(Also a WIP :P)
Yes! I’m here! I’m still alive, I swear!
My apologies… Ugh, I really didn’t want to take this long to make an actual post, but some unexpected tragedies transpired in my personal life that ended up derailing me for a bit…
BUT, I feel a lot better now, and I’m excited to work hard again on building up the website and sharing more about my upcoming series, Ferrum Perpetua. Sometimes that’s really all you can do in the face of adversity; just try to remain productive. But anyway, on to business–
- General Update
Obviously, finishing up the first installment, The North Iron Star, is going to be an ongoing project and I’m still hopeful that it will be released sometime in 2025 – probably closer toward the end of the year if I’m being realistic. It’ll be a lot of work, but I’m still optimistic about that time frame, and I will be certifying some more official dates as I chug along. At some point, I’ll be looking to open it up for ARCs and beta readers, but not quite yet.
In the interim, I do have a few goals of varying ambition for the website that I will be pursuing alongside the production of the book itself. And while I’m sure I’ve mentioned these in passing, I would like to use this post to explain my ideas a little more extensively.
- Finish Portraits!
This one is a bit of a glaring issue, isn’t it? Lol… As you can see on the homepage, not all of my portraits are finished! (How embarrassing…) I would like to create one for Hugo and the bear, Iron Ursa, as they are either missing or incomplete. Those shouldn’t take too long, and I don’t really have a good excuse as for why they aren’t here yet, other than that I just got a little burnt out after rushing out the others for the launch of my website. But I think that’ll be an easy goal that should be readily achievable now that I’m back to caring about my dreams again, haha.
To tack onto this point, as well as segue into the next idea, I would also like to tie these portraits to free-to-read short stories tailored to each individual character. For now, there are some other things that I would like to prioritize, but those will probably start to trickle in over the next few months. Once I’ve started to work on those, I’ll likely make a post dedicated to that project with more detail on what that will actually entail – perhaps just a progress report, or even a set schedule depending on how I’m able to balance those stories with some of these other ideas, as well was work on the novel itself. Either way, I look forward to polishing up the home page and making it more interactive – especially in such a way where readers can actually get a truer sense of the incoming product.
- ‘You Can Live Forever’ Vignettes
One of the first things you see when you enter my website is the banner showing my character Whitby Antler throughout the years. While it hints at an important plot point of the story, I want to make these even more engaging by linking them to some free-to-read short stories. These are going to come first before the ones for the other characters, and will be my focus over this next month. I’m hoping to have them released by the New Year, especially since I just kind of vanished for a couple months, but given the hecticness of the holidays, it may be more pragmatic to say sometime in January at the absolute latest.
I figure that these samples will be a good, concise way of demonstrating the tones and themes of Ferrum Perpetua. And this way, readers can decide if the book is for them before investing the time and money when it’s live. Some of this is also just because I like writing the story! -and this feels like a good compromise in terms of adding to the ‘lore’ without further padding out the novel, especially since I’ve been trying to pare it down for digestibility.
All that being said, as an aspiring writer and artist, I’m always seeking ways to improve, so I am open to constructive feedback. So once those shorts are live (or if you notice one of my portraits is looking particularly cross-eyed or something) please don’t forget about my Contact page! Love it or hate it, I’d like to hear from readers, as this will better help me achieve my goal of putting out a great story!
- The Gallery!
This one will definitely be a bit more time-consuming, but it will be an important addition to the website. The black and white portraits of the characters are all well and good, but I’m sure prospective readers would like to see more informative, complex and dynamic scenes that provide better insight into some of the plot points of Ferrum Perpetua.
Naturally, this will also be a feature of the website that I hope to build in perpetuity. I want a big gallery with a variety of compositions! And as I continue to challenge myself artistically, it should be interesting to be able to go back and see my progress. That said, no promise that everything stays up forever, haha. But despite their current roughness, I am excited about some things that I have in the works. See below!
Chapter I – April 26, 1944
This is from the first scene of the first chapter of Ferrum Perpetua: The North Iron Star. Exciting stuff lol. I have a lot of work to do on the sketch still, having resized and moved stuff around. And similar to the following WIP, I also want to try and fix the figures so they look a little less stiff. Ultimately, the goal with this one is to have a full color digital painting. I’ll probably record that process as well and post that to the ‘gram, but it’s going to be a lot of work and a lot of layers! I’m also still trying to better my grasp on landscapes and skyscapes so it’ll be a learning process as well; but I am particularly excited for this one.
Whitby vs Iron Ursa
Adversely, this scene is based on events that occur toward the end of the first book. During the sketch phased, I switched his arms around like a clown and now it looks a little stiff/awkward. So that kinda sucks. :/ My husband also rightfully pointed out that the perspective of the trees looks off, too. Iron Ursa (a short-faced bear or Arctodus from the Pleistocene) is meant to be jarringly huge, but the way I started rendering the trees makes him seem hilariously huge, so I may have to just delete my layers and start from scratch there, too… On the bright side, that gives me the opportunity to maybe fix Whitby’s skinny lil arms here, too.
Whitby & Iseult 😉
Action, terror, romance – what more could one want in a story? I’ve actually had this one kicking around in my folders since 2022 apparently. :clown: But, I like it and would like to return to it. Most likely, it’ll get bumped down the list for some of the other paintings that I have planned, but we’ll see. Compositionally, it’s a simple enough piece that I could probably bang it out pretty quickly should I ever get the wild hair to do so – pun(s) intended, teehee.
———
So as you can see, a lot of irons in the fire – all still very much works in progress. I also have some ideas in my head for even more art that I want to do; especially for some stuff that touches more on the horror aspect of Ferrum. I have a tendency to jump around a bit depending on my mood, so perhaps as I’m working on these, I’ll be posting some of the sketches as I embark on those projects. But again, this month, I’ll be prioritizing the free-to-read short stories so, you’re more likely to recieve those first than updates on the art.
Finally, don’t forget to pop into my Instagram every now and again! Sometimes I’ll post stuff there that isn’t on the website – or vice versa. At some point, I’ll also be posting art to my Cara account, which will probably be more inclusive of my catalog (save for any particularly suggestive/gory items as they have a rule against that) but yeah! That might be the stand-in gallery until I have something more official and polished on the site. And of course, I’ll speak more on that when the time comes.
Anyway, more to come soon! And thanks for stopping by!
– LL