here in the forest, dark and deep

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Part 2 of Pride Flags As Character Designs: 

Gabe

Part two of a series I’ve been working on for a while; Pride Flags as character designs!!

This is Gabe, based off the ubiquitous gay (rainbow) flag! His design was a little tricky. I was trying specifically for all of these to purposefully mimic their flags by colour placement, and  with the rainbow, well... I eventually settled for this sort of gradient thing with his shirt and pants.... Still not sure how I feel about it. Oh well.

Gabe is lowkey based on me.This outfit is something I’d wear, and my hair’s sort of a reddish brown, and my family is part Italian. So yeah.

The shirt with the cat is inspired by one I saw Safiya Nygaard wear, and I totally want oneeeeee.

As you may have noticed, all of the main group (LGBTQA) have weapons that correspond to their letter of acronym. This was mostly inspired by those cool pins that said things like Sword Lesbian and Gladius Gay. 

This is also because these characters were initially designed for a comic that I named Life Goes By Too Quickly, about a group of lgbt+ teens fighting monsters. I’m still toying around with the concept.

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Okay, I'm just gonna say it:

Gansey should have been revealed to be Glendower.

Either a reincarnation, or maybe when Gansey died the first time, Glendower's spirit possessed (?) him and brought him back, or something. I mean---

Gansey's unexplained power of commanding things---like a king?

All of the times Gansey was described as a king becomes crazy fucking foreshadowing in retrospect.

"You will live because of Glendower."

I MEAN--?!??

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Like, okay, I finished TRC months ago at this point, and I've been stewing on this ever since. I've had a lot of thoughts, and I mostly haven't posted them out of the (probably, definitely, irrational) fear that Maggie Stiefvater herself will see them somehow and it will make her feel bad, but, like---ugh! So many things about TRK really irk me, mostly because of how much I loved the first three books.

Like, seriously...what happened there? It was the longest book, and it still felt rushed, and kind of weird... Like, the sort of thing that would make me think "studio interference" if it were a movie or a TV show. (Does studio interference happen with books?)

Anyway, not gonna harp on it. I'll just put it this way:

I avoided finishing the series for literal years because I was afraid of being emotionally devastated by Gansey's death. And then, when it actually happened in the book, I was too baffled by the execution (no pun intended) to be emotionally invested.

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Okay, I'm just gonna say it:

Gansey should have been revealed to be Glendower.

Either a reincarnation, or maybe when Gansey died the first time, Glendower's spirit possessed (?) him and brought him back, or something. I mean---

Gansey's unexplained power of commanding things---like a king?

All of the times Gansey was described as a king becomes crazy fucking foreshadowing in retrospect.

"You will live because of Glendower."

I MEAN--?!??

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Deviantart backlog #11

I had a dream that reminded me of a character from a story that I haven't thought about in literal years. In fact, I was so desperate to hold onto that thought that I completely woke myself up this morning at 6am, three hours before my first alarm, and after going to bed at midnight. Damn you, Jax.

Anyway, meet Jax Sable and Uriah Orryn! Elite warriors-in-training from a Shadowhunters rip-off story I wrote when I was twelve. Jax is a cambion, a half-demon. Uriah is a nephilim, a half-angel. They're friendly rivals who are totally in love with each other always sparring to prove who's the best.

Believe it or not, their resemblance to Crowley and Aziraphale is completely unintentional. I didn't even notice it until I was attempting to look up classical art of the archangel Michael and Good Omens fanart kept popping up.

(Fun fact: this story is actually where I first put together the idea of "Nick" being a nickname for "Dominic," which would eventually become my name! Funny how life works, huh?)

(And yes, I did get too lazy to do the shading on this. Sue me.)

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Deviantart backlog #10

Eight years ago, I started my first major writing project in the form of the Academy at the age of thirteen. Two of the characters to come out of that story are the twins now known as Chase and Eli Durand, some of the earliest shameless self-inset characters I ever wrote (and who were totally not inspired by Bo Burnham's Left Brain Right Brain skit.)

Over the years, a lot about myself has changed, distancing the person I've become from the thirteen-year-old version of myself I put into these two characters, but elements remain the same. The twins both have my eyes, and my birthmarks. Chase has my glasses. I still own the puka shell necklace that I gave Chase (though I don't wear it) and the military jacket that became so integral to Eli's character design. I went out and bought a necklace with a Greek coin with Apollo's face on it, in reference to Eli's token (necklace), which I still wear almost every day.

And, of course, my name. (Eli was originally named Nick, and as I've discussed in previous posts about them, I technically named myself after them and not the other way around.)

This drawing came from the idea of what would happen if I somehow found a way to meet my characters. I have some doodles where we're actually interacting, but I haven't gotten around to finishing those yet.

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Deviantart backlog #9

A book cover idea for yet another of my elusive stories. Perhaps one day, I'll actually finish it...

I have a couple different versions of this one, but I dunno about posting the rest. What do y'all think? Should I?

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Deviantart backlog #8

I swear, drawing this girl has been the bane of my existence. Ironic, really. She gives everyone hell in her own universe, and then gives me hell trying to do her justice. There's a reason your nickname is "Hellion," Ell.

I love her, though. Honestly, her face was such a struggle---the way I describe her, the way I picture her in my head, is very strong and chiselled. Which is...not the features I typically draw. The only one giving me more difficulty than Ell is her brother, Wen...which is why I don't have a finished illustration of him yet. And I'm not sure when I will.

Shit! I forgot that she has freckles. Damn you, Ell!

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Do you have price list for commissions?

Oh, wow, thank you for making me realize that I never actually updated my commission info on Tumblr! I put my prices up on Deviantart, jeez, a year and a half ago? I can't believe I didn't fix my Tumblr. (But then, my about page on here was also almost two years out of date, lol.)

Sorry about that! I went ahead and fixed it.

Here's the link to my commission info, for anyone curious.

And here's my Deviantart gallery for my commissions, just so y'all can see what I've done so far.

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Deviantart backlog #7

I just got access to Crunchyroll again through my boyfriend, so I've been trying to get back into anime. Naturally, step one in that journey was remembering and finding the anime that I used to love.

So, yeah, this is me as a host in Ouran High School Host Club and a member of the Disciplinary Committee in Vampire Knight. Originally, the concept was doing different school uniforms, and I was going to draw myself as a student at Yokai Academy from Rosario + Vampire, too...but I got lazy. Also, I really hate the Yokai Academy uniform.

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Deviantart backlog #6

I recently finished reading the Finishing School series by Gail Carriager, and holy SHIT, it is amazing. Steampunk setting, girls that are too clever for their own good, and a floating school that trains young women to be spies? Genuinely, this series has to be one of my favourites. I was actually devastated that there were only four books, because I could read probably a million stories set at Mademoiselle Geraldine's.

Once I'd finished, I knew I had to draw our girl Sophronia. Admittedly, the cut of her dress might be a bit...off from her time period of 1851, but...what can I say? I don't really vibe with the 1850s style.

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Deviantart backlog #5

She saved his life, in more ways than one. He would have killed for her. He would have died for her.     And, oh, what they did to him was so much worse. This collection of drawings is from a project that has enraptured me recently, about a castle with dark secrets and a teenaged boy's legacy of blood: Athebyne. Without giving too much away, these two are characters not from the main story itself, but whose fates are integral to it. They're a fairytale, a legend---a tragedy.

And yes, I did spend too much time researching what the Ancient Greeks wore, what sorts of dyes they used and what colours they could have achieved. Admittedly, I was lazier with Asariel's blue tunic (it was literally the second image when I Googled "1200s mens fashion, but with some tweaks to the cloak to better resemble a Greek chlamys and the addition of the dagger).

Ooh, but I had fun with Asariel's curls. I love drawing long hair. 

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Deviantart backlog #4

I initially jumped on the Spidersona train way back when Into the Spiderverse first came out, but I never actually got around to uploading those drawings anywhere---and they're lost to an old computer. Alas and alack.

Last year, I apparently decided to try again, after going to see Across the Spiderverse with my boyfriend....and promptly forgot about it.

And then I rediscovered it and got inspired to try again.

So, here's a comparison of the three Spidersona designs that I've made (and still have access to.)

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Deviantart backlog #3

Some book characters just wrest their way into my little gay heart and make themselves a home, and Jagger Maxwell is a primary example of such one vagabond. Such an early influence for my love of vampires, devilishly sexy bad boys, and all things goth. I loved him dearly at age ten, and I love him dearly now, at twenty-one.

And sometimes I just need to be a little gay and self-indulgent. As a treat.

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Deviantart backlog #2

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I've got a small backlog from Deviantart that I never posted here, so I'm starting here, with my boy Kieran!

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A digitized version of a sketchbook spread I did back in October. I don't really paint traditionally, but I had fun using a brush to paint out the broad shapes of his feathers, and I loved the juxtaposition between the clean inks and the messy paint strokes. The limited colour palette is also out of my digital comfort zone, but it's so striking.

Traditionally, I used metallic gold paint for his laurel crown, tear, and blood, so, unfortunately, I think that part reads better on paper. But I did my best to recreate it.

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Meet Quill Sylvestris! Gruff dhampyr bodyguard to Oleander "Andy" Belvedere. Hired after a series of mysterious magical attacks, Quill is about to realize that babysitting a college student is no easy feat. Andy is far from the spoiled rich kid Quill expected---he's stubborn, and clever, and surprisingly resilient. (Maybe "temerarious" would be a better word for him...) And whoever, or whatever, is after Andy's blood will stop at nothing...

(Some fun context: Quill is catching Andy because Andy tried to sneak out of a window to avoid him.)