Shiro Kitsu

His gaze was fixed on the green shrub they’d been sitting beside, with its dozens of shiny closed buds. She started to ask him what she was supposed to be looking at, but he held up a hand to forestall her. His eyes were shining. ❝Wait,❞ he said. The leaves on the shrub hung still and motionless. Suddenly one of the tightly closed buds began to quiver and tremble. It swelled to twice its size and burst open. It was like watching a speeded-up film of a flower blooming: the delicate green sepals opening outward, releasing the clustered petals inside. They were dusted with pale gold pollen as light as talcum.

❝Oh! ❞ said Clary, and looked up to find Jace watching her. ❝Do they bloom every night?❞ ❝Only at midnight,❞ he said. ❝Happy birthday, Clarissa Fray.❞

The Dark Artifices characters part 1

Just wanted to doodle a bit today so I decided to draw all the main characters from The Dark Artifices

“I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.”

The Human Queen of Faerie, Jude Duarte

Sooo I had planned taking a quick break to deal with some shit IRL stuff but reading The Cruel Prince by Holly Black over the weekend, I had to draw Jude. 

“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”

“Do you have something to say?”

—–

Here we are folks - the post The Folk of the Air era. I poured my heart into this piece as a send off to the series, as it truly was a treat to experience from start to finish. ❄️ I’m not sure if it was apparent in the illustration I did for The Wicked King, “Self Reflection”, but I had meant to make it a ‘zoomed out’ version of the cover (the crown falling into the watery depths). I played with the idea of wondering where the crown would land; would Cardan let it fall onto Jude, or stay in his place to take it for her? Could he move at all? ❄️ I took a similar approach here with this piece. If “Self Reflection” was themed around falling, then this is about separating; splitting; severing. ❄️ *Puts away thesaurus* ❄️ Can I say that I really don’t enjoy clothing/armor design? 😔 To me its detail is as tedious as washing a car with a toothbrush. I’m more interested in the emotions of the characters and scene, but I felt I avoided it so often, that I gave my girl Jude the attention she deserved for this one. I took a study of Alan Lee’s inspirational design work (LOTR) to spin Holly’s very helpful and elaborate descriptions of fashion into a fun Queen Mab inspired design.

[#mermay no. 6]