cause published, and started a series of pride flag-themed art pieces.

You can see the synopsis/back cover description for the novel in the image below: 

It's an early WIP; I might pare the text down later, and I'll almost certainly add something more to make the back cover pop, but for now I think it gives a good bird's-eye view of what this story is about.

It's been a while since an original story took over my brain the way this one has, and I'm really glad it did.

Outlining this story has certainly been an exercise in "shelving my darlings" - not killing them, but setting them aside for future books.

I had several characters, relationships, plot threads, and major conflicts planned in the original outline of this book, and then Raina and Quillen came swanning in, took over, and created a new storyline in which some of the original pieces no longer fit, haha.

A lot of these story components are too good to lose, and too complex and compelling to relegate to side plots, so I'll just have to find a new home for them where they can fully shine.

Hopefully by the end of 2023, I'll be able to share the completed book! In the meantime, I wish you an amazing year full of fun, inspiration, and amazing stories.

P.S. If you want to be the first to know when the book is available, and to get early access to excerpts, concept art, and other such goodies, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

Alphys has an awkward moment with Mettaton. Mettaton has an awkward moment with some rose petals. Frisk has an adorable moment with Sans.

​All this and more happens in the latest chapter of my Undertale fanfic, Just Cause.

Read it on this site.

Read it on AO3.

Buckle up, everyone! Alphys is in a moral hole, she's found a new shovel, and she's ready to start digging!

Check out chapter 16 of my Undertale fanfic, Just Cause, to see how Frisk handles their first encounter with the royal scientist and a violent robotic TV host.

Read it on this site

Read it on AO3