Shadowheart "Storm"

Hello everyone, I hope you are doing well!!

This piece, which I've titled "Storm" is going to be the exclusive print for the April print club. ♥

I love working in B&W from time to time, and was wanting to paint something a bit emotional. This month's print pack will be Shadowheart themed, and I think I would like to paint something botanical and colorful with orchids and incense smoke for the postcard. Been taking some notes on ideas. Perhaps a little shrine or something like that.

A bit of an angsty write-up below on where I'm at right now artistically...

I am going to be switching my focus a bit here soon to my own characters/projects a bit which is terrifying. I tend to lose quite a lot of followers/supporters when I post my own characters, but the fact of the matter is that there is this incredibly hollow feeling at times I get when working on fanart because I don't own the characters. I put a lot of emotion in my work, and there is a disconnect sometimes where I feel like I can't tell if people are interested in me and my work, or just the characters in the painting.

When I paint Astarion or Shadowheart in particular, I really put a lot of myself into the pieces because I identify with the characters so much. I love them. I'm not sure how obvious it is- I hope it is- that it's more than just "fanart" to me. I've never been super interested in following trends so it felt very lucky that BG3 got as popular as it did and one of my interests actually aligned with something popular for once.

I've always been passionate about weird things, niche things, etc. Vampire the Masquerade (the older editions, not so much V5) and older RPGs like Neverwinter Nights and BG1&2, Planescape Torment, Morrowind, found footage horror movies, obscure self published books, blah blah I'm very Edgy and Cool™. (read: friendless and in my head most of the time)

I will always be doing fanart, that's a fact. I get so moved by media at times my hands ache to paint the characters. Even if I have no time for it I fantasize about painting them instead. So please don't worry about that. I think Astarion is part of my DNA at this point...

I will, perhaps pathetically, ask that you give my original stuff a chance, because every character no matter how famous, started out as an OC. Astarion was someone's brainchild that likely started as a few scratched out notes and sketches just as anyone's OC. This extends not just to me, but to any artist you follow. It's so, so scary to branch out from fanart into original works.

Thank you all, as always, for all of your support. It's changed my life and helped me through the roughest struggles imaginable. Hug your loved ones dearly and please be kind to yourself.

~Lily