as if I need more characters

But they just keep coming to me, you know?

Terrible excuse? Yeah, probably. Will I try to put a damper on it now, lest all the random charries form an army and take over my soul?

Nooooo. Nevah!

Anyway, this is Rosephayne Stone. Yeah, she actually does talk like that. The profile of her face came out nice, I think. That and the tail end of her braid, and her butt. She has a nice butt. Everything else... meh. Whatever. There's a very small revolver in there somewhere, but the whole blasted thing made a lot more sense in my head.

Rosey is an energy vampire like the ones in Lady Arin's and my collab... but she's kinda floating right now. Tam's letting her crash at his place, but they fight so much it's barely worth it. Gaah.

I started sketching this cute Thaelen/Anabeth thingy last night, but as always, I can't get Thaelen to cooperate, so we'll see how that goes. Plus, I can't draw hands to save my life. *smites Thaelen and his oddly spiderish hands* Anabeth's look weird too. Like puppet hands. *shudder* I'll keep working on it. Oh, I think I'm getting better at drawing people kissing though... it makes so much more sense now... wonder why...

Blast, it's starting to look like Chapter Eleven might be one of those twenty-five page epic ordeals. I SO don't have time for that. But Nath had to have his little angsty moment and be all "Don't ever do that to me again, I thought you were dead, call the WAAAAMBULANCE" and stuff. *snort* Don't get me wrong, I love him to pieces. But too much Naruto will have that effect on my writing, I notice. And I've had far too much Naruto of late. Hehehehe. Not that I MIND.

Ouch. Someone needs to defrag my brain.

Commander Kip
NO PEEKING!!! *defenestrates*
Normal is overrated!

Rasengan versus Sharingan

NARUTO. Bwahahaaa.

"I will bring you back, even if I have to break every bone in your body to do it..." Tam: Dude, nobody cares. You're stalling. Get back to your Spanish paper.

Me: *pouts* Go away.

Rosephayne: Yeah, git outta here, punk! *draws revolver*

Tam: Hey, who're you calling punk, freakess?

Rosephayne: That's Miss Freakess t'yew.

Me: Here we go again with the blood-drinkers and the energy-drainers. Gaah. Take it outside, guys!

Arkady: *bangs their heads together and frogmarches them out the door*

Hee.

Naruto (c) Kishimoto

Tam McKarthy, Rosephayne Stone and Arkady of Erimon (c) Da Commandah

Commander Kip
Aw, you made me fail my fish!
Normal is overrated!

Kipin's getting better at this whole 'grief' thing

You guys who have known me forever and read my stuff, know that I used to suck at it. Epically. After writing most of my original adventure novel, I'm finally getting the hang of portraying grief. You know how your first instinct as a writer is to make your character cry when sad things happen? Don't do it, I tell you. Resist the urge! *glomps Magnus* Don't let your character cry! At least, not too much. It's way more effective, when hugely awful things happen, to hide them behind a mask, or send them into shock, or make them lash out in a fury, or whatever we DON'T expect them to do. So, from that space, read this and tell me how I did.

I shoved past a pair of soldiers with their blades locked together at the hilt, each straining to best the other. My boot snagged on someone’s discarded quarterstaff, and I went down on my hands and knees in the muddy snow. As I lifted my head, my eyes refocused on the body stretched out in front of me.
He lay on his back, arms flung out to either side. A sword stood upright in his chest, a sword with a smooth black stone set into the crosshilt. The general roar of battle dropped away, leaving behind a numb silence. Violence swirled around me, men from both baronies fought and died, but I couldn’t hear them. Only the hushed murmur of heavy, wet snowflakes striking the ground.
Get up, my mind told me. Get up and keep moving. You don’t know this boy. You’re making a mistake. He’s not who you think. Just leave him. Get up. Get up!
But the spiked, tawny hair told me otherwise. I only knew one person with hair like that.
My hand moved as if it belonged to someone else. When my fingers brushed the frozen stream of blood at the corner of his mouth, I felt nothing. I watched, impassive, as the hand that was not mine traced the frost on his closed eyelids, skimmed his pale jaw, and waited at his neck for a pulse. Why couldn’t I feel his heart beating? Why couldn’t I feel?
“He’s quite dead, I’m afraid,” said a gentle voice by my ear. “Pity that stupid Dawnbridge brat can’t seem to follow orders. That is his sword, I take it?”
I turned my head. Fable crouched beside me, wearing a sorrowful expression that didn’t match the hard gleam in his eyes. I stared at the sharpness of him, of his nose and chin and cheekbones. His green cat’s eyes. I wondered why he didn’t cut people simply by looking at them.
“Yes.”
Peering at me, he lifted a few sodden black strands away from my face with his callous-tipped fingers. “I believe you’ve gone into shock.”
I didn’t move.
He jerked me upright by my hair. “Andra, do you know where your mother is now?”
That question didn’t make sense. “My mother?”
“There is no need,” he snarled, “to repeat everything I say. Do you know where she is?” Holding me by a fistful of hair, he yanked my head back, forcing me to look him in the face. I blinked as he shifted in and out of focus. Even his teeth are sharp.
“No.”
A smirk thinned his lips. “I thought not. She happens to be at the Gypsy’s Bramble just now, suffering from an extremely high fever. My sources tell me she’s not expected to last the night.”
Another piece of information that didn’t make sense. I tried to think. I don’t know for sure where the Baroness is, but I can only think of so many places she might be, and the Gypsy’s Bramble isn’t one. “She can’t be there. She hates gypsies,” I mumbled.
“Not the Baroness, silly girl,” Fable said, rolling his eyes, “I’m talking about your biological mother. Alice, or Eris…”
“Aurice.”
“Yes, Aurice. That’s her name. In any case, I would hurry if I were you. It would be such a terrible pity if you were to miss her.”
With a short laugh, he flung me down beside my friend’s body and strode off, the purple lining of his half-cloak the only color in a world washed gray.

Gah! I miss Kaden already. You guys could tell it was him, right?

Anyway, Andra is a complete mess in this scene. Normally, she wouldn't begin to put up with Fable jerking her around like that. *swats Fable*

Commander Kip
Hey look, a ring! But I can't see it through all the spam...
Normal is overrated!

Kip was doodling again

Quite a bit, actually.

Kay, let's make this quick. IT'S NATH OMG. And it looks like him and everything. Woot. I love that guy. I've only drawn Kaden once before, and this one is better than the first one. His hair is behaving nicely. XD Too bad I always draw the best things on my church bulletin...

First-ever picture of Flavius, making an awesome face. Ha, I bet you didn't know he had a ponytail!

First-ever FULL picture of Fable (I've drawn his eyes before, but never his whole head.) His hair came out nice. And his bladey nose.

ARKADY! Mah favorite bonkybear. XD I've never drawn him before either. But I love this sketch cuz it looks exactly like him. He makes that face all teh tiem.

NOO, don't take my Appropriate Points!! *hoards points* This is part of a bigger sketch, but I hate their bottom halves... gaah, pants are STUPID. :P

Switching gears completely... it's Thaelen, looking nothing like Thaelen, on a YELLOW piece of paper. Yellow is not Thaelen's color in the least. His face looks okay, but I gave him the wrong hair. Meh.

First time drawing Necrea! You guys probably don't know this person, lawl. She's from Portals, Anabeth's second-in-command. I'm still in the process of tweaking her design, so if she looks completely different the next time I draw her, do not be alarmed. I like her elfy eyebrows, matches her description, 'a human built like a Fae'. See? Round ears. *gawsp*

SQUEE, MORWYN!! I rawk at drawing her. XD Sheesh, I misspelled her name on the pic though...

First decent pic of Ellian. I've drawn her a buncha times, but not within the last year and a half. Darling, isn't she?

Horas, first time. He's one of Anabeth's Fae Irlicans, in case you didn't know that already, duh. Weird lookin' elf, isn't he? I like the weird on him. Fits somehow.

Hey, you guys remember Captain Calamity from the Picnic Club site? I resurrected her. Cuz she's cool and in the last pic I drew of her, she looked like a man with a corset. This is an improvement, yes?

I'm presenting my Takacs Project for the school talent show. Be excited! It's gonna be awesome, even if I have to scream the whole story from behind the piano in the back of the room. XD

Tide. One of the Gatekeepers; don't expect me to remember which Gate he's guarding. (I have two characters named Tide now: this one and the Mast-angel on the Leaders' Circle in Erimon Hill.)

Wow, this girl's old. Like, ancient almost. I haven't drawn her in... gah... four years. Jeez. Her name is Kija Belanaza, and she's from a really old scifi thing I tried to write a while back. She's an alien! Hur hur hur. Oh, and she's also extremely pregnant (with four kids.) The only pregnant character I've ever had.Fletcherrrrr. From Takacs Project. I FLIPPIN' LOVE HOW HE CAME OUT. *glomp/squee*

Needed a break from Chapter Ten the other night and colored this old Irk doodle. Attempted shading and everything. She's so patient with me. I don't even have a door for her yet.

Random freckled elfy. Everything I draw has pointed ears now. Done on the back of a 5 Browns concert program. Thanks, Grandma, epic win of a birthday present.

Hey now, why are you asking ME who it is? I certainly have no idea, other than the fact that she has Eigon ears. Also, I think she wants to eat your brain.

I wasn't BORED in novel writing class, I was LISTENING to Mr. S talk. There's a difference. Gum wrappers are fun to blow up. *gigglesnorts at the expression on Peter's face*

If I go too long without drawing TT fanart, I go into withdrawl. So here's everybody's favorite Titan throwing a fit. And no, she's not wearing much and yes, that border is exceedingly crooked. It looked straight from where I was sitting when I drew it, okay? Sheesh. Oh, have I mentioned how much I love messing with Raven?

Stress relief. Thanks, Sasuke.

Kakashi-sensei! *squees & tackles*

Kakashi: *poof*

Me: *mutters* Blast, it's ALWAYS a shadow clone...

So Liese and Trucano and my brother and I (and some other people) went to see How To Train Your Dragon the other night.

DUDE. That movie is the most incredibly adorable thing IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. Srsly. I didn't have a ref for Hiccup and Astrid, but I had to do SOMETHING.

Esplodin' birdy! Gaah, Deidara pwns ur soul. He is such the coolest. Exploding clay, I tell you! It gets no cooler! And Deidara himself is so pretty you just want to pet his hair. He's mah favorite.

Although... I saw a few episodes with Kimimaro in them, and that guy is Hot with a capital H, even though he has the weirdest grossest jutsu ever. Sigh. I should draw him sometime.

My random ninja character Kiri. Not to be confused with Kimimaro. I didn't even know about him when I drew this pic. I like her pose, and her epically huge kunai. Oh, and ninja face masks ftflippinw.

Naruto and all related characters (Sasuke, Kakashi, Deidara's bird) (c) Kishimoto

How To Train Your Dragon and charries (Hiccup and Astrid) (c) Dreamworks, I believe

Teen Titans and Raven (c) Murakami

EVERYBODY ELSE, including ninja Kiri (c) The Kip

Okay, quick novel update: I sprouted an extra chapter between the Achievement and Black Moment by accident. Chapter eight ballooned into forty pages, and most of my chapters are between fifteen and twenty... so I cut it in half, and now I have an extra chapter to write. Lovely. I finished Chapter Ten (Black Moment) on Saturday night - well, early Sunday morning actually, like, four a.m. or something... heh... *sheepface* But anyway, Kaden's dead and I'm really proud of his death scene, as awful as that sounds. If I post part of it up here, do you guys promise not to steal it?

Oops, it's really late now... nearly midnight... this always happens when I post. Gaah.

OFF TO FINISH FABLE WEAVER!!!!!!!11!!!!1!!!

Snuffles somehow made off with ALL the madskillz.

Commander Kip

Next time I see a dragon, I'm gonna cut all its legs off... with my FACE.

Normal is overrated!

the long overdue Mitzi sketch...

... has arrived. BOOYAH. Used a reference for the face. Love the hair, hate the sleeves, border was a pain... and that about sums it up. Love you, Liese! I'll be bringing this in to you on Monday finally. Lol.

Poor Mitzi. *claps handses over mouth*

Aaand Kaden just died.

BLAST IT.

*flails*

Commander Kip
Thanks for nothing, you USELESS reptile.
Normal is overrated!

paranoia on hooves

Yeah, Mom and the bro and I were listening to The Lost Colony on tape in the car, and it was super funny to watch Mom crack up. I heart Foaly. He made my mother laugh. XD Commander Kip
"What color is the uniform?" "Matte black." "Okay. I'm in."
Normal is overrated!

"What's wrong with my eyes?"

Letting you know about the blood ahead of time. Ye be warned. This post not recommended for small children or people's parents.

Is it weird that I feel really bad for Pippa Cross? I mean, I know she turns evil and everything, but she has such a sad life, it's hard to NOT feel bad for her. Like, I nearly cried when the other three girls came to visit her in the realms, and her eyes go all creepy on them, and someone says something, and she's like, "Eyes? What's wrong with my eyes?" She can't even tell that she's turning into a Winterlands creature. See, there it is - proof that bad things always happen to beautiful people. It's so not fair. *glomps Pippa*

Pippa: *murders* *sacrifices* *makes scaryface*

See, what did I tell you?

Oh, it was awesome, at Lady Arin's house, she saw this picture, and:

Arin: Hey, it's Pippa! Is that her shadow or something?

Kip: *flaps hands in a nonchalant manner* It's prolly blood.

Arin: Oh... Ew.

Kip: *falls about laughing*

We had too much fun over thare.

The arrow in her hand represents Felicity, by the way. *muffled, belated squee*

Happy April Fools Day!

Commander Kip

I feel like a million bucks... *keels over*

Normal is overrated!

Presenting...

...Lady Arin's backup BACKUP birthday present... her character Terrin!! *flying tackle-glomp* He is the awesomest. I got to interview him in the car on the way back from the library, and then we ended up having a four-way conversation with two people, and Her Ladyship's daddy kept looking back at us like we were crazy and it was AWESOME. If you've never tried having a four-way conversation between two people before... I urge you, go for it. A bigger blast you will never have. Especially when there are confuzzled parents listening in. AHAHAHAAA. Check out those girly elf boots. XD By the way, he's not as pleasant as he looks. The kid needs to work on his manners, lol. *nudges the Lady* You knoweth of what I speak, yes? *cackles maniacally*

Sorry, everybody, it's late and Kipin's in a very strange mood. What else is new?

Commander Kip

"Oh, for heaven's sake," said Prak, and died testily.

Normal is overrated!

WIPs *gawrsp*

NO WAI DOOD, Kipin's actually posting something that's NOT DONE?! Naww.

Yep. Believe it.

This bristly gentlemen is Hatter Madigan from The Looking Glass Wars. Pretty much everthing he wears can be turned into a deadly murder weapon, including his hat, which collapses into a ring of spinning blades when thrown. Needless to say, I love this guy. And no, this picture is not done, or I would have taken an eraser to it and cleaned it up moar.
Why, you ask, am I so excited about this new drawing I'm working on that I'm posting a thumbnail-sized wip of it? You'll never guess in a million years, so I'll tell you. Two words:

Black Ribbons.

I heart mah Black Ribbons people with a fiery passion, folks. Instant character development, right thare. You only get Min and Juni right now, but Draith will be in the finished product, after I get his knees to cooperate. I love Jasmine's little baby horns. X3

Oh, have I mentioned that nightgowns are stoopid and no one should ever wear them because they're way too hard to draw? No? Well. Now I have.

I told you guys about Broga here, but I won't blame you if you don't remember. I barely remember. XD Anyway, this is probably as done as she's going to get, seeing as I'm in no humor to acutally clean this up at all. By the way, I love her ear, and her hair, and her tattoos, but I pretty much hate everything else about this picture. The proportions are all off and her fin looks terribly flat. Plus, her nose offends me.

Broga is an Eigon chieftainess, by the way. Hence the weird extremities. Her name means 'frog' or something in Welsh. Ah, I love mah Welsh and Gaelic dictionaries. *huggles them*

So yes. Now that all of those wips are out of my hair, I need to sit daown and actually FINISH them. O.o Scaryface.

But first I turn my attention to Lady Arin's TOP-SECRET birthday present that I shall do my very best not to spoil for her. MUAA.

***

You thought I was done, didn't you? Tch, you should know better by now.

I wanted to say something really quick on the subject of character interviews - a writing exercise that involves throwing said character into a small, grey cell with grimy walls and strapping/chaining/manacling them to a chair and asking them questions until they say something that surprises you. Pippin the author did one of her charries, and it sounds like oodles of fun (plus, some of my Erimon Hill people need it rather desperately.) I've been thinking about doing Arkady, because I just can't figure that boy out and he's way too... eh. I dunno... he feels kind of fake, like a puppet, you know, a marionette puppet with someone yanking strings to make his limbs move and his head nod. It all feels a bit stiff. He's a weirdo; he doesn't talk much, but when he does talk it's NOT to say something profound that everyone will listen to... it's usually to tease or berate Kaden, or ask some form of stupid/rhetorical question. Most of the time he's only there to smack Kaden around when he gets too goofy, but then when they're escaping from the warehouse, he single-handedly holds off like a dozen armed men while Andra and the others escape. I just can't figure him out. He's terribly inconsistent. Gaah. Must have a talk with that boy.

Nath's had his share of inconsistencies too, and mi padre, whom I hardly ever discuss story ideas with, thought I should interview him. I was telling him about the Chapter Seven incident when he starts yelling at Andra because he's worried about her, which shocked me rather, since that particular shouting match was not at all in the outline, and I didn't think Nath was a very shouty guy. Padre said it all sprung from not knowing Nath well enough and said I should do an interview with him, try to figure out why he felt the need to break character and yell at Andra like that. I'll try to work on that over spring break and if it turns out presentable enough, I might even post the interview up here. *wink wink grin*

There. Done for real this time.

Commander Kip

Never mind us, it's the candles I'm worried about!

Normal is overrated!

messin with the tablet

And I do mean MESSin... just look at the thing. All you die-hard Star Wars people will hopefully recognize these two - Obi-Wan Kenobi and Siri Tachi, Jedi Apprentice timeline. (Ah, Jedi Apprentice! *glomps luvverly bookses*) Anyhoo, they're on this ship that's rigged to blow up when it exits hyperspace, and they think they're all gonna die, and they realize they're in LOOOOVE, daww, and then they DON'T die after all and now they have to decide what to do with themselves. Cuz, you know, attachment is forbidden in the Jedi Order and all that crap. So they get back to the Temple and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan have a super-manly talk about LOOOOOVE, and Yoda does his little speech, and Obi-Wan is emotionally torn, blablabla, and he and Siri decide to break up. The end.

Only it's a lot sadder in the book. I would quote it, but that part's kinda long and I might get in trouble.

*bursts into tears* Aww, darn it, why couldn't they have just kept it a secret or something?! Anakin and Padme did; Qui-Gon and Tahl did (although that's different, seeing as Tahl died and all)... why couldn't they have done it? It was so sad, they were in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, standing next to a waterfall, and Obi-Wan didn't want to let go of her, and they were crying and I was crying and it was just TERRIBLE. *blows nose rather loudly* That scene's been in my head forever; just got around to drawing it with the tablet, which is a more forgiving medium than pencil and paper. So I did this in under an hour, which means it's the epitome of messy and there's a million zillion mistakes. Siri's anatomy is atrocious (yeah, that's her ear way up there by her eyebrow), and Obi-Wan's arms don't make any sense... but I'm happy cuz I drew something with the tablet FREEHAND and SHADED it and everything. Well... sorta shaded.

Ahem. Anyway. If you actually read through all those gobs of Star Wars lingo, then I shall give you an imaginary cookie. Heck, I'm giving myself an imaginary cookie too.

Nomnomnomnom.

Oh, and by the way... I picture Siri with SHORT hair. Short and blonde. So... deal with it. Have a nice day.

Star Wars (c) George Lucas
Secrets of the Jedi (c) Jude Watson

Commander Kip
Do a barrel roll!
Normal is overrated!

Pippin lineart

Holy mole, that took forevah. And I just now realized that some of the bricks are crooked. AHAHAHAHA to late to fix it naow.

Anyway. This is Pippin from my friend's OYAN novel! He's ten years old and likes big sticks. I heart him. XD He'd BETTER NOT die at the end, or I will be sad. This'll be colored sometime... eventually.

Finally finished Chapter Six!! Gaah, I've never had so much trouble with a chapter before. It was Memory's idea in the first place, the whole dying thing, even though I tried so hard to keep her alive and I kept telling her, "nooo, the mentor ALWAYS dies, it's sooo cliche" but she had her mind made up, so I caved. Then, when I went to actually kill her, she took FOREVER to DIE. Gaah, stupid stupid. Anyway.

Commander Kip
It's a shilling to tie your boat up at the dock... O.o... and I shall need to know your name.
Normal is overrated!

an extra credit thingy

Yeah. Fun.

He isn’t evil.

I believe this fully. He’s volatile, yes. Unpredictable, troubled, scarred, betrayed, yes. But not evil.

When I found him, he was lying in an alley, bleeding on the cobblestones. He had just suffered a horrendous beating. His dirt-stained tunic was in ribbons, and so was the skin of his back. I looked at him, and saw pain. I saw anger. But mostly, his eyes screamed of betrayal, louder than words. He didn’t trust me, at the beginning. He watched me with those sharp green eyes, watched my every move like a bird watches a cat. He didn’t trust me, but he wasn’t afraid of me either, and there was a spark of something in him that couldn’t be beaten out.
It was a miracle Mirano let me keep him. He didn’t like the looks of the boy, he said. Something off about his face. Sneaky. Sharp. Too clever for his own good. I defended him from Mirano and the other skeptical members of the Council, gave him time to heal, and began teaching him. He was a slow healer, but a very quick learner. He had never been taught to read, write, or do mathematics. We started from the ground and worked our way up. He was like an empty pit that was never filled. I threw knowledge at him, enough to drown any other human or Mast-angel without a Mindgift. He drank everything in and still hungered for more. He caught up with other boys his age, and I watched him grow from a scrawny, beaten boy into a young man who was confident to a fault. During this period of growth, Mirano worried. And sometimes, so did I.

“What?” I asked him one day. “What are you worried about? He’s progressing wonderfully. He’s very quick.”

Mirano sighed through his nose, watching Briar engage in swordplay with a Mast-angel twice his height. “I worry about him because he’s quick. Too quick for my liking.”

The arena behind the Sanctum was hardly ever empty, but today it was only Briar and his opponent on the ground, Mirano and I in the balcony. I kept an eye on my pupil as the dust swirled up around the two of them. “He’ll turn out. You’ll see. He’ll turn out fine.”

“As long as he doesn’t kill us all in our beds first,” Mirano muttered with an uneasy shuffle of his wings.

I arched an eyebrow in his direction. “Beg pardon?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. There’s a lot of anger locked away inside that boy. Mark me, Memory, it’s there. It manifests itself in small amounts, and you don’t notice or choose not to notice. But he’s bottling everything up within himself. He was betrayed as a child and he’s just waiting for it to happen again. He hasn’t forgiven Mourn for turning on him, beating him. His scars aren’t healing. You know all this, but you don’t acknowledge it. You just put the sword into his hands and hope he doesn’t know what to do with it.”

Put the sword in his hands…

“Don’t tell me what to do, Memory! I know! I know enough to make my own decisions! Don’t try to stop me!”

His face is contorted as he screams at me. I’ve never seen him so angry. “You will not learn killing arts from me, Briar. Drop the sword. Now.”

“No! I’m tired of being defenseless. I need to learn this! If you won’t teach me, I’ll find someone else. But I am going to learn!” His fist clenches on the hilt of the deadly weapon. I think of the scars across his back. “You can’t stop me from learning!”

He is only fourteen years old, but the hatred in his eyes makes him look far older. “Briar. Put the sword down. I forbid you to wield it.”

“You can’t forbid me!” He screams. “You don’t control me! I hate you, I hate you!”

Another memory surfaced as I staggered against the balcony railing.

Briar wraps his arms around me as I stand before my desk, weeping. “Don’t cry. It isn’t real. It isn’t happening.”

I’m watching my sister die again. Images and voices crash together in my head. I can’t feel Briar’s sleeve on my face, drying my tears. I can’t feel anything. There is only my mother’s scream as Kindred’s wings fold and she plummets from the top of the wall
into the roiling sea. The blaze of lightning over the water. The tearing of fabric as my mother and I run through the bramble thicket at the foot of the wall. We leap in, ripped cloaks billowing around us. Salt water, everywhere, in my eyes, in my ears, up my nose. I wrench my eyes open underwater and search the murk for Kindred’s pale hair, her white dress, her gleaming bronze wings. But she isn’t there.

Then the study swims back into focus and I notice Briar hugging me. His little brow is crinkled as he looks up at me, green eyes bright with concern. “Memory? Are you all right?”

“He’s a good boy,” I said, steadying myself on the railing. “I know he is. He’s rough about the edges, perhaps, but there’s good in him.”


When Andra came to me and spoke of Fable, my head told me at once who he was, and what he’d done. But my heart rebelled. I cannot believe this. I will not.

I didn’t tell her that Fable used to be known by another name. I didn’t let myself flinch as she described the face of the man I trained from boyhood, the man who murdered the first friend he ever had. The man who wouldn’t drop his sword and let go of his hurts.

I looked Andra in the eyes and lied.

“Fable? I don’t know this Fable. You’d best do as Mirano says and start with him, if he’s acting so suspicious.”

“He tried to kill Flavius! He burned the library to ash! If that’s not suspicious, I’m sure I don’t know what is.”

I knew only what Briar told me about Mourn, and I’d seen him just once, at his Council trial, but I saw him in her, the clenching of her fists, the posture, the sparks flying from her green eyes, the black in her hair.

I didn’t tell her that. I also didn’t tell her Fable killed her father in cold blood thirteen years ago. She hates it when I don’t tell her things, but in this case I thought it the best way. If she found out Fable’s past, I couldn’t be sure what she would do.

In that sense she reminded me of my poor old apprentice. Scarred and unpredictable, with a bit of betrayal thrown in. A loose end. But still a good person, inside where it matters.

I didn’t tell her that, either.


Yay for extra credit. We were supposed to write a short biography thing on our villain from the viewpoint of someone who sees him as a real human being with real human feelings. How did I do?

Commander Kip
I WANT YOUR EYES!!!!1!!!!11!!! O.o
Normal is overrated!

bag, and stuffs

Awright, so here's the OSM DRAWSTRANG BAGGIE OF OSMNESS. Phear mah skillz. By the way, that project took for flippin' EVAR. Gaah. The Seal of DEATH and DOOM and DESTRUCTION and DEFENESTRATION, in that order. Requested by a fellow OYANer for some secret purpose unknown to the interwebz. In other words, she told me, but I'm supposeta keep it a seeeeecret.

TAM! *flying tackle* Dude, I love this guy. His real name is Tam McKarthy, but I drafted him into the Takacs Project to be the scary floaty vampire that chases Fletcher around and eventually bites his head off. Normally, he's your typical scarred, broody modern-day vampire assassin. On-project, we call him Nox. Oh, the other day, it was so funny, he got sick of running after Fletcher and decided it would be more awesome to FLOAT after him, so he got himself a pair of hoverboots and chased him that way for a while... until they got to the part where Nox pushes Fletcher in the river and they go over the waterfall, and then he realized that the water would short his boots out, so he had to kick 'em off before he dove in, and it cost me a fat ugly hesitation between two sections. Yeah. *smites*

And look, I actually DID draw all four of the Agents! Wut naow, ppls! See if you can guess who is who. And check it out, Timo actually looks like Timo. And Derek's coveralls are all wrinkly. And yes, his hair actually does that. XD

So this happened when I was trying to draw something else entirely, muaa. It's Loor from the Pendragon series, wearing her cowboy getup from Reality Bug. At least, that's the idea. Can you tell I was making things up as I went along and certainly NOT getting the book out for reference? Yeah. I think she had a hat in that scene, but after about ten tries, I erased it and gave up. Sorry for the belly, everyone... but I'm pretty sure Loor wears less than that on a regular basis. She comes from a desert planet and all that.

ALMOST DONE WITH PIPPIN!!! Just have to go over the whole lineart with a really skinny line in and around the knotwork, then he'll be CLEAN and I can start painting him. Yay!

Also, I'm finishing up Chapter Six of the STILL unnamed OYAN novel, in which Memory... dies. *epic wail* NOOOOOOOOOO!!! I tried SO HARD to keep her alive, and she still decided to up and die on me! Gaah!

Commander Kip

I's in ur basement, shootan fireballz BAMBAMBAM

Normal is overrated!

Eigon person COLORED W/ DA TABLET

Yeah, just chucking this out here really quick, since I realized that I hadn't posted it yet. LOVE. MAH. TABLET. *dies*

My poor Portals people are all feeling kind of neglected now, since I haven't so much as sneezed at them in the last six months. *pats them all* I'm drawing the Eigon queen-lady-thing right now, something I started in November and ignored for a while. It turns out her name is Broga, which means 'frog' in Welsh, but she let me think she didn't have a name for the longest time. Anyway, there's so much stuff clambering to be drawn right now; Peter and Wendy in their League stuff, Mitzi, Alonzo, Kartik again, mah four lovelies from Savvy, Obi-wan and Siri (that's been in my head for a while), some W.I.T.C.H. stuff, Andra needs a better portrait, unfinished Raven doodles, unfinished Kelsier drawing, oh yeah, more Mistborn fanart, a real pic of the Black Ribbons people, aaaand I really need to learn how to draw people kissing. Because it eludes me. Gaah.

Commander Kip
Hook! Whose eyes turn red... as he GUTS you.
Normal is overrated!

the faerie path

Follow da linkie for the rest of the doors! Or most of the rest of the doors, anyway.

http://commanderkip.deviantart.com/gallery/#faerie-doors

So, I had the weirdest story idea the other day, for a supernatural romance/murder mystery. WHAT THE HEY?! I don't even READ that kind of thing. Anyway, it's an awesome idea and it has dead people in it and a girl named Dreadful Racket Smittering, but I can't do anything with it right now because I'm writing mah OYAN novel, and Portals is next up, and I don't know WHEN IN THE WORLD I'm going to get to it. Gaah. Why can't I write faster?!

Commander Kip
I weren't droppin' no eaves, sir!
Normal is overrated!

back to the doodle phase

Kay, you guys ready for this random pile of stuffs?

Pippin is being a brat to clean up, so while I'm working on him, here's some other doodly goodnez. Look at this, it's the first-ever drawing of Timo from Savvy! And it fails at life. XD But I don't care, because it was just a quick tablet sketch for the clothes. It doesn't actually have to LOOK like him. This is a floater named Claws. He just hopped out of my pencil during Advanced Biology a few weeks ago and scared the study hall people half to death.

Yes, Spanish workbook bores uss.

I actually have been working on this for a while now. Mortal Instruments FTW, dood. I hate most of it, but I'm so tired of fiddling with it that I'm calling it done. Top to bottom, left to right: Jace, Magnus's eye, the Mortal Sword, Magnus Bane (I killed his hair, blast it), an angel wing random thingy-thing, some shirtless Shadowhunter person who is smiling WAY too much to be Alec, Clary (botched her bad) and poor Simon's broken glasses. Awesome books, yo.

I was supposed to go to this LotR movie night on Saturday, but Reedfrost and Dan kidnapped me and dragged me to see Avatar instead. And by the way, it was pretty flippin' sweet, despite the scantily clad natives that Amzi was freaking out about. XD *glomps Amzi* It wasn't THAT bad. Plus, everything GLOWED in the DARK and the sheer amount of WORK that must have gone into all that graphics stuff was completely mind-boggling.

Wendy in her pirate-flag dress from Peter Pan in Scarlet. I want to do a fancy pic of her and Peter in his frock coat one of these days. Ignore the head on the middle right, by the way... I was trying out a different style of face and ended up hating it. Yeah. Drawn all in PEN, dude!

River Tam, from the movie Firefly: Serenity. She's a crazy ninja person. No, literally. XD

Lirael from Garth Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy. Necromancy rawks when he writes about it. The magic system with the bells and Charter marks is awesome.

Oh, lookit, it's our old buddy Frodo, from the cover of the FotR dvd. I wasn't trying very hard; can you tell?

I was trying a new style on this and it ballooned out over the whole page and turned into Hermione Granger from HP. Which is weird, because I've never drawn HP fanart before in my life. O.o

Okay, that's it for now. Since I'm lazy and busy, I'll put up links to my DevART account in an upcoming post so you guys can go see the rest of the faerie doors. Sorry for the inconveniance.

Chapter Five this week! I love the end of Chapter Four, cuz it has a fight scene in it, and blood, and awesomeness, and jumping out of thirty-foot-high windows. WoOt!

Commander Kip

Crap. This is going to RUIN my day.

Normal is overrated!