#rivalhearts

Rival Hearts Prompt 7 - #100 Writing

This prompt gave me a perfect excuse to draw Erik, a character who has been through several incarnations, but always came back to the same concept: historian - specifically a small, meek and mostly untalented boy, except his knack for language and knowledge retention.

He’s always enjoyed reading old book, as well as writing things down.

Erik hasn't yet made an appearance in the comic yet, but he is due to show up later in the current chapter. He works for - and has been adopted by - one of the primary advisors of the Stormwind family. Erik prefers to remain more in the background, usually seen at least carrying some book or another - if not writing in it. He records everything he can.

He does actually have some of his own secrets as well, but I’m not revealing those. :) ------------- Art notes: I hate hands! The final results aren’t as bad as I’d feared, but I kept redoing them. Particularly the front hand. adjusting the lines of the fingers and the back and trying to get the right balance of size and proportion and feeling like I’ve completely failed.

Rival Hearts daily prompt: Day 6 - Arguing

This was a lot harder than I thought. Well, I expected a bit of a challenge, but more in trying to figure out which of the  6many characters to have arguing - okay that was the hard part, but I thought I’d have too many to choose from. Turned out, I had a hard time figuring out how most of them WOULD argue. Or, at least, if they did argue, it wouldn’t be as easy to draw...?

Long babble short, I wound up just sketching out a pair of poses face to face and that was when I figured out who they were: Riktor and Jasper. A friendship with long history (which we haven’t worked out all of yet) but it’s clear they have very different personalities, so naturally they would argue in different ways. Riktor is ever the passionate one about his thoughts, while Jasper is usually calmer, more logical, and very prone to lecture modes.

RH Prompts Day 4: #30 - Damaged

I thought about doing the obvious, after all, the main characters both went through a traumatic event that left them both “damaged” both physically and mentally. But I really do also want to explore other characters as much as possible. This is image one of my ideas. I may come back for the other one later.

Here we have the meeting of Riktor and his wife. years before the current story when she’d first left home. Elanya had grown up on a farm where she’s usually been involved in the full extend of daily workings alongside her father and brothers. She grew tall and strong and very independent. And regularly told herself, and everyone else, she didn’t need someone despite her mother’s steady comments about her other, younger, daughter having gotten married and having her first child. Eventually her mother had turned others to her side in reminding her elder daughter that she had a “responsibility to the family to find someone to take care of her.” It led to Elanya’s personal realization that she really didn’t want to live with her family all her life, but she also didn’t want to find some tradesman to take care of her. She could do that well enough herself. So, instead she’d left home with the intention of going to a big city to become a tradesman herself. However, the moment she’d reached the nearest town, following her hasty and huffy departure from home, she found herself without a plan, or even an idea of where to start, as well as in a quiet town as it was nearing dark. Feeling lost and a bit stupid for having handled things so poorly, she’d settled on a bench,  fighting tears of frustration. That’ s when a young man - she’d assumed initially he might have been a child due to his petite stature, so unlike the tall, burly men of her family - approached her and offered to drive her where ever she’d wanted, even in the growing darkness of the dangerous woods. He also told her she was beautiful, which was a bit flabbergasting to someone  used to being told she was passable, plain at best, and lucky she had other things, such as childbearing hips, to make her worthwhile to a prospective husband.

So, maybe not as damaged as prompt might imply. But there is something there. Some part of her that needed encouragement to finish finding herself, as herself. After all Riktor didn’t try to make her something she isn’t. He didn’t even go out of his way to try and court her for quite some time, but once he’d first taken her to a town she could build on her own trade - carpentry - he regularly came back to see how she was doing.

Finished RH Prompt 1 (41. Wind) One down and in the nick of time, so to speak. :)

(I think I’m going to take these as a bit of personal critique as well, but with the parameters that I must include one positive with each negative. These are not for me to squash my artistic attempts. All in the intention of making myself better. So, that said...)

I’m overall happy with the results of this first image, though I’d been hoping it would be smoother. But I’m a bit out of practice with the characters. The shading was fun and nice... I’m surprised at the definition I’d managed in the clothing.  My overall goal with this first image is to show the characters. The main characters, to be exact: Ria and KD, our Protagonists, in a lovely little moment, on a hill.. and in the wind, yes. Heh... too easy, maybe, but at least here we have a nice basic drawing for the rest to come from.

New Year RH Prompt-fun!

Starting off the new year with the right aim in mind to get back into regular arting and hopefully back into regular comic posting. As of Jan 1st, Rival Hearts is 6 years old, but also more than two years part when it was regularly posted.

To get back into the groove, we will be doing a prompt a day for the next 100 days by randomly choosing one of these prompts and drawing something based on it. Most of the images will be canon, most likely, but some definitely ask for AU considerations. (In fact, one flat out says “AU” in it! :)) In short, the overall goal is just to get into a flow of being creative in the general direction of this comic. “No Pressure” clause: if we can’t do something every day (or for every prompt) no worries. If inspiration/time comes later, we can always roll with a make up then. And nothing needs to be a finished piece. If we have an idea but only time for a few words or a quick sketch, that’s perfect. Just post it and be happy with that accomplishment.

I hope we, and anyone that chooses to follow this blog, enjoys it! (And honestly, if anyone else wants to actually post to the prompt list, please feel free! Original comic is: http://www.rivalhearts.com Tag it: #rhprompts)

Thank you! And Happy New Year!! @animegart and @aurumdalseni