Concept sketch for Smaragdus, the crystal Erdunn from the novel I've been working on (not the one that just came out). Smaragdus is a small entity who Tam, one of the heroines, finds imprisoned in the ruins of a city and inadvertently frees. Smaragdus asks her to find and free the other Erdunn, elemental creatures who were sealed away eons ago, and together they set out on an epic journey to gather the Erdunn and rescue Tam's sister Carrie from the questionably evil Lord Saturos. 

Along the way, Tam discovers that she and Smaragdus can link energies, giving Tam access to Smaragdus's ability to crystallize and control the rock around her, which proves immensely helpful in their adventure. However, Smaragdus remains suspiciously vague about her origins and true motives, and Tam might have bitten off more than she can chew in her quest to show Saturos what she's made of.

 

My novel Between the Salt Water and the Sea Strand is now available in ebook format (and paperback is coming soon)!

Check it out for a fun collision of modern England and British/Celtic mythology and folklore, a heroine on the autism spectrum, and more than you ever really needed to know about making rock (the confectionery, not the geologic object). 

I worked hard on this one and I really hope readers enjoy it. (Old Tom is totally based on my cat.)

Stay tuned for that cool announcement I promised!

Cover art for the next novel I'm going to publish very soon!

One of the (many) things I love about the UK is how the sky is always in a mood. <3 Also, corgis are fantastic.

You may remember me doing some concept art for this novel last year; I'd actually written the manuscript then, and now I'm finally ready to move forward with publishing. I'm very excited to share this tale of faerie warriors, a middle-aged cat lady, and surreptitious theoretical physics. Also, snails are important.

... I promise it all makes sense in the end.

P.S. I have a very special surprise planned for this novel, so keep an eye out for a big, cool announcement!

 Finalized character design for Lord Saturos, the antivillain of the novel I've been working on. Saturos is a millennia-old immortal demigodly sorcerer--although as he explains in the book, he has the ability to manipulate the universe on a quantum level, but he just calls it "magic" for the sake of convenience. Despite all appearances, Saturos is a kind, compassionate, friendly creature who enjoys music and has a sweet tooth, and wants nothing more than to see the world he rules thrive peacefully. Unfortunately, he also holds quite a bit of disdain for humanity because of how xenophobic they are towards him whenever he crosses over into our world--and in his underestimation of what humans are capable of, a stubborn teenage girl unwittingly uncovers the dangerous secrets of his world's past and the reason why Saturos is the last of his kind. With an unexpected ally and friend in the girl's brainiac older sister, who possesses the same sort of powers as him, can Saturos stop a misguided heroic quest before it's too late?

Saturos is basically me poking fun at and deconstructing every cliché evil wizard character ever. Not that I'm consciously trying to fangirl villains, but often I find I'm just more interested and emotionally invested in the highly intelligent, misunderstood fellow with phenomenal powers, a posh castle, and a retinue of quirky underlings, than the dusty peasant lad who just happened to pick up a magic sword or something. And it drives me crazy when the former just exists as a plot device to make the latter look cool for defeating him, which I kinda feel is some thinly-veiled wish fulfillment that I just don't connect with.

Saturos himself complains about this at one point in the story, and maybe it's a bit too meta, but the entire plotline has a tongue-in-cheek subtext of the characters being very aware that they are basically living out a D&D campaign.

Also, I know posts have been a bit sparse lately. I've had a lot going on and haven't been feeling super art-motivated. Also I've been replaying Pokémon Sword on a Switch account I made under my cat's name and being reminded of how much I hate the ending, which mostly consists of mercilessly crushing other people's dreams one battle at a time for the sheer sake of fame and glory. Can't we all just be Champions, guys?!

P.S. Goat eyes are adorbs.

 

Some doodles from the Idaho Museum of Natural History. Oviraptorosaur foot study, wee orycto, and a species of fern actually found in the Wayan Formation.

 I drew this illustration to commemorate a new and updated edition of my unnecessarily long Neopets fanfic Worth Searching For! I had already uploaded the previous version here, but parts of it still weren't sitting quite right with me, and I finally decided to just give it a total overhaul.

The most crucial edits here were to erase all vestiges of Isengrim's narcissistic sociopath personality from the first version, and really help Terra come into her own as a strong heroine whose kindness, wisdom, and courage inspire others to change for the better. In addition, I added a somewhat significant conversation between Isengrim and Suhel to tie Suhel's character development together a bit better than in previous versions; when I originally wrote this fic, I didn't go into much detail with her because I simply wasn't planning on doing anything else with her, but since then she's actually become a main part of the cast, so I figured she needed her due in her introductory story. I also took the opportunity to tighten up the prose, since it had been a few years since I'd last visited this story and I've somehow improved a bit as a writer since then.

If you've never read the fic, there's no better time to do so (but for Sloth's sake don't read the version that got into the Neopian Times, thankfully it's very old and you'd have a difficult time finding it, so just spare me the embarrassment and don't go looking for it).

 More museum sketching! They have an adorable little mount of Citipati that was just begging for some attention. I love that the Idaho Museum of Natural History is all about celebrating oviraptorosaurs right now!