Lord's Curse is Out of my Hands & a new Stylus is in!

First, I am sorry that this post is coming your way late. I was so eager to begin writing last night that I worked straight until midnight and then started writing. I only realized that it was Friday morning when I crawled into bed. On the other hand, I actually have updates for you! 

On Monday, I finally finished my draft of Lord's Curse. I sent it that morning to my editor, but I don't have an expected date back from her yet. As soon as I know more there you'll get an update as well. Either way, as soon as I have it back I will be working on it. At that point, Nano will become me working on Nanowrimo during the day and the edit of that book during my evenings. 

Still, I am amazingly excited to have finished it finally. 

The other bit of amazingness for me is that my husband picked up the stylus that I have been wanting for a year. Why is this cool, I can practically hear you asking. Styluses are a dime a dozen, essentially. And in most cases, you're entirely right. But this is the Windows Stylus, specifically geared towards use with their Surface Pro systems. Which is what I have. The stylus essentially makes it so that your Surface Pro can be used as a drawing tablet, with all the layers of sensitivity, pen tilt and functionality built right into most programs, you can now use your pen to, as they put it on their site, 'Think with Ink'. For me, it turns my Surface Pro5, which I've been using for my mobile needs into an actual drawing tablet for me. The last time I tried to draw on a tablet like this, it was with less than optimal tools and I got a much less than optimal result. 

This picture was my first attempt with subpar tools.
While it wasn't horrible, it was also very bad.
There was a lot that I couldn't figure out how to do,
and in the end I gave up entirely on shading since
everything was wrong with it and I just wanted to try
it again from the beginning.

This was my second with the subpar tools. And while it was a marked improvement, it still wasn't quite what I would have been able to accomplish on paper with more traditional tools.
Actually, I have an urge to redraw it using my new tools as an example of improvement to myself. Perhaps I'll add that to my list of tasks in December. 

I could have made it work obviously, but it wasn't anything like working on paper and I found it irritating. However, working with the new pen and the Concepts app, I have not only really enjoyed the results, but I have also enjoyed the process of making them. Also, I've never really liked the way most programs deal with their colours, and so to have the colours in it listed and matching the Copic colours, which I already use is great. It makes it easy for me to choose colours and decide exactly what I need to add. 

This was my first drawing attempt with the new stylus. Trying to figure out blending was killing me, but I loved the feel of drawing with it. Also, I clearly need to work on drawing hair more often. Those buns are hilariously bad. Still, as a first digital try, I really loved the potential.

This was my second drawing. While I still can't say that the bun is any better, I do like the shading in the hair and on the face and skin. I really found myself reaching for tools not available with the free program while playing with this; specifically the lasso and copy/move tools. Its why I'll be picking up the full copy when I have a job again.

And I think that will be it for this week. Let me know what you think of the drawings. Also, are you taking part in Nanowrimo? What is your word count so far? I've had a slow start. Day 1 gave me a migraine that wouldn't quit, which led to me only getting 1055 words for my first day.