Thericia’s Jungle
Another week, another blog post! Following our cadence, we are once again at that point in time where a new entry in Tearna’s Journal is released, and this one takes us back to where it all started! Let’s dive in!
Thericia’s Jungle
After having explored the Southern Isles, Tearna and her expedition finally return to the continent where this all started, Thericia! Thericia is the largest continent on the planet by far and hosts the largest population of Krysheek. Exploring this vast landscape will not be an easy, or short, task, but all tasks have to begin somewhere! In Tearna’s case, they will be kicking off their exploration in Thericia’s southern jungles, specifically starting from the port city of Nuvar. Their journey will take them up and over a mountain before descending back into the jungle and eventually reaching the eastern plains, but this journey will be their most perilous yet. Despite the presence of civilization, Thericia’s jungles are teaming with danger in all shapes and sizes, and a moment of crisis may finally force Tearna to take charge and be the leader that everyone else knows that she can be…
Returning to Thericia was always the plan since the very onset of this adventure. The continent is quite vast, and there are many, many nooks and crannies to be explored! In this case, I wanted to more thoroughly explore the Southern Jungle where Sapphiria herself actually hails from, though there is a 750 year gap between them. This chapter also presented an opportunity to let Tearna develop more as a character and showcase more of her leadership skills. I won’t spoil that too much though! The big piece of this chapter, to me, is a small moment at the very end where it briefly focuses on a specific automaton who is unnamed. Those who pay attention to the description, however, will recognize Trigon, Sapphiria’s future parental figure! I told yall he was old…
Art
With my recent week off, a huge chunk of my time was spent learning more about art and character drawing for my line art project. I spent a lot of time refining my processes and getting assistance from friends, and I daresay I’ve made some pretty nice leaps forward! I’ve better learned how to draw expressions from multiple angles and now better understand the mechanics behind canine jaws. Additionally, my line art itself is sharper, more refined, and more detailed! Overall, it’s been a huge step forward, and I’m excited to showcase what I’ve learned once my current project is done, which might be in the next week or two… hopefully.
Next up for my art will be more studies specifically on eyes, because eyes are decimating me completely right now. I’ve figured out the side profile for eyes pretty nicely, but other angles are proving problematic. One problem at a time, however! My next art piece will most certainly be a Sapphiria focused piece, this time on her future position as empress after the war has broken open. This piece, if done well, will replace the front page image of Sapphiria at long last and will better demonstrate her character development. Stay tuned!
Book Work
For an update on the Sapphire Verdict, I am in the process of a chainsaw cut, as I’m lovingly calling it, that is massively reducing the word count across the board! Already, I’ve managed to cut out 40,000 words, and I’m just barely a quarter of the way into the book. My hope is to drive the book below 200,000, so fingers crossed that I can see it through. I expect this cutting pass to be done sometime around the end of May, and I’ll post a much bigger post mortem when it’s finally done!
The Future of Short Stories
Tearna’s Journal still has a few months left, but it is nearing it’s end at long last. I have ideas for other short stories at the moment, but none quite as lengthy as Tearna’s Journal, at least not that I want to throw on this website. As such, the expectation should be that we’ll have a brief lull in activity as more things are lined up, but I should be able to return to a bi-weekly schedule at some point after the release of the final chapter. For the future, I suspect that the shorts will revolve around a number of topics including, but not limited to:
The harrowing sabotage mission aimed at the Sapphire Eye’s new battlecruisers, the Baltigons.
A soldier’s guilt and the battle against a Titan Hunter.
A father’s desperate attempt to escape a peaceful city in the midst of a Sapphire Eye invasion.
Sapphiria’s journey into a mysterious facility unlike anything ever seen.
A rogue’s fight against one of the cruelest men to ever exist.
A pirate coming to terms with his past in order to stop more atrocities from being committed.
A cocky racer who loses everything because he couldn’t shut up.
An entity unlike any other race yet introduced in the universe with a power descended from something she knows nothing about.
So yeah, there’s a LOT of potential to pull from! We’ll see what I’m feeling when we get around to being able to write more freely again!
Conclusion
Hopefully all of that proves to be quite the exciting and enticing lineup of news! There’s a lot in the works, as always, and it will continue to trickle out as it’s done! For now, that’s all I have, but next week may have a couple of fun, big things! Stay tuned! Cheers!
The Flying Fennec