Sky Crown Guardian

So, like, forever ago, I did a crappy drawing of the MC’s dreamworld concept. Like most things, this has changes vastly.

Past couple days I worked on some stuff that isn’t going to be the most recent, and this is one of them. This is basically the first doodle at a part of what it’ll be like. I don’t know if this particular drawing will ever actually be polished-up for actual DA posting, since this is more like me bouncing ideas off.. well, myself. It will retain one element (not shown here actually) from the old one, but will mainly involve lots of silhouettes.

One of the reasons silhouettes have slowly been becoming more of a thing in my drawings is because (other than being lazy) they are a big part of the MC’s dreamworld. In short it is (currently) perpetually descending in water surrounded by far-off silhouettes, some speaking, some moving, some familiar.

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More cloaks, or fabric, or niqabs, or what have you.

I’m going to have normal drawing time once again, so I should be able to push stuff out at an actual pace now.. since I had like 0 time before..

This is me trying to scrape the rust off my mind.

This, along with others will probably be all the drawings that will accompany the next short-story. As I mentioned a while ago, the drawings will be linked through little images which will open them in a new tab when clicked on. This will be done on the forums and will appear like so:

ITT - The image between the paragraphs is the linking image.

In addition to the previous two drawings I scraped up illusion and holy (seen above) as well today (tonight?). Obvious problems going on here but it’s a start. As I use my silhouette more and more for drawing I come to realize more and more how awkward my neck looks and now skinny+tall I am.

So I got a tiny tiny bit of drawing done. Harmony and volition magic in-use, I plan to do illusion and holy as well but time did not permit either yet. I want to make a more full explanation to magic and the different characteristics each of the different schools have and I am going to have some imagery beside the text. It won’t be a story but instead like I said describing their characteristics. I have the references for the rest of the silhouettes and also some hand ones, but this is all I could get done. This Summer is killing meeeeeeee.

Explanation has been sent out to the Insider group members (except Ouroboro, who is MIA?). This means I’m not really going to be spending time on future drawings/designs much and can focus on finishing the current short-story’s drawings. Speaking of which, WIP:

IT IS I: THE WIP FAIRY THAT BRINGS MANY UNFINISHED WORK AND HOPES OF FAR OFF THINGS THAT HAVE YET TO COME.

Super-duper early composition of two characters (main characters of the short-story) strolling through the market of Iadnah.. which looks super barren in the drawing ‘cuz this is so bare-bones. Basically just getting composition down.. and still need to add plenty plenty more, like other people, more foods, and actual detail instead of just doodle outlines.

Okay so this is really way too messy and sparkly but it’s also EXTREMELY bare-bones. This is a sort of representation of the symbols for the four different schools of magic: holy (top), harmony (left), illusion (bottom), volition (right). I haven’t mentioned magic in very much detail yet, and in the current WIP story it isn’t really mentioned either. I do plan on using a story to address it and bring the nature of how magic really works in Sky Crown Guardian, but that’s maybe.. 2-3 stories from now? It’s a while off but I felt like at least drawing a bare-bones version of the symbols since all I really currently have is super-small pixel art on the forum icons. All that said, I don’t plan on polishing this up fully until the story rolls around.

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As far as the explanation I’m currently working on goes: I’m on campaign #5 (so the last one) and I don’t plan on tacking much on after finishing the story-line. I don’t know if I have the patience to try and go more in-depth than I need to for it, I’m seriously dying because of how long this is taking. I’ve done so many drawings and no one but myself has ever seen them and it’s dis-heartening to me. What’s worse is I’m in dire need of the feedback from it, and it could quite possibly be negative so there’s going to be stuff I’m changing before actual release to you all in any case. Typing the whole story out has really helped me personally think through it, and in the progress of explaining it I’ve also changed many things.

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As I mentioned.. IDK when, I’ll have little images that re-direct to things in the short-stories. This is so I don’t have to use the clunkiness of having spoilers in the story, which when I was trying it out just felt awkward. Instead it’ll be these small images in-between paragraphs that re-direct to stuff:

(Art)

(Music)

(Video)

(Misc.)

Not every story is going to utilize each of these or anything, but I’ll also use these within the main campaign itself later on. So, where there might be more of these things. You can view a previous post about the current story’s image lineup here, and a more recent update on one of them here. Also, side-note, I touched-up the Tumblr page layout.

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IN OTHER NEWS: I have currently found myself as being enrolled in a Summer class (going up to July 7th). This possibly at least means I will be taking one class less during the Fall semester. As my household is going through a couple other things there’s also people around just about 24/7 so.. unfortunately I’m drawing significantly less due to both of the above. I try to poke at the story since it’s typing for some of it, but a lot of it is also some other coding stuff (I’m explaining it VIA Ren’Py, which provides being able to use imagery/music/sound and text at the same time at full-screen which makes it more immersive) and so I’m having to test-run stuff a lot.

It sucks that I’m facing yet more set-backs, I had fully intended to wrap up the entire explanation in like.. maybe a week or two, but now with a Tues/Wed/Thurs class and people being around so much I’m basically doing nothing now. I’m constantly itching to draw too, which doesn’t help my sanity levels much.

Still working on this one, also have entered the final campaign (#5) in my explanation. It’s a really confusing one and there’s still some back-tracking I want to do on some of the previous stuff too but.. ye. Finals are over and progress is progress I guess.

Changing this image up some (still mega-messy, need to fix the face so much).

Doodle of the Vohim/Faonts region.

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On campaign 4 of 5 ATM in explanation. 4 will be longer than 2-3, 5 will be longer than 4 and possibly longer than 1. I might also tag on some after-explanation stuff but IDK.

I’ve gotten to the end of campaign #3 in my explanation. I’ve found some spots where I need to draw some stuff to explain better, but for the most part it’s written out with maybe just a few edits needed down the road. Just the process of putting it in order has already helped me realize a few things and made me answer some questions.

That aside, the current line-up for whenever the next short-story will be out (been over a yeeeeear since last one) is like this:

(Need to re-do sillhouette and sharpen it up - this is just the first stab.)

(Touch-ups needed all over.)

(Need to touch-up background and some of the cloak.)

(Basically finished.)

(Needs fixing still..)

I still need to start a couple (?) other drawings I want to add to the line-up.

With previous stories I would add the image at the end in a spoiler, but with this and the ones after I want to do it differently. What I plan on doing is having this:

appear in between paragraphs. Clicking on it will open the image (or other things, this is just an example) in a new tab. That way it can flow a bit as the stories go, and looks a tiny bit neater than a spoiler that opens up an image taking up the whole page (feels so clunky). It’s far less invasive feeling and more convenient. Will also use this in the campaigns, which will also help the flow of things.

(...) is going well. It’s a tad slow but honestly the only other alternative is lower quality and would take WAY more time. I’m about 90% done (just need a couple loose images) with the introduction and campaign #1. Campaign 2-4 should go fairly quickly, but unfortunately homework is going to start getting rough as the semester winds down (WTF it still feels like at LEAST the mid-semester). Given that the first campaign is.. well.. the first, it’s got a lot more smaller details and directions plotted out. The last one has a lot more to it and is more thought out (since it’s the ending) so that’ll take some time when I do get there. My final project for my art class begins tomorrow and I’m fairly excited about it and want to put some good time into it, so that might cut into a bit of the time sadly.

On one hand I’m trying to conceptualize an entire story all the way through while making it look like something so I can get feedback, on the other hand it’s a lot so for some of the smaller things I’m doing more loose drawings but at the same time I don’t want it to look like total garbage. And on the secret third hand that I keep in my armpit I’m still learning and have some ambitious ideas that sometime make it hard for me to draw out.