Signature

 Weak Poses VS Strong Poses     When drawing without a reference finding the right pose can prove difficult. I'll often have to sketch the same character over and over to finally get it right. This applies to monsters too. The Snakoth is a monster from my novel, which I posted a sketch of earlier. Although it wasn't bad it could be improved in both pose and proportions. Here is a better version: Sadly a little bit of it couldn't fit on the paper. For comparison here is the earlier version: You can see the pose is generally weaker with it standing still unlike the action pose of the former. The arms don't make work of foreshortening as well either. But it was a good jumping off point. Practice makes perfect.

 Bismuth     I went on vacation and visited a rock and fossil shop. There I purchased a piece of bismuth.  Bismuth has a beautiful crystal formation caused by it's low melting point. Working with bismuth and other crystals on photoshop is extremely fun. I was inspired to make my next dreamscape a city but composed of bismuth. I'll post it sometime in the future.

 Poems and Monster Sketches     I've been working on a poem and it's going quite well. I'm wary of sharing unpublished work online but eventually hope to complete a full book of poetry.     In other news, I completed the snakoth sketch. It's good but now that I've figured out how the monster will look and stand on paper I can do better. Sketches have rough drafts too. This is a monster who appears in my novel:

 Sketching Pose For Humans And Monsters     Pose can be a very difficult thing to come up with. You want cool action poses full of energy but with balance and perspective as well. Juggling all these things can lead to awkwardness. It's difficult to keep poses flowing and looking natural.     My next character sketch is a prominent monster from my book, the snakoth. They are large, muscular creatures with centaur like bodies and scythe tails. A common issue for this type of sketch is fitting it all on one page. This can be especially difficult for creatures with wings like dragons. You can get action poses but they must be zoomed out significantly. Close ups require resting poses with the monsters curled up or parts of them cutout.      I've been experimenting with a lot of poses that end up not working. You have to wade through this kind of swamp before finding something that does work; hopefully making it a little better each time. I'll post results when I have them.

 Planning A Book     I've been doing a lot to plan the sequel to my book while waiting for people to read my first one for impressions. I always think of it in scenes and organize them in an outline. That way I can come up with interesting ideas, locations and scenarios and add them where they best fit. When I'm walking or hiking, which I try to do 2 miles a day, I'll think about my book.     Signature Rainbows Wane's outline was over 15 pages long. I figured out a lot of what works or not through writing and did 2 rewrites before the final product. With the sequel, Signature Ghate, I hope to have learned from the first and plan better. Many of the ideas that couldn't fit in RW can be applied to Ghate. So far I have five pages of planning.     Ghate btw, is sort of like purgatory; it's the place souls go when transitioning from one life to the next. The story will revolve around the villain spinning a web through it in attempt to find his lost love.

 Biraid Hog     I've been uploading some of my old monster sketches. Enjoy. I'm also tweaking a few things I dislike about the Spiral sketch and will re-upload it.