It is actually my Birthday today! Fun fact, back when I was a child I used to wonder a lot what my life will be like in the year 2020 (guess I just liked the number, sounded very future-y). I was wrong, but weren’t we all? 2020 sucks. I am not even in the country I am supposed to be right now :D
Anyway, back to art. Always liked this card, so I went all out with this one, thinking about medieval engravings, listening to some fine atmospheric black metal... Mhmm.
Read about the boar-guy below + close ups.
Another fun fact from childhood - I was so impressed by the fact that anatomy of pigs and humans has so much in common back then, I guess I kind of imprinted on that, often thinking what it be like if we evolved not as monke, but as piggy-likes.
So here is Stigr, wise chief of his people. His people are a dying breed, really, their traditional ways threatened by merciless progress and other gross anthropological nonsense. He is absolutely not thrilled to have a mining party in his lands, but he puts up with it, trying to find the middle way, coexist with humans and their bullshit. But his patience is cracking loudly, and there is a fine reason for this card to be reversed.
2/22 Sickle Moon Tarot challenge: 02 The High Priestess
So at the second drawing I still couldn't quite figure out how I wanted cards to look, how much I wanted it to resemble Rider-Walte-Smith deck and etc. but I was making some progress, I guess, so some symbols went there after all, those that made sense for the character anyway. This one I might also redraw eventually.
Close-ups and character details below.
In a Tarot reading some cards land reversed, and this little lady definitely starts her way in this story upside-down. Her name is Linn-Sigrid, name reflecting her origins - born at capitol, yet Northerner by both her parents. She has just turned twenty, but once was a sickly, doted-on child that had to become an adult in a harsh and sudden fashion, once her father was arrested and her mom's mental state deteriorated.
And it shows.
She is a deeply religious person, although it gives her no relief and no clarity, tormented by notions of normality, trying badly to cling to her ways even when the world as she knows it rapidly crumbles. Due to her trauma, she is very out of touch with herself, unsure of what she really wants, repressed and disenchanted with life.
She comes to her father's birthplace with mining expedition to work as an accountant's assistant - a move that is definitely comes out of desperation both for money and for a change. She won't come back the same.
So this turned out better I think, I managed to encorporate symbols of the card and remembered some of the proper inking techniques, so this one is not going to be redone. This card was hands down easiest to match because she is a real treasure of a girl.
Description and close-ups below.
Her name is Liv, and she is 15 years old. She is a youngest daughter of a local innkeeper/cook who helps her father with the guesthouse, since, well... what other choice she has? Despite a rural reality of neverending hardwork and not-so-enticing future, Liv is a pure ball of sunshine, a positive, gentle girl who will be your friend whanever you want it or not. She dreams of becoming a high class seamstress and having her own couture house in the capitol, and I promise this one is going to have the happiest everything, I swear.
I honestly couldn’t quite get into that card but after some googling and contemplating it clicked. Yes, reversed card again, huh? More at #royalinsaneart
Anyway I don’t think this one is very interesting, but I am trying to work on my style and technique and I think I am onto something. Idk, I’d really like to try and make a comic\graphic novel out of this but I’ve been hardcore traditional artist since, well, forever, and I don’t think that it is even possible to make comic at any decent speed drawing like I do, and Idk if I can make a transition. Definitely don’t like to work with a tablet, but I haven’t tried any tablet\screen devices yet, I image that would go better. Anyway, maybe I’ll get Ipad Pro eventually or smf, but if somebody has anything to say on the matter I’d like to talk.
So, back to the card. My Chariot is two brothers. Both Northerners, both officers, both in Engineering Corps. More about them and close ups below.
The older one is called Oddmund, the younger one is Bjorn, family name Aune. Their dad was an officer, their granddad was an officer... You get it, building bridges, exploding things, family business. Although, while they might be a dynasty, both of them are very talented at what they do, even though the suffocating Army structure stands between them and their true love - money.
The only thing those two dream of is finally retiring so they can start a civil engineering company and get ridiculously rich. The retirement is almost there for the older one, but Bjorn is going to stay in the Army for awhile. They are hired on civil contract by Xan’s father Eleusius to lead the mining expedition, overseeing the site development.
They are not too bad, both of them products of their environment really, but Oddy is cynical and condescending, and Bjorn is a little too careless and too fond of women and booze. And yes, mutual craving for success and riches will definitely get them into trouble. And not just them, those two are the spark that will get everything on fire.
Guess who finally managed to sort it out with scanning? Went to my husband’s office to scan my pics, but then it turned out some guy took the keys from the room where it was. So I had to buy my own scanner in the end (or rather one of this 3-in-1 monstrosities), and fucker didn’t have a USB cable included! Rrrrr. So I had to find the cable then… at this point I was sure universe was trolling me.
Anyway, I am glad I can finally present my art properly. I’ll eventually update previous posts with better pics too and reblog them.
So, the Empress, reversed. More about the lady and close-ups below.
The Empreror was Xan’s daddy, and this fine dame is Linn’s mom. She was a music teacher, but after her husband’s arrest, trial, exile and execution, she just wasn’t the same. Grief and distress furthered her dementia-like neurological disease, and she started to fade away bit by bit, until she was unfit to raise and support her daughter.
Before that, Lydia was quite the matriarch: stern and religious, and oh, how the mighty fall! Ailing mind has turned her love for her daughter into an overbearing, toxic parody of itself.
She lives in special care facility and entertains herself mostly with gardening, taking care of small cemetery on hospital grounds. On a brighter days, one can still meet her old self, her real self. On others, she is like a ghost that forgot her past life. And, oh boy, there is quite a lot to forget. Not that Linn knows anything about it…
So it’s raining hard all day today so I didn’t go to make scans. Oh well, I guess I’ll edit them in posts later or make a big post or smf, not like anybody but me gives a fuck anyway. Sorry for the attitude, being creative again sent me down the beautiful path of self-discovery and I’m fuming about my parents and childhood bullshit and wondering if I could ever un-screw my self-esteem, reward system and what’s not. Anyway, in my situation anger is a good thing, I’m just not used to it.
So this card is oddly fitting I guess, lol. Below is character description and close-ups.
This card is as reversed as it ever gets. This fine gentleman is Eleusius, Xan’s father, esteemed leader of his people, who doesn’t give a shit neither about his nation, or his son.
Peace treaty signed after humiliating defeat many, many years ago, left their nation in great disadvantage, subjected to religious prosecution and banned from countless institutions, unable to take part in state’s politics, lands annexed into the Empire. The bone was thrown too, of course, the bone being several trade monopolies, and it landed right into that family.
Eleusius made more of it than all of his ancestors combined, effectively establishing railroad system in the Empire and thus changing the trade game completely. His corporation is growing day by day. *in David Tennant’s voice* Richest duck in the world!
His personal life is not that illustrious. He married the woman he loved madly, but unfortunately, healthcare there being what healthcare was like in the beginning of our 20th century, she died in childbirth, and that is where things went a little weird. Okay, really weird. Eleusius then married Xan’s mother’s sister - boy’s aunt, even though she wasn’t all that well in terms of mental health, and they had another child together. Since that one wasn’t ‘guilty’ of killing love of his life, he even loved him and so things were weird, but fine for awhile. But then came the pandemic, the younger boy died of illness, his mother took her own life and... well.
Yep, keeping up with Targaryans.
Eleusius and Xan hate each other unapologetically. There is also a great deal of tension between him and his in-laws, who’d love to get his business and make the man who took both of their daughters pay.
So what does a bitter, cruel, soulless industrialist who has everything but real power do? Nothing good, I’m afraid. He’s got nothing to lose and he’ll spare no one.
5\22 Sickle Moon Tarot challenge: 11 The Justice. Check #royalinsaneart for more.
I do like how this one turned out. A lot.
Also, I remembered where I could scan my pics today, so yay, I’ll be able to give them a proper look!
I am starting a new thing at Thursday, so I’m hoping I can finish half of the Major Arcana by then (got 8 of the cards so far), and then we’ll see. I hope I’ll still draw them but maybe with different pacing. The current one is pretty crazy anyway - I got 1 picture per 1-1,5 day and that just might kill my hand lol.
Anyway, below are details and character description as always.
So this guy is called Captain Francis Wolfmother (the name might be tweaked later to fit fantasy linguistics I got going on, but the dude is named after Saint Francis, fyi). He is mostly known by his mother’s family name - Kittypaw, since his father didn’t stick to raise him. That, and the fact that his mother is true matriarch of her sugar empire and one of the richest people in the country, so it is kinda hard to top that.
(Aww! Kittypaw sugar, yes).
Unlike previous characters, this one comes from the South. Mama’s boy, captain here lived to please and as a teenager pledged himself to the medicine and the church (those are more or less are the same institution in my thing, think Vatican but everybody is a doctor) as his mother wanted him to. It didn’t work out so well, and eventually, after a chain of unfortunate events, he had to quit the Brotherhood. His only instinct was to follow the orders, and seeking structure, Kittypaw jumped from one institution to another, and joined the Army. Living in permanent existential crisis had him addicted to thrill and alcohol, so he went straight to the service in the Border Force, his rich upbringing giving him all the needed skills. Being so very clever and political, he raised in the ranks quickly.
We meet him as the newly appointed Captain of the Northern Border Force who is growing weary of his military duties that turned out to be way less noble than what he imagined them to be. He is still that good adventurous boy at his heart, who wishes to bring positive change into the world, and he will find a way.
04\22 Sickle Moon Tarot challenge: 18 The Moon. The rest is under #sicklemoonart and #royalinsaneart
So at the fifth card I finally figured out how to convey the idea that some cards come reversed, without them being actually reversed. So if the card name is at the top of the picture this means the card has landed right, if the name is at the bottom then it is a reversed card. I like how this one turned out even tho my brush pen died in the middle of it and therefore I’ll need to eventually fix layers of black in the sky that don’t match now and look bad (grrrr).
Anyway, here is Siv, the Moon, sister card for the previous one, the Sun. More details about character and close-ups below.
Siv is indeed an older sister to Liv. With almost fifteen years of age difference and radically opposing views they don’t get on well. While Liv is a naive dreamer, Siv is a cynic, and while the younger girl is grateful for whatever life set her up with, Siv is never content and defies quiet ways of their corner of Nowhere with every opportunity. One could say that Siv is an exorcism of my own internalised misogyny: she is loud, troublesome, rude, promiscuous, greedy - all the things ‘good women’ are not. Some time ago I’d mindlessly asign her ‘the Devil’ card, but now I am her biggest stan. Siv also writes songs and performs, so what it there not to love?
Initially she was sent as replacement cook for the mining expedition before her father could make it here, but it became crystal clear soon that Siv couldn’t cook for shit and didn’t give a fuck about it either, just using the remote location as a retreat of sorts while she was stealing wine and contemplating what to do with her life.
