The top illustration is Fields of Gold 2, one of my recent artworks and a personal favorite.
Quick info:
Commissions - closed.
Art trades - closed.
Requests - closed.
Personal info:
I am an art hobbyist. I sell my work at SF/Fantasy conventions in the United States and I sell to private collectors, but I do not make my living through my art. Art is my for-fun-and-relaxation vocation. I make my living as a systems administrator with a mainframe z/OS specialty for SS&C Technologies. I am based in the Kansas City, Missouri metropolitan area in the United States.
I like to draw dragon things, feathery things, buggy things, monstrous things, and other fantasy and SF things. I prefer design-oriented illustration over narrative illustration, and my focus tends to be on pattern and decoration. I am inspired by all kinds of creatures from the natural world, especially fish, insects, reptiles, birds, and flowers.
My artwork is comprised mostly of traditional mediums. I use ink, watercolor, and a variety of colored pencil brands, though I favor Prismacolor pencils over all others. I also use gel pens and acrylics. I like to include elements such as scrapbook paper, fancy rocks (cut/polished cabochons), acrylic rhinestones and Swarovski crystals, metal and glass decorations, and a variety of other 3D objects. Occasionally, I'll get a wild hair and break out the glitter.
I do some work in Photoshop. Usually I use the program for post-processing a hand-drawn artwork, but also I use it to perform color tests and other small projects. I would not consider Photoshop to be one of my primary creative mediums; rather, it is one of my finishing tools.
I share my artwork on a few other platforms, in combination with general short blogging. I know that some people have different platform preferences, so here are the other places I can be found:
Amazon - I have five dragon- and fantasy-themed coloring books available on Amazon. These are all original hand-drawn images that I've reworked in Photoshop to make them colorist-friendly. The Dragon Adventure vols 1-4 are aimed at advanced colorists. Dragon Adventure for Young Colorists is aimed at kids and casual colorists. Here are links to the individual books:
Dragon Adventure 1 - 2nd edition coming in 2026.
Dragon Adventure 2 - 2nd edition coming in 2027.
Dragon Adventure 3 - 2nd edition coming in 2028.
Dragon Adventure 4 - 2nd edition available soon.
Dragon Adventure for Young Colorists - now available, has 101 drawings to color!
Cara - I reveal new art here in parallel with DeviantArt.
DeviantArt - This is a chronological catalogue of artistic endeavors, moderately well-organized. I consider DA to be my "primary" art sharing website.
Print Information - This DeviantArt journal has information about my prints. I sell them ad hoc and make them with my own equipment, rather than using online print services. My prints are matted, signed, and numbered limited editions. I use archival paper and ink.
Facebook - I reveal new art here in parallel with DeviantArt. I post other information and personal achievements as well. I occasionally share music and performance videos that I like, and also terrible puns and other amusements. The vast majority of what I share is public, and 99% SFW.
FurAffinity - I reveal new art here in parallel with DeviantArt.
Instagram - This usually parallels new work posts that are on my other websites, but the formatting may be different due to Instagram's image ratio restrictions.
Bluesky - This will parallel my other social media sites for new work, and I'll post random old works also.
Twitter/X - I'm not as engaged here as elsewhere, but I've decided to start posting on this site again. Posts will parallel my other social media sites for new work.
Email - If you prefer to communicate via email, you are welcome to send me a DM and I will provide my email address. I do not want to post my address publicly on Tumblr.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
This is an illustration for the Mercaria TTRPG that features some werebeasts in a haunted forest who are planning a mission.
I used Staedtler pens on 8x10 Strathmore drawing paper. It felt like it took a long time to finish, but I probably spent 12-16 hours on it over the course of several weekends.
Trees are tough. I don't have a good feel for the way the shapes work together, so this illustration was especially challenging in that sense. I used a photo of a gnarly old tree in a Devon forest as a point of departure; I thought it already had a lot of character and would lend itself well to being haunted by tree demons.
Here's some recent work for HeroQuest: Two vampire halflings - half terrifying and half ridiculous. Also, a were-beast transformation. We already have a werewolf illustration, so I thought I'd do a bear for the transformation sequence. Paul wanted it to evoke Animorphs.
I used Micron pens on the halflings, and I used Staedtler pens on the werebear.
If you were following me on the old one, please follow me on this new one. It is the backup account in case I cannot appeal the termination of my original account.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
My kid-friendly Dragon Adventure coloring book is now live on Amazon (link below). I had planned to have four volumes of 25 images each, but that did not end up being cost effective. So you get 'em all at once - plus one more, because somehow, there was an extra drawing.
I drew all of the images by hand and cleaned them up in Photoshop. The cover was constructed and colored in Photoshop.
Here is a link to the coloring book:
Amazon.com: Dragon Adventure for Young Colorists: 9798247680321: Mayo, Rachael, Mayo, Rachael: Books
This piece fought me most of the way to its completion.
The 25,000 dots didn't give me too much trouble - they took time, of course, but the pens were all very cooperative.
For the circular areas, though… I tried gold leafing for the first time. It didn't work out; not at all. My attempt left me with these lumpy, brush-stroky things that didn't look at all how I envisioned the shiny circles to be, so I decided to go another direction entirely. The circles are now simply acrylic with metal crumbs sprinkled on top.
I've also included a scolecite (the light-colored round stone on the top left), and a black obsidian (top right). There are black color-treated agates along the bottom and sides, as well as some other shiny inclusions.
The dragon was done with Micron pens and paint/gel pens. The background is mostly acrylic with some scrapbook paper along the edges.
About twenty years ago, I drew a big batch of characters for a friend's TTRPG called Heroquest. A few months ago, he got back in touch and asked for some new drawings. He decided he likes my black and white work better than the much older color work, so all of the new batch are going to be like this.
He just gives me a broad character class and lets me go to town. That is an ideal art director.
This is another entry in the Stone Dragon series, which I will later cut out and mount into a composition with 3D embellishments and other fun stuff. This is the horse dragon, one of the twelve creatures of the Chinese Zodiac.
I used ink, watercolor, Prismacolor pencils, and silver paint pen.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
This is the first of three variations on this dragon design. The Brick of Inspiration giveth, and it giveth in buckets. So, yes, three variations on this theme hit me all at the same time.
I was inspired by a chapter header illustration in a Lone Sloane collection that had one of Phillipe Druillet's fabulous, detailed ink drawings with just a couple of spots of watercolor. I wanted to try that same technique in something of my own, and that's how this design came to be.
I inked the dragon with Micron pens. The spheres are colored with watercolor. Although you can't see it here, there's also a faint sheen of gold acrylic that you would see as you move past the physical art. In the background are acrylic paint spatters and acrylic shiny bits.
Here are three versions of Path Between Stars 5, and all are still works in progress. Each will be finished in a different and interesting way, because the Brick of Inspiration (TM) told me to.
Here's the final version of the fourth project in the Champions series. I went all out on colors I hardly ever use, and I had a lot of fun with it.
The dragon is made with Prismacolor pencils and gel pens over a watercolor underpainting.
The embellishments… I couldn't resist. There's a whole lot of different stuff in this one. Czech glass beads, amethyst, blue lace agate, rhodonite, turquoise/copper and turquoise/copper/shell composites, glass, red coral, rose quartz, paua shell, and a big metal brad. Plus assorted acrylic shiny bits.
This is "Yantra of Dubious Provenance 2". It is 14x17 inches.
Fair warning: This is not meant to be a meditation aid. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The geometry is deliberately skewed and off-kilter, and the yantra is not a true yantra - it has broken bits, weird angles, has been mirrored and rotated, and is made of bones. If you stare long into this colorful abyss and summon something you shouldn't have, don't come cryin' to me! I might give you a marshmallow to feed it, though.
A couple of years ago, I made a Yantra of Dubious Provenance for a friend's promotional material for his book. I had a couple of alternate ideas for the structural details of the design that we decided not to use, and I thought I would explore one of those ideas with this second design.
The idea was to use a whole lot of bones. So a great deal of the structural geometry is comprised of fantasy bones of all sorts, claws, teeth, vertebrae…
It was deliriously tedious fun to draw it all out, and then color it. [Checks calendar] It took me seven months to color this thing! Granted, I worked mostly on the weekends up until the very end, where I just wanted to get the thing done.
I also needed something to fill in the space around the circle-and-star design, so I decided to go with wings. Lots of wings. There's definitely something of the ophanim about it ("Wheels of the Chariot of God" or something along those lines). One of the first prints I make will take this idea a step further, and will involve the use of about 400 googly eyes. I didn't want to do the googly eye treatment to the original… Though I was tempted by the end of the project.
I used a very faint template for the geometric forms that I composed in Photoshop. I drew and inked my bone design over the simple geometric forms, then added all the details like the eye-wing ovals, the little bones within the star shapes, and the wings. That process took about four weekends, I think.
I colored this with Prismacolor pencils. There's no watercolor underlayer this time; I didn't want anything to tint the colors since I planned to use the full spectrum of colors throughout the image. Pure rainbowlicious terror and weirdness.
I also used a small selection of stones:
On the outermost bone circle, there are black color-treated agates.
At the outer points of the star are lapis lazuli.
Where the star lines overlap are manufactured turquoise/copper composites.
In the center is an Ethiopian opal that shimmers green and gold.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
Facebook
Instagram
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
This ridiculous thing that has eaten my life is "Alien vs Predator: Dragonslayer."
This is one of those projects that has been fermenting in the back of my mind for about fifteen years. I finally finished it today, and it's likely to be the last Aliens vs Predator piece for the foreseeable future. (I'm invoking the Law of Murphy here: like washing the car in hopes of rain, right? If I say I don't plan to do any more AvP work, I'll get smacked with the Brick of Inspiration at some inconvenient time of the night.)
There's no big story behind this piece. I wanted to do a "St. George and the Dragon" kind of thing, and I wanted to detail the absolute hell out of both characters. I did this because it's fun. Lots of work, but fun. I think there's about 60 hours of coloring in this, on top of about ten hours of drawing and inking. I completed it over several months' worth of weekends, though. The color balance was driving me crazy - too much blue; too much bile-green, etc. So I'd set it aside and come back again and again as I worked out how to "calm" the color scheme so the greens would work together, while still allowing me to distinguish one character from the other.
I made this with Prismacolor Premier pencils over a watercolor wash, over an ink drawing. The image is about 11x14 inches in size.
