mcahogarth

Dreamstorm, Chapter 1, Scene 1

Writing begins!

***

“Say again?” Jahir said, but the flush of rising pleasure made it clear he’d heard Vasiht’h clearly. It was that flush that inspired Vasiht’h to repeat himself, for the pleasure it gave them both.

“Luci would like to know if we’d be willing to attend her wedding.” Vasiht’h spread the invitation. “She’s having it on Seersana, in the university’s religious row, believe it or not.”

Jahir set aside his own tablet, c...

Three Kings Day Sale, 2017

Many years ago, when I used to do all my own prints, I used to run a sale to celebrate the procession of the three wisemen to Bethlehem. Three Kings Day is my parents’ culture’s gifting holiday, and falls on January 6th… so every year my post-Christmas sale lasted from December 26th until January 6th, representing their journey.

I also used to draw a graphic: me reprising that journey, with whatever characters were with me most of the year.

It occurred to me that I now have an...

Merry Christmas, Patrons

Thank you for your support this year. Whatever holiday you celebrate (even if it's just "I have some time off and I need rest"), I hope it restores you and prepares you for the coming year.

I was going to mail lots of Christmas cards this year and didn't get to it. My gift, then, is my card as a coloring sheet. Please print it out and enjoy it; feel free to share with family and friends. There will be a for-sale version on my Etsy store, too, but it's the same sheet so you don't have to buy it...

Nochebuena

:)

Brass Dragon Cuddle

Just a quick doodle that I liked because the dragon looks so doglike. 'Dis mah humanoid, I lurv him'

Kids Are Amazing

Like, literally, sometimes I think 'how does this work' and I walk through the steps and I'm like 'what. how does a person happen I can't even'. 

But yes, she finished Portal. I guess at ten years old I was finishing video games too, they just... weren't anywhere as sophisticated. >.>

More Smol Dragonchild

Because adorable tiny Chatcaava are even cuter in Peter Pan collar-dresses.

Also, jumping Flitzbes.

All the Princes' Game Characters

...when you can't even fit your entire cast on one page...

Test Layout

I am slowly finding and hiring artists to redo the art for my older books, and I found someone I want to do the landscapes for the Kherishdar novels. Which... required me to know just how much landscape he was going to have to paint, so he could estimate a price for me.

I knew I didn't want an entire landscape piece for the cover because literary books often have a lot less emphasis on the art and more on the design. So I grabbed the only landscape I've done for this world and messed with it u...

One and a Half Hour Meeting

...at Day Hobby (seriously, the week before Christmas?). So I did pages and pages of ink sketches, and eventually got onto this notion of an adventuring party. This was Page 1, with Dwarf fighter, Elf enchanter (with familiar), and two Humans, Rogue and Priestess.

Then they went to battle!

Can I mention here how hard it is to sketch like this with no pencils to block out where you want everythin...

To Live (With Nuance)

“Your language has too much nuance.”

This complaint wins me a sardonic look from Haraa, who is sitting on the windowseat with her books spread over her lap. But that’s fine. I can handle sardonic looks… it’s why I came out with this comment in front of her instead of the Calligrapher, or Shame, whose responses would have been far harder to handle.

“So what,” she drawls, “has you so confused this time, aunerai?”

“’Life,’” I say. “Is as. ...

Assets

Anastasia asked what I was using and how, so here's a screenshot!

I'm animating in Clip Studio (because that's what I got!).

So what I did was... draw two head positions, three eye positions, four eyebrows, and two mouths. All those go on separate animation layers. All those I organized into labeled folders (which you can see on the right there--I've got the "eyebrows" folder open).

Then, the timeline, which controls when each picture is shown, lets you designate which layer is dis...

Animation Experimentation Resumes

So I have returned to educating myself on how animation works, and in particular re-using assets so you don't have to continually re-draw them. That way you can just draw the mouth twice and the eyes twice and the eyebrows four times and spend seven frames drawing hair.

Because we all know what's important here. THE FWOOSH.

More seriously, re-usable assets are how you do things like characters speaking dialogue, so I figure if I ever want a talking jaguar head welcoming you to my website...

Who Like Ice Cream (we dooooo)

Lots of sketching last night while chatting with people about where the Peltedverse is going next. Most of which comprises spoilers I'm not sure you all want to see! But this one is harmless (and was the sketch that generated the most squeals), so have one of the new generation of characters: tiny Chatcaavan child with one of Allacazam's children, Bippity Boppity Two (yes, there's a Bippity Boppity One as well--naturally!).

Smol Dragonchild is going through a bow phase. Bows in pigtails. Bows ...

Patreon Rolls Back Fee Changes

...so that's the good news.

The not-so-good news is that they still have a problem to solve and they're not sure how to do it. They don't tell us what that problem is in their post, but I can't help but wonder whether it's solvable at all, and if not, what happens then?

So while I'm pleased--impressed--at the apology and rollback, I'm still trying to decide how I want to handle this Patreon going forward. My instinct is still to move my content off this site and find some way to either c...

Three Sentences in Ai-Naidari

We've gone from 'I'd like to know some words' to 'I'd like to see some sentences' to 'I'd like to hear this spoken' over on the chat, so... obediently, here I am. Three sentences in Ai-Naidari:

 ze Ai-Naidari jzi sithumis shetav en derenesu. “An Ai-Naidari is only as strong as their community.” 

 Davraj urudar sithum gaqethe.  "To be parted from society is to suffer." 

 Hulvuhh notsalevn the yotsavn qafinij.  "What i...

First Fire of the Season

I know, shocker! It actually got into the 40s yesterday, so I brought the candelabra out of the fireplace and shoved the fireplace grate back in place. And then drove off to buy wood so I could get the fire going on the hearth.

I am the fire mistress of the house: I'm inevitably the one making and tending fires for the month or so that it's comfortable to have one. When the "cold" season is done, I'm the one who puts it all away again, and cleans the fireplace. I'm even the one who calls the p...

Stay in Contact!

I can see people starting to leave, and I'm totally good with that. I don't blame you for jumping ship... I'm discussing options now with folks on the Discord chat about where to go now, if this doesn't roll back.

If you leave, keep contact with me! Either sign up for my mailing list, or watch my twitter. I'll keep people updated. :)

Don't worr...

PATREON STAHP

So Patreon just rammed through a change in how fees are handled without consulting its userbase at large, and it is genuinely awful, and their response to creator outrage is not encouraging.

In the past, transactions fees were subtracted from the amount the Creator received. You donate a dollar, I got less than a dollar, that was fine. Cost of doing business. Literally: at tax time, I wrote it off as an expense. There's even a specific category for it ("transaction fees," or something like tha...

Closer Look at the Scriptliner

It's actually a lot easier to handle that you'd assume from the length of the hairs.

So, about Patreon's fee change: yes, it's awful. The number of creators howling outrage about it on the private Patreon feedback sandbox is jumping up every time I reload that forum. I don't know if they're going to roll it back, but I hope they do something. (No they didn't consult us. Yes, they sprang it on all of us unexpectedly. Yes, I hope they deal with this gracefully. Let's ...

Mother Mary

With scriptliner.

The Queen with Baby

Doodle while on the van in Ireland. It was challenging to work on the van, even though the windows were enormous, because there was almost no sun... the light was always diffuse, and it made everything fuzzy. Like drawing in the evening? Bizarre.

Anyway, the Queen with baby.

Brand Management

It's been a while since we've had a business post, so I thought I'd let you into my brain for a bit, and the roughly $15,000 I'm probably going to end up spending incrementally over the next few years!

Wow, jotting up all the totals is kind of terrifying. Let's ignore the total price tag for a minute. >.>

This year has been a pretty eye-opening one for me, in terms of facing facts about what makes a book easy to promote, and how promotion is what makes for successful books. I've ha...

More Ai-Naidari

Rabbit wanted to write some of the aphorisms from the chapbook, which... required me to translate them. Or more accurately, required me to see how inadequate my current grammar is when I tried to translate them. But between the two of us, we  hammered it out, and I now have translations for two of the 25! You can see them above. Pronunciation note: 'u' is 'ooh', not 'uh'. Keep that in mind, and croon these.

The first is:

"To be parted from society is to suffer."

&...