shirozora-draws

[shirozora-draws]

any updates on dangerous dreams? may have binge read it again last week

Hi there! Firstly, many many thanks for reading the series! Secondly, life has been immensely troublesome however Andor's lit a fire and I'm working on the next chapter. Have had to keep pushing back launch but I'm hoping to get something out in June.

Thanks for stopping by!

[shirozora-draws]

if this world were mine, i'd take your dreams and make 'em multiply - luther by kendrick lamar & sza

I have..... 50ish presentable sketches to churn out after weeks of doing no serious art while trying to write and also keep my goddamn sanity, so let's warm up with a messy little 3quelfic!dinluke doodle. sorry to anyone looking for more canon dinluke scribbling but I'm in Fic Mode and everything is gonna come up Dangerous Dreams until the story is over.

[shirozora-draws]

Okay, but hear me out: What if I drew the meme again, but cuter and sticker-ready?

He is not beating the cutie patootie allegations.

Debating one more Kendrick scribble with the Pop Out concert fit but this is really all I wanted and needed. Back to your regularly scheduled Star Wars programming.

[shirozora-draws]

SAY, DRAKE!

Anyway it's 3AM and I have work in the morning, but i needed to get this out of my system so fucking bad. Been dying to doodle this man for months, so here I am.

[shirozora-draws]

This entire chapter was so hard to write AND draw... until you grasp that one thought and pull hard on it. Envisioning Nevarro like you're a gunslinger, an outlaw, wandering into a town clinging to the frontier really helped me crawl past artist's block.

My second thought after "guess I know what scene to conceptualize" was "Kendrick Lamar in the 'Humble' mv" and when when I dove into Shotdeck's archives for "beam of light", the very first image was from Kendrick Lamar's Humble mv. Are you shitting me.

I think I could've done more to emphasize how alone Din is in this chapter, but I may have played it too safe with the setting and that put limits on my ideas of what feelings I wanted to capture. Still think I nailed it, though.

I'm so excited for the next chapter, though. I sat on how I want to write and draw it for almost as long as I sat on how I wanted to write and draw chapter 7, so hopefully I'll have a much better time with that one.

[shirozora-draws]

For auld lang syne.

Warming up for this new year in my GNX with Anita Baker in the tape deck with an art exercise I spotted on Instagram. Even if I no longer see a path to a career in the arts, I will continue making art of the things I like. I will continue doing the things that keep me sane while this country of mine goes off the rails.

New chapter of The Stars is also incoming. We are going to get busy in this Year of the Snake.

[shirozora-draws]

And now for something completely different--- some sketches of my coworkers' pets during a 2-hour department meeting with a 0.5mm gel ink pen. It always feels so damn good to scribble with a pen because you really have to think about where you're putting down your lines but that also gives you the freedom to get loose and fun with your choices. Sketches went home with the coworkers and one of them even told me later that their partner cried upon seeing it because they were having a bad day and the sketch made them feel heaps better.

[shirozora-draws]

mustard on the beat, ho- MUSTAAAAAAAAAAAAARD Someone make it stop, make it fucking stop. I spent all week hyping myself up to gather up all my work sketches like a scrapbook and clean it all up to post here, and then Kendrick had to surprise drop on a Friday morning and ruin my work day and my headspace all weekend long.

Anyway, here's a dangerous dreams sketch dump.

It's been a long quiet, but RL had taken such a fucking toll that I had a real hard time finding the fucks to get creative. Who knows how much this past US presidential election will fuck up the entire rest of my life, but I'll take solace in finding community and in the little things and in Andor Season 2 and in the telling of The Stars.

Now that I got this out of the way, guess it's time to go fucking write some fucking words.

[shirozora-draws]

Five months later, here we are to close the book on the first arc and open to the first pages of the second arc.

This was an interesting exercise in taking what little I know about a world from the existing canon and building up the background/environment. Took inspo from Andor's set designs and added some post-war organic flair (I hope). Always wanted to draw some Leia, and it sure won't be the last time.

Painted and repainted the background while knowing full well that I'll just end up blurring it and drowning it in hazy cold morning light anyway. Bringing an Auzituck gunship out of its simplified animated origins into a more... "realistic" space has been challenging but I love creating metal textures with rough brushes and I'm gonna keep doing it. Can't wait for more chances to draw Din in this particular design.

I'll have a later post regarding the pop-up shop. For now, I need a weeklong break from the two months of stress between finishing the chapter draft and getting this out onto the Internets.

[shirozora-draws]

An "I want to scribble some kind of dinluke but every idea is trash" sketch to tidy this space over while I continue to fall behind on my plans to finish the illustrations and post the fic. I need to keep remembering that not everything requires my 101% and it's fine to play loose and fast with a blank canvas and pencil brushes.

Anyways, I'm off to see some goddamn whales.

[shirozora-draws]

Love love love Din's facial wrappings

Did it take you a while to decide on a style, or did you go in knowing how you wanted the fabric to look?

Hi there! Happy to hear the design choice is going over well enough :)

I always had a vague idea of him covering his head and face to obscure himself while out questing in the greater galaxy, but the silhouette and flow of it came out of the fantasy ranger and the lone gunslinger tropes. Since the first season of the Mando Show had strong Old Western vibes, I went back to that same well for ideas.

Thanks for stopping by!

[shirozora-draws]

So, uh.... how about that Kendrick vs. Drake Rap Beef 2024?!?!?!??!!?

In all seriousness, I had a mentally ugly April and so I want to thank the early May nuke that was Meet The Grahams blowing up my Twitter feed for getting me back on track. Sometimes you gotta pop out and hyperfixate on something really fucking different to get your brain back on track, which it did. The final draft of the next chapter is ready and waiting, and now I just need to get rid of all the goddamn rust and dust clogging up my arting gears.

I've done and posted multiple iterations of these designs through the years and they're buried in the archives but at some point I have to commit. That point is right now. I have to commit because these are going to be my visual guides for the next act of the story. Man, I hope I can pull this off. I want Din's look to be red for Aq Vetina and made up of scraps while he continues on his quest to rebuild himself. And I want Luke to have SOME color of some fucking kind and also I got tired of capes and thought the contrast to Din would be fun.

Grogu has some tweaks too but I need to stop dawdling and start thumbnailing for the chapter that is waitingwaitingwaiting for launch day so his little "design sheet" will come later. And once the chapter goes live, I'll spend the rest of the summer getting the pop-up shop up and running for pre-orders. Hopefully. Definitely. For sure.

[shirozora-draws]

Hear me out: bacta tank Luke Skywalker shaker charm

Now. On the one hand, I can see the vision - bacta tank with whitey tighties Luke floating with some bubbles bouncing around him while Leia and Han watch with concern. On the other hand, I wouldn't be able to take it seriously enough to get anywhere with it. But I can see the vision!!!

[shirozora-draws]

I just wanted to say that I absolutely adore your art and the fics you write on ao3! After all these years it feels so good to see updates and new drawings and I'm just really happy that you're still here, sharing all of your stories and art with us, so thank you!

I'm currently rereading the Dangerous Dreams series and I love how immersive it is with all the beautiful fanarts. Thank you for continuing this adventure and I hope you're doing well ❤️

And thank you for stopping by! I haven't been sharing as much as I'd like (because Adulting is hard and RL sucks) but I still have arts and stories I want to share'd like to share with y'all and I'll keep sharing for as long as the dinluke well is full to overflowing.

If all goes well and I don't get derailed, Dangerous Dreams should get an update sometime in May. Just keep an eye out for the inevitable despair posting over the writing/arting process ;)

Thanks again!

[shirozora-draws]

I am so late but I am finally done with the first round of merch that I am satisfied with. I am satisfied and we are rolling forward with this set. Now to send off all of my final sample orders so that I know these are absolutely working and are worth posting to a shop site as pre-orders.

Clan of Three lanyards. I recognize that I could easily turn these into washi tapes if I wanted to. We'll see.

Grogu Baby Crimes. Sticker & acrylic shaker charm. Completely revamped after carrying around the old version as an acrylic shaker charm and deciding it was too unwieldy and, more importantly, not cute enough. This will be a sticker option and an acrylic shaker charm option.

Keldabe kiss - Interstellar version. Matte & holographic sticker.

Keldabe kiss - Tatooine version. Matte & holographic sticker.

Live Cheen Reaction. Sticker. For all the fans of Cheen Yofree, the unluckiest third-wheeling Rodian OC.

Need A Hero. Sticker & acrylic charm. The only thing I'm putting forward with Din's face for now. I wanted something cute.

Clan of Two. Sticker. A straightforward general sticker.

The Battle Couple. Sticker (for now). This was actually designed to be an embroidered patch, but I'm not really there yet. The sticker shape is odd so I might present this as a kiss cut sticker.

Luke on Ossus - no scars. Sticker. For people who don't want scars?

Luke on Ossus - scars. Sticker. I just wanted to doodle a thirst trap, thassit.

The Storm. Sticker (for now). I wanted to make more merch for my fics and might use this template for the other fics in the Dangerous Dreams series.

The Clan of Three. Sticker. This motherfucker held me up for MONTHS. I didn't like the previous full-body version especially after getting several sample stickers so I started over... and then got stuck. For months. But here we are. The final piece of the puzzle.

Limited - Tron. Sticker & acrylic charm. I wanted to make a little Tron merch. The acrylic charm will be double-sided with Tron on one side and Rinzler on the other. Thank god this guy is more or less symmetrical.

Limited - Rinzler. Sticker & acrylic charm. For people who like Rinzler. This will be double-sided with Rinzler on one side and Tron on the other side.

I'm sending off a final round of sample sticker and charm orders so that I can get a feel for the revamped and new designs, and once I'm happy I'll get the pop-up shop up and running.

Round 2, I'm looking at small prints, possibly the embroidered patch, and maybe a Tron|Rinzler standee. Also a sticker for The Suns maybe, possibly also The Stars. What if I did a WarGreymon|BlackWarGreymon charm?????

And now.... we write.

[shirozora-draws]

Making the kind of merch I couldn't even dream about making/having because I wasn't at that level of Arting yet and I also didn't know shit about fuck when it came to fan merch existing. Also I was a mostly broke college kid back then with a lot less power and confidence. Might've taken over a decade to get to this point, but better late than never!

Thinking of offering this sticker/acrylic charm design as a limited thing but I guess we'll see what happens once i finish hammering out the final Dinluke sticker design, getting my final test prints/charms in, and setting up shop for pre-orders. I'm terribly slow but at least something is happening.... right?

[shirozora-draws]

Leap Year Day update, because I thought that would be a neat date to have on this fic.

Very extremely recommend reading the chapter before looking at the art.

Tmw you finally fulfill your years' old desire to paint some fucking fantasy deer.

I sketched the original idea for this scene and posted it a whiiiiiiiile back, and now that idea is part of the story.

Now that the chapter is out, I can get back to finalizing the final pop-up shop stuff and, uh, stopping neglecting the hella expensive figure invention for character animation I'm taking for the spring semester.