I Didn't Just Get To Meet Mine. I Lived Down The Road From One And Not A Very Far Drive From The Other.

I didn't just get to meet mine. I lived down the road from one and not a very far drive from the other. My sisters and I would bike to the one's house on the regular to pick daffodils in her yard and have treats that she would save for my siblings, my mom's siblings (some of whom were close enough in age to functionally be my siblings), our other cousins, etc. She sewed aprons and let us help her gather eggs from her chickens and warned us to be careful around the cow fields because of the (mild) electric fence designed to keep the bull from trying to wander. The other great-grandmother crocheted afghans that she gifted us and kept a bowl of ribbon candy for when we'd visit.

My great-grandmothers passed away when I was in my twenties. they got to meet two of my children (as in their great-great grandchildren) as well as one of my nieces. We've got a five-generation photo with each of them.

Hey hey, it's your Monday chapter update!

Preview for the next chapter! Surprise, it's an echidna!

I mean, if you've looked at the tags (or summary) for the story on AO3, you'd have seen Knuckles's name already, so I guess this is only a surprise to people who are merely watching for the illustrations and not reading the story. But whatever.

I'm not entirely sure I'm pleased with this one (my wonky angles on foreground vs. background notwithstanding), but I'm calling it good because I'm done messing with it, and falling back on my "I'm not anywhere near formally trained" excuse. It is what it is, and I can live with that.

See you Monday with the chapter link!

Hey hey, it's Monday, and that means the next chapter is available! And you may have already seen, this chapter had two illustrations. I would say it's a treat, but there are more chapters coming that also have multiple (not every chapter has more than one, but a handful do).

Either way, enjoy!

Previews for next Monday's chapter of Falling into Darkness. Very grey this week. ::sage nod::

First an OC, created to have a slightly more fuller cast of Freedom Fighters, who came with a Very Important Lesson about sequencing my coloring steps. Namely, don't start painting buildings on your background gradient when you haven't done clouds yet, because dang, that was annoying to fix once I realized what I'd done.

As for the other picture...hm, well.

See you Monday with the chapter link!

Next chapter preview. It's a two-illustration week again!

I'm not entirely sure about the coloring job on the first picture, but I had to tell myself to stop fiddling with it or I'd never finish it. These are supposed to be quick-and-dirty illustrations, after all. Not slow-and-dirty. But hey, playing with some starker shadows to imply a harsh single light above them.

The other picture, by contrast, was much simpler. Just three sections to shade, only two of those to add highlights, and then playing with some overlays and coloring the lineart before quickly painting in a background.

Tune in Monday for the chapter link!

Since I've been sharing all the illustrations I've been working on lately, I figured I'd also show off the brushes I've been using for the main coloring work (shading, highlights, some texturing, any freehand background paintings), because I think they are some of my favorite go-to brushes I've found. This set is made by the artist Jazza on YouTube, and they work wonderfully for what I've been doing so far, and I haven't even dug that deep into them yet. Well worth the price in my opinion, and sometimes he runs sales or has discount codes available from his channel.

Note: this does not include the watercolor/ink strokes I've been using to do the masking around the edges of each picture. Those were various free sets I've collected over the years.

Jazza Studios

Jazza's Ultimate DIGITAL BRUSHES

:: THIS ITEM IS A DIGITAL DOWNLOAD :: Jazza's Ultimate Digital Brushes is a collection of 83 incredible quality, carefully made and tested D