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Bek's art blog! :D **PLEASE NOTE** An archive trawl of a lot of my art, especially for Fallen London, will contain images of blood and violence so if this disturbs you then please browse with caution.

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my little mushroom death mage Atala, some years back at a house party and trying so hard to fit in and be normal and mask how she's absolutely crawling out of her fucking skin

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what the hell am I doing here?

I don't belong here

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nostalgia was just what I needed to revitalize my drawing urge. Yesterday I drove up to where I used to live to walk around thrift stores and grab some lunch. I stopped at the Taco Bell that's directly across the street from where I started high school, and while I was there "Breakaway" by Kelly Clarkson started playing. That song was on the radio daily when I'd take the school bus. It felt like I was having lunch with my 15 year old self.

I got home and doodled a bit, doing some small sketches of what I used to love drawing, following up with some abstract oil pastel mucking around. I wasn't satisfied, so I drew Mac. The important part to this isn't that I was drawing again, its that I enjoyed drawing again.

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the way I create is different and I'm still trying to accept it. Drawing is how I've always made sense of myself and the world but my illustration output is not at all what it used to be. I've been instead having short bursts doing other things like jewelry, and a couple months ago worked on a painting for a show I didn't get into. The first picture here was experimental with a whole different art program.

Top row: Beiye, my 2e pathfinder rogue, and Atala (upcoming character for a ttrpg a friend is designing)

Bottom row: pendants I made to commemorate the end of the Lancer campaign, and my painting titled Creature of Water and Earth.

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gouache doodle of some flowers from last night 💐

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because two TTRPGs weren't enough for me, I'm in a pathfinder 1e campaign being run by Kaz and this is my bard Khylas. He has no problems at all. :)

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was mucking about with this sketch initially as a digital painting but I'm rather fond of the flat colors and might just make this a regular illustration instead.

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taking a break from one drawing to... slap some colors onto a different drawing.. it makes perfect sense. hastag artist problems

ANYWAY

now that I've finally unearthed my tablet from a box that it's been sitting in for uh like nine months I wanted to just quickly put a bit of value and color onto a sketch I did of Luis a couple weeks ago and I'm having one of those moments where an OC is actually coming to life for me. It took me a while to kind of get into the right headspace for roleplaying him because he's in a whole different TTRPG system than what I was used to and it was on the tail end of the DnD campaign abruptly ending. I've been doing picrews to get his face kind of more solidly formed and doing some tipsy sketching nights but being able to actually put him to full color is breathing a lot more life into him in my head now.

He's got blue blood. Literally. Something I've been thinking about a lot is how that would look under a regular human skin tone with regular undertones. I have a bit of a nighttime screen tint right now so I'm hoping this is registering with leaning more into a rosier undertone for him because I think it'd just look pretty nice when trying to bring out the areas where his blood would more noticeably add some hue to skin. Lots of experimental color picking here. I'm not sure if this is going to be a fully finished digital portrait but it sure does feel nice to finally be diving back into digital art again.

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>doesn't draw consistently for months at a time

>decides to try to draw my Lancer pilot while he's dangling on the ropes inside a dumbwaiter being jumpscared by whatever the fuck this creature is from several different angles

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local halfling gets manicure to relax after a traumatic 6 months

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memorializing sasha's horrible mentor who bit the dust in DnD this past session. they're having a great :) time :) at a party and both are unaware he is going to be very, very dead in about five years

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about a year after it was published in print, this is now my full 6 page submission from the Sequential Arts Workshop anthology Rhythms. I wanted to post the whole thing sooner but then just kept forgetting, and then now that enough time has passed it makes me sad to look at this. I'm amazed that I got it done in time to turn it in but what this comic represents is why I was struggling so much in the first place to finish it at all. The burnout hit me hard and there was a time when I thought I seriously was never going to draw again.

I remember one night early on into being a fiduciary I was crying in bed to Alice about how I felt like a stranger to myself. I never got used to the commute, the schedule, trying to fit school in. people say you make time for your hobbies but there was no time and I was not sleeping. The only reason I finally got an idea for the final at all is because I had a dream about a shadowy ghost in my room, and then over time morphed it into a shadow work project.

I do have a little follow up comic idea for this now that I'm actually drawing again. In the mean time, this is one of the most personal things I've drawn. It's rooted in a bad time in my life and there was a lot of pain and uncertainty that went into it despite it's simplicity.

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while I was sad at first that my 11 year streak of no boatman was finally broken, there is something really fucking funny about sitting on this crowded boat full of other dead people and realizing that you can just like. sneak away. and the boatman would not even notice

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Uh so when I started this I was not realizing I’d also be doing an entire background to go with it but I lost control of my limbs and my sanity. Literally I think the secret this whole time I’ve been stuck in art block is that I need to let go of perfection. I let it go, and this is the first thing I drew after that epiphany.

Sasha and their first swordsmanship mentor, Kadell. A bit of a backstory moment.

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I’m not quite sure why it took me so long to realize that part of why it’s been hard for me to draw is because... an extended period of time not drawing meant that it felt like my skills were lacking. I’d attempt to draw something but I hated it because it did not look as good as I know I can do it and it’d feed right back into the fear that somehow I will never draw again. It’s been like this basically since probably 2020-2021? The other day finally I was like “fuck it, even if it sucks at least I drew something” and then somehow that was the thing that just kind of finally got the engine going.

DnD is still inspiring me a lot. I think when I really can get my slightly atrophied drawing skills back up I want to do illustrations of the player characters and NPCs as major arcana cards. Sasha (pictured here in the WIP) is The Fool hands down.

Earlier today I drew a couple quick comparison portraits of them with their sister Isari.

It is definitely starting to feel more and more like my old self. I’m playing it a little safe and not doing something super dynamic right now because this is about getting my brain to remember that I Like To Draw. I’m trying to kill the idea of perfection so that way I can remember how to have fun. I’m sad that it’s taken me this long to start to feel progress again but I’m finally feeling optimistic.

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twice blessed

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I joined a DnD campaign recently and this is the character of one of the other players. Rhi is a gnoll ranger with quite a backstory (some of which is a mystery even to her!). Her current armor is actually made of a few gnoll skulls but I do not have it in me to try to draw those right now HAHAHA