mcahogarth

Parade of Desserts

From the Easter feast. Because you didn't really want to see the healthy food, did you??

Taxes

...were so traumatic I made tiny tax cake. With frosting. From scratch without a recipe. 😖

Coracle, Chapter 8: Bread and Cheese

At least, Marda thought it was a dragon.

Like most people, she knew dragons existed. They’d been mentioned in stories since time out of mind—even the Savior had met one, and the first Knight to follow in the footsteps of Aldren, the Savior’s Companion, had been chosen by a dragon. But she’d never seen one, and somehow she’d thought they would be scalier. And bigger.

Not that the creature lifting its head to peer at her was small. It was as tall as a draft-horse, and th...

Candle Lit

💛

Coracle, Chapter 7: Marda Floats to School

The stream carried Marda under trees that were woven together overhead like a leafy hall, and the late summer leaves cast cool shadows on her head and shoulders. She tugged her shawl more tightly around herself and checked her coracle. It rocked gently in the water, but for such a small craft it didn’t wobble as much as she expected. It wasn’t leaking either, which was something that had worried her while working on it. The flowers woven through it were still blooming; some of them had even ...

Candle Friday

So I was thinking. Every week, I go light a candle for family, friends, and for people in general... and if one of you mentions something, I usually add you to the list too: thank-yous for new babies, help-thems for people having hard times, that sort of thing.

I recently noticed I'm not the only one who does this: when someone here has said they needed help, I've seen more than one person say 'can I pray for you'. So I thought... maybe we could do a candle Friday every so often. If you need h...

...

This blew my mind. Maybe it'll blow yours too. Good morning all!

The Flowered Walk

Some color for your day.

(Such a pretty walk must lead somewhere magical, don't you think?)

Lunchbag Art: Chickens

Actual chickens this time!

(boing boing boing)

Rar, Ready for a Fight!

And the models out of their boxes and set up. (This is the link to get one!) Some observations:

• They are really well modeled. I'm impressed by the range of motion, and particularly the detailing on the torso which is a place where a lot of models fail.
• Because they are Japanese, the base you set them up on is also a case for all their accessories. And their accessor...
  2017-04-12 22:17:13 +0000 UTC View Post

Art Tools!

It was Ariel Starshadow who mentioned these new posable artist models in our community forum  so I thought I should share them! I haven't broken them out yet but I'll have another photo then. Here's the link to the items: https://happysatchels.com/products/body-chan-body-kun-manga-drawing-figure 

Coracle, Rest of Chapter 6

Since y'all are enjoying it. :)

***  

After dinner, Mama said, “Come with me. I’d like to show you something.”

Together they went to the shed where Patches slept. Marda’s parents called it “The Barn” but Marda couldn’t help thinking that barns should be big enough for a few cows, not just one small pony. 

Patches was sleeping now, and snoring even; he didn’t even twitch when Mama lifted her lantern and pointed to the corner where the last few hay bal...

Coracle, Ch. 6: Marda's Choice

Something a little happier now!

***

When she returned to the house, Patric pounced on her, hugging her knees. “When you become an Outremer you need to ask your saint for a dragon because that’s the excellentest companion animal an Outremer can have.”

Startled, Marda said, “But what if I don’t want a dragon?”

Patric was not impressed. “Who wouldn’t want a dragon if they had a choice?”

“I think part of the point is that you don’t choose your animal,�...

When the Rising Tide No Longer Lifts All Boats

An observation from the trenches.

Most of you have been with me long enough to have heard the Three Jaguars line: once you accept money for your art (or craft), you are now selling products, not your creative masterpieces. I spent years pushing that so that creatives understood that once they started selling things, they became businesspeople with products to sell and had to go about their work accordingly.

This is great, and I still believe it to be true. What I didn’t realize was tha...

Marda on a Coracle!

Meeting Doodle: the Queen in Silk

Marda, at the Edge of the Orchard

Coracle, Chapter 5

  Poor Marda! Being a teenager is hard.

***

CHAPTER FIVE

A LACK OF TRUMPETS

Waking up after praying for something you want is almost as exciting as waking up on your birthday, or so it seemed to Marda. She cracked her eyes open and shot upright, shedding her blankets and afghans and sending a pillow skidding to the floor. She was awake! Surely she’d dreamed, and the dream had provided her answer? But she couldn’t remember dreaming anything! But that was okay, be...

Post-Bookbub Numbers, March

Over on the community, Erika asked how my post-February-promotion numbers were doing, so I thought 'hey, I bet she's not the only one who wonders.'

A short aside here: it still feels weird talking about numbers. This is the one thing you don't do in SF/F. If you have good numbers, you are boasting. If you have bad numbers, you are revealing weakness. It's a little like existing in the Chatcaavan court. There's no rel...

Nom

Blueberries may not make it into the recipe at this rate...

(Amusingly, the recipe and the notes were written by my spouse and myself. Bet most people won't guess right whose handwriting is whose.)

Blackberries Ripening

These will be ready in June. Blueberry season has already started!

Administrivia

Still busy with sick child...not drawing much or getting much done (including sleep). But it is April! So I wanted to set the chat day for the month and I am tentatively choosing Monday the 17th.

The chat tumbles asking daily now, though...check the channel now and then, the scrollback is worth it. :)

Tell Me What You Want to See!

No lunch bags this week, because Sick Child. In lieu of that, I thought I'd do some audience participation! As I'm wrapping up both Dreamhealers and Princes' Game shortly, I'm looking for new series in the Peltedverse to explore. I've got some ideas of my own, of course, but it's always good to stop and see what people are curious about.

So here's your chance to tell me! What characters do you wish we could follow? What storylines sounded interesting to you? (I know I left a lot of dangling th...

The Emperor's First Shapes

Since I did the Queen's, I thought I'd do his, too. His were more challenging, since he got the eyes mostly wrong on the first, somewhat better on the second, and then mostly right on the last... so making them still look like him was harder.

I think it works, though.

News: Writing Progress, March

For those of you not in the $5+ slots, reading the sneak peeks and listening to me puzzle out why my workstyle has abruptly changed, here's the meters for March so you can see how 2017's projects are progressing! (Here's last month's progress bars).

To summarize: Dreamhearth gained 7%, Coracle (the new MG/YA novel) 8%, and PG5 went up 23%. Some things are gaining slower than ...

Awww Yis

Carline doodle.

The Queen and Her Shapes

I was trying to clean this one up and I kind of like how it looked at this stage so I left it this way!

The Queen, and the three shapes she knows at the end of Wingless: (from left to right) a human, a Karaka'An, and an Eldritch.

Last ICFA Sketch

I did a lot of long conversations with people at bars or tables, so if I wasn't eating, I was drawing. I think sometimes it's easier for people of you aren't making meaningful eye contact all the time. Especially when the conversation reaches the one hour+ point.

This was supposed to be Laniis! Courtesy of the audiobook I was listening to on the way in.

Cloud Elf Sketch From ICFA

No, she doesn't have your data.

Yet Another ICFA Sketch