Didn’t have a good day yesterday, so the feeling like I woke up and accomplished something felt pretty good. I have a sorceress character in Dragon Rider’s Dance book 2 and have been looking for inspiration for her character design. Anne Stokes is very well known for her paintings of beautiful women as well as dragons, so the beauty/beast motif she has really works.
Oh, also, Ari wanted to be in the picture too, so that’s her on the coffee mug. I am selling it on my Shopify store. I have T-shirts attached to my instagram account, but I still need to figure out how to get the coffee mugs on there too…
I just got back from the family cabin over Labor Day weekend!
One of the nice things about being out there is there’s no cell service or internet. So even if something was on fire back home, there’s literally nothing you can do about it. It was a very much-needed digital detox. Didn’t get a lot of drawing done, but I did do a lot of reading, which I never do.
I realized that it’s been several years since I’ve done anything traditional-art related. I’m pretty good at digital, but there’s so many cheats and shortcuts that it becomes easy to lose certain skills. I also have tons of art books that I’ve been meaning to look at and study, but never got done.
For the next 30 days, I’m starting the first 30 minutes of every morning without technology. Basically doing a traditional drawing/study (bonus points if it includes dragons). Today’s victim is Anne Stokes and her piece, “The Dragon Trainer”.
Also one of the nice things is that because these are studies are contemporary masters, I can’t sell them. This is all about the enjoyment and practice. Which removes the pressure!
“Daddy?” the little golden dragon chirped, “Why do the humans hate Mommy so much?” Matthias stood silent for a long time. Ari in her humanoid form slept just a short distance from them. Matthias had been wondering that very same thing his whole life. Why did the Empire always preach about how evil dragons were? How oppressive? How they stole from everyone? When they were the very ones committing such crimes?
Matthias shrugged. “She doesn’t look it now, but they’re afraid of the beast she becomes. A fifty-foot fire-breathing lizard. If she wanted to, she couldn’t turn all of them into barbeque chicken. Can you blame them?”
Solaris wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “Do humans hate volcanoes? Oceans? Meteor showers?” “What?”
“They can swallow you up, crush you, but they’re quite beautiful. I don’t imagine humans hate them.” She wasn’t going to make this easy, huh? Even as young as she was, Solaris understood the Empire’s deep hatred for dragons. Their whole way of life embodied blaming dragons for everything… even if one hadn’t been seen in decades.
Matthias walked over to his wife. She was in her humanoid disguise, so he was able to run his fingers through her long, dark hair. She was fast asleep, and would be for at least another couple months-until winter passed. Her lips curled into a beautiful smile as he stroked her cheek. A small twinge of rage flashed in his heart.
“Your mother,” he said, “inspires people. She’s turned hundreds of men into the bravest heroes I’ve ever met. She has an infinite amount of love for others. I once saw her give her own cloak to a freezing vagrant… she has this presence about her. Just by talking to her, you want to be a better person. Not like her… but a better you.”
Matthias continued, “There are plenty of mortals who don’t see it that way though. To them, she’s a reminder of how they’re not everything they could be. They’re not good enough. Mortals have literally looked up to dragons, and some don’t want anything in life higher than themselves.”
Having escaped the tyrannical Vallan’Gangst Empire, Matthias travels south hoping to find and study dragons-creatures that once ruled his homeland but have been extinct for decades, Matthias gets a clue a live one might be in the small mining town of Lionsburg. While everyone’s preparing for the Emerald Stars Debutant Ball- no one seems interested in answering any of his questions- except a young woman named Ari- the eldest daughter of a mafia-esque family of elves with a few dark secrets.
