eller

...or: Two people draw the same scene. Independently of each other, two artists decided to draw me ATCs with Koh (and some fire). :D It's funny, really: like, 50% of Kolthainn fanart (the part of it that's not random tetrahedra, anyway) happens to be of Koh; he's by far the most popular character, and people who look at my ATC folder without knowing any of the stories inevitably conclude he's "the main character". (This is technically not the case. Since Kolthainn ist not one story but rather this conglomerate of stories and art set in the same world, different stories have different protagonists.) I mean, I don't mind - Koh is the oldest character of the whole project (he popped up in my comments on some program code when I was 12, stupid, and writing a weird rotating tetrahedron simulation) and probably the most complex one (as in, he has a distinct personality that I as the storyteller don't have much control over - he's a person). It's just funny. XD Anyway.

Lumelievm drew this wonderful picture: Koh in the air! FIRE! So cute!!! :D :D :D (Also, I kind of love the color scheme...)



Simultaneously (because the pictures were mailed at the same time), Lethean drew this (and it has glitter and neon colors, too):



I'm so impressed! :D Both pictures are, of course, impeccable on the technical level. (I mean... It's just really, really awesome art, and I appreciate it a lot!) They also show exactly the same thing, which is a really funny coincidence. (I did not put them up to this, and to the best of my knowledge, they were not talking to eack other during the creation, either.) It's just that the styles are extremely different from each other, and the ways they treat character and scene are absolutely fascinating. (There's a lot of freedom for "fanartists" because for all that I like to draw, I don't draw Kolthainn stuff very often. Because I don't have much of a visual imagination, the characters started out without fixed visual designs, too. I mean, I draw them sometimes, but embarrassingly, some other people are much better at drawing them than I am. I can only draw flowers... People, not so much. Yes, yes, I should practice...) Also, probably unsurprisingly, I just went WHEEEEEEE when I opened those letters. I mean. I get all the BEST artwork! YAY!!!

Just realized there's a significant backlog in photos of the AWESOME Advent calendar that Ismael made for me! So... I'm going to change that now. I had already posted the awesome little room in a shoebox with the Dev cardboard stand. During the course of December, more awesomeness like that followed...

( Pictures behind the cut. )

I'm sooooooo happy! :D

Look at this! I received absolutely wonderful fanart again, this time from Sockenzombie, who drew an ATC featuring Dev, some very large and very suspicious translucent chess pieces, and... an ocean.



Title of this masterpiece is "The Ocean Edge" and is, of course, a little joke about the fact that my characters believe they live on a tetrahedron. (This is not the case, but gives me the opportunity to include really weird math into my stories. It makes navigation so much more fun!) Basically, poor Dev has to assume that somewhere in the distance the ocean is dropping over an edge. :D

Maybe interesting for the artists among you: Sockenzombie wrote a detailed blog post with WIP steps and explanations.

Anyway, I'm suuuper happy!

I absolutely HAVE to show you what the wonderful Q-ni made for me! :D (Q-ni, in case you read this, thank you so so sooooo much - I have already told you how much I appreciate this but I can't say it often enough!

Not only did Q-ni draw a wonderful ATC of my favorite autistic dark mage geologist who happens to be the protagonist of a piece of program code that went awry my story - I really love the picture - but... She did the same picture as a sculpture!

A tiny sculpture!

Made of FIMO!

Mounted on a lovely tiny piece of crystal!






...come on, isn't that cute? :D I can tell you this totally made my day! Also, I love the medium - the whole story is whimsical enough to be not quite "serious" enough for illustration, so I personally usually portray my characters in collage pieces - but of course FIMO sculpture is also perfect for the mood of the thing.

And I couldn't resist, I simply had to make an icon featuring him. I mean, he's not quite my alter ego, but... I can totally identify. Ehehe.