Put it in fullscreen because you can. Hold space and move mouse for zoomed-in mode This is some cover/concept art for my 2018 National Novel Writing Month project, "Lonely Bird", showing three of the main characters (l-r) Rikkar, Eirut, and Cefka. The (admittedly longwinded and messy) synopsis for the story is as follows: In each village there is a hearth, and within each hearth glows an eternal flame. No matter how cold the wind, no matter how dark the night, Eirut knows that his people will always have their eternal flame to give them warmth and light. It is more than a spiritual symbol; it is the only way to survive the endless winter when little else will burn. Eirut should have been chosen as apprentice to the hearth's warden. But he wasn't. The village elected Tivvi instead, and since then Eirut has had the same job as just about everyone else: collecting food and keeping a wary eye out for the lonely bird. They say there used to be hundreds, even thousands of birds. Eirut can't imagine how anyone could have survived back then. It's hard enough to protect yourself from just the one A few days before the festival of the new year the village awakens to the sound of Tivvi's screams. Eirut finds him unconscious beside the hearth. The cold, dark hearth. The townsfolk worry that someone has stolen the flame, but news from neighboring villages soon paints a more dire picture. Eternal flames are flickering out all across the land. Warmth and light are becoming scarce resources, and since no one can live without them most are willing to kill for them. As war looms, Eirut sets out to find Godseam, the place where the flames were first lit, in hopes that somehow they can burn anew. The journey will not be easy. The wind is cold. The snow is deep. And above it all, whether soaring overhead or perched silently on a rocky ledge, the lonely bird is watching.
The artwork for Isle of Dolor is lineless and only uses the rectangle tool in the vector editor, since straight lines are easier to control than curves. I've mostly dedicated myself to practicing that art style so I can churn out endless cutscene art for IOD. But a while ago I was tracing a hand-drawn image into Scratch and started developing a style that uses a lot of the same shading cues as the style I use for IOD but makes use of dark outlines and curves. This is an attempt at using that style. Characters and story by me
