Records of Sorrow - Inks

Given the time of year I couldn't help but ink this one.  I decided to try and figure out what the lighting of this will look like when it's eventually coloured, and it gave me the chance to noodle around with the hundreds of 'tones' and textures included in CSP.  I don't know if this one will be a full painting though.  I might leave it as a coloured illustration instead, but I'll have to wait until I start filling things in to see how it feels.

This also marks the first image posted to the open patron stream.  The high resolution versions of this will be posted to the pay tiers, but I like the idea of putting general art here that I'm able to (Some can't be posted here due to rules on nudity, etc).  Patreon is slowly improving its ability to act as a place to post blogs to the general public, and I'd noticed they even started allowing 'sorting by month' which might help a little.  It can at least let people get caught up in digestible chunks instead of having to scroll through years of back-images/posts.

I started to think of the old city ruin this image takes place in.  Its very much like one of those 'old school' cities you'd see in games or fantasy books in the 80's, with winding corridors, spaces with statues to goddesses or leaders long forgotten and abandoned, strange pools with things stirring in them and switchback streets filled with eyes leering at you from the darkness.

Vicorria was one of those metropolises of an empire that thought it was immune to the ruin brought about by its excesses.  Like any civilization built on non-flexible ideal it fell to ruin, with leadership gone completely mad, feasting on the lower tiers until they themselves had none left to rule, and they were enveloped by the dusts and forgotten.  Its a place on the very border between Lathreadon (Lorrnathi lands) and the Western Empires helmed by the city of Stokenfire.

Roads there have long since grown over, with only bent and rusting lamp-posts peeking out like mournful fingers marking a rough path into deeper and darker gloom.  Mist covered woods that grew old and more foreboding since the time of Vicorria's reign stand as vanguard to the city itself, and it's great silhouette can just be made out against the base of the mountains, the trade path beyond the cliffs not having seen a cart or heard the jingle of wares for centuries now.

Still, the decaying metro isn't fully forgotten.  Tribes of creatures have carved out territories amidst the towers and collapsed buildings.  The warrens beneath that served as tombs and sewers form a labyrinthine network of tunnels housing unspeakable horrors dragged from the mad dreams of dead gods, and painted by haunted blind children in locked asylum attics.

Legends that persisted about the fabled city are still whispered about by lofty nobles with dreams of untapped old powers, and farmers hissing warnings to foolish explorers, sipping from tankards purchased for their advice.  Others still dream of those tall dark towers hosting writhing tendrils of dark that reach out to them as they lay fevered in the back of fortune teller's wagons, or sit staring into fires in the smoking-rooms of creaking inns.

I guess as 'spook month' approaches, these are the kinds of images that speak to me.  There will be a few more images like this with the build up to Halloween, though some will be more light-hearted.  Right now I'm thinking of doing an image featuring Cinders and Lyssiah at a pumpkin-trade of some sort, with those who love them looking on as they gleefully try to get some pumpkins adopted out to loving families (who.. will just turn them into pies, let's face it).

So that's all for September it looks like.  Outside of some light sketching more posts will come in the month of spook.

Have a good weekend, folks!