A Small, Mouthy, Goofy, and Loyal Bird
A blog post? On time? Two weeks in a row? WHAT TRICKERY IS THIS?????
Unlike the trend for the past few weeks, I am finally back on a normal cadence. Most of my stuff in my life is back to normal, though a little more wet thanks to the hurricane, and I am finally back on a normal schedule! Before anyone asks, no, I was not too affected by the hurricane, though many of my friends out here weren’t so lucky. I am extraordinarily fortunate with my apartment happening to be on the peak of a hill.
Hurricane stuff aside, I’m back with a normal blogpost, and we’re finally covering something that got put off a little over the past few weeks. About three weeks ago, I finished work on adding a new face to the website, Atom! I was extremely proud of the piece and already gushed about it on social media, but now we can have a full breakdown of Sapphiria’s goofy, but loyal, sidekick, so let’s jump right into who Atom actually is!
Small Bird, Gigantic Heart
In the Sapphire Verdict, Atom is Sapphiria’s best friend and loyal sidekick. She crafted him at an incredibly young age purely so she could have a best friend to go on adventures with, and she certainly got exactly what she wanted! While Atom is a bit impish and ornery, he is incredibly loyal and supportive of his friend, and he’s always ready and willing to go on any adventure! Typically, you can almost always find Atom on her shoulder, listening to her talk about her day or spinning up some new fantastical story. The rest of the time, he’s either going on one of his flights, helping Sapphiria out in her forge, or reading a new fantasy novel to satisfy his addiction to them. For such a small bird, he is always dreaming big, and one of his biggest dreams is to get turned into a Titan, a four hundred foot tall automaton juggernaut. While that dream definitely isn’t happening anytime soon, a little bird can dream, right?
In the story, he spends most of his time supporting Sapphiria however he can. He defends her when no one else will and serves as a shoulder for her to cry on whenever she needs it. When the going gets tough, Atom stands up and fights, even if the odds are stacked against him. He wants nothing more than Sapphiria to find the acceptance that she has always wanted, and he’s willing to do whatever he has to in order to see that happen, even if it means risking his own life…
The Art
Working on Atom took me around three weeks, give or take. I started off with a sketch on paper, which I redid multiple times, before transferring it as a reference into Krita. I then started with rough line work, some edits, and then true line work that would last to the finished product. Then it was a matter of adding a base layer of colors and really capturing his image. In the story, Atom is more of a patchwork automaton made from melted down scrap in various colors, so he’s not uniform by any stretch of the imagination. That being said, he’s not some amalgamation of junk. He truly looks like a bird, but his most notable feature are his eyes. The sheen really captures the light his eyes always shine with, and Sapphiria made extra certain that he is fully capable of making a wide range of expressions! For those curious, yes, he has teeth if he wants them. They’re retractable.
Lastly, Atom’s feathers. While Atom HATES birds with a passion never seen before, he LOVES pruning his feathers. While the art itself doesn’t show it, he’s covered in metal feathers that he can ruffle and puff up to make himself look bigger. If he’s pouting or throwing a tantrum, he’s puffed up, and it can certainly be quite amusing! For the finishing touches on the piece, I did a few passes for shadows and lights, then added a darker texture color to get rid of the uniformity of his body as well as some scratches! All in all, I think he turned out great and is a wonderful representation of what he truly looks like in the story!
My Progress
My art skills are continuing to progress at a satisfactory rate. I’m learning as much as I can with the time I have available, and I am genuinely LIGHT YEARS ahead of where I ever thought I could be with art. As they always say, better late than never! For now, I’m working on a conceptual piece that can serve as inspiration for the book cover whenever we get to that point, and it’s requiring me to learn a totally new art style I’ve always been fond of! Fans of blue turtle on youtube will probably recognize it, and while I’m definitely not nearly as good as he is, I like to think that I’m on my way there! In terms of when this piece will be finished, it’s a complete tossup. It might be this week, or maybe the next. All I can say is that I’m working my hardest on it!
Future Site Updates
With all that out of the way, time to talk about some upcoming stuff! Spirit Marsh is the next location to be explored in Tearna’s travels, and it should be coming out in about a week and a half if I stick to my schedule. This journey will see her documenting the wildlife of the Spirit Marsh, a vast, swampy terrain located on the northeastern side of the continent. This area is almost always covered by a haze, but, at night, comes to life with lights that look like small spirits! We’ll see glowbugs, giant spiders with razor-sharp fangs, and remnants of the Clockwork Crisis still rotting in the muck. Art for this can already be found within her journal page, so stay tuned for its full release! After that… I hope you brought your floaties for the next story! You’re going to need emm!
That’s All I Got
For this week, that’s truly all I have! I wanted to keep things short and sweet after the monstrosity that was last week’s post, so I hope this was a welcome break and a bit of an interesting insight to another of my characters! I have plans to bring another to life very soon, but it requires me to learn how to draw humans, so… we’ll see how that goes. For now, that’s all I got, so, without further ado… CHEERS!
The Flying Fennec