Next up on the papercraft backlog - this one! Inspired by StrangeTheDreamer by Laini Taylor , featured on the Illumicrate mug that was included in the recent DOSAB Collections Edition box!
I really love how both of Laini’s series have drastic contrasts of themes between light and dark, good and evil, ally and foe - and those themes really directed concept for this. The chaotic field of moths dissolving out of Sarai’s dress balanced out the buttery-smooth golden beasts flowing from Lazlo’s book as the two are joined in the middle, meeting somewhere halfway between dreams and nightmares.
“You’re a storyteller. Dream up something wild and improbable,“ she pleaded. “Something beautiful and full of monsters.” “Beautiful and full of monsters?“ “All the best stories are.” ― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer
Even though quite a number of us read ebooks, I don’t often see e-readers on my Tumblr dashboard or Instagram feed. I think that’s sad. Why exclude a format if it’s part of our reading lives?
I know for some, the difficulty lies in photographing them. That’s why I shared these tips on wordrevel.com.
Just wanted to show you all my latest personal illustration I did. This time I did Sarai from the Strange the Dreamer duology by @lainit. I really wanted to do this character for a long, I just like doing different skin colors, it’s really fun . Well! Hope you like the final result.⠀⠀
You know those books that just sit forever on your shelves, because every month (even though you promise yourself that you’re going to read them) a different book catches your eye? Theseeeeee are a few of mine, this is one of my worse book-related habits, but I know that I’ll get to them eventually! Which books are long term residents on your tbr lists?
More Lazlo WIP! Do you guys like seeing WIPs?? What do you want? Do you want anything? I want to have no responsibilities in life except for finishing this Lazlo painting ahhhh
Strange the Dreamer had me on page one, took me a while to finish this piece but here it is laini taylor just published book two of her story (happy belated book birthday!!) Muse of nightmare, gonna start it soon
A fanart of a scene that has not yet happened but I don’t doubt will. Sarai and Karou from Strange the Dreamer/Muse of Nightmares and Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
Strange the Dreamer had me on page one, took me a while to finish this piece but here it is laini taylor just published book two of her story (happy belated book birthday!!) Muse of nightmare, gonna start it soon
Finally revealing this illustration, featured on the latest LitJoy Crate puzzle in their August 2020 Box, Elemental Magic! Inspired by Strange the Dreamer by the great Laini Taylor, featuring Lazlo, Sarai and the godspawn crew, Ruby, Minya, Feral and Sparrow!
This concept here sort of derailed a bit, as I had meant to embed the godspawn crew into the pockets of color you would usually see on a moth or butterfly’s wing. I’m not sure if it completely comes across here, but it’s one of those situations when you work on something for so long that it takes off into its own direction and your original ideas begin to blur. But the idea of Sarai having to shoulder the guilt of having a freedom that her spawn siblings can’t experiences is where these symbolic moth wings emerged from. She carries them and their dreams with her while she frolics in the nightmares of humans.
This illustration has such bittersweet memories for me as, in addition to the ADSOM jackets, it was the second of three major projects that I lost in the 2020 Rosie Computer Corruption / Crash. This one got hit so hard that even the project folder was disintegrated. Luckily I was able to refer to the concepts I had sent over to Litjoy via email, but had to reconstruct a good portion of the illustration to get back to where it was.
But I’m so happy with how it turned out - the color palette is once again reminiscent of stained glass and I love how the textures of the smoke, plum tree and wireframe drawings of the spawn’s dream items almost look tangible.
I finally read Strange the Dreamer andMuse of Nightmares and I’ve never been so disappointed and shocked at how small a fandom is.
And there’s almost no fan art of my boy Ruza and pretty boy asshole Thyon Nero (also none of the best couple in the series Tzara and Calixte) the unresolved tension in book 2 had me reeling that there were no more books. It’s not even subtext and like no one is building on it.
