My "Art"

[mythusmage]

Since one or two have asked me to post some of my art on this site, here's an example of how I express myself.

LIZARD MEN

A hard sun above a stark and barren land. Scattered brush where the scarce and precious water comes closest to the surface, providing shade and shadow where small animals can hide from the glare of the star overhead.

A low rise, a place where a long vanished ridge once loomed above the plain. On that rise are three figures.

They stoop upon their heels, their long, stiff tails behind them. Their form is much like that of a velociraptor of old. But in their eyes is the light of sapience. In their hands are spears.

Their plumage is the plumage of mating. Body feathers dark grey with white at the throat, white on the shoulders and back. They bear a fringe of yellow along the bottom of their arms. Their tail feathers are green and yellow, forming a blade along its length much like that of an Aztec sword. They are adorned with amulets and necklaces. Armbands near the shoulders, bracers upon the wrists. Their muzzles are painted with designs geometric. Their claws daubed in red and blue. The great talon, the tearing claw, is limned in red upon the cutting edge, green along the spine.

They are waiting. Waiting for the hunt to begin. Not a hunt for prey. A hunt for sacrifice. Elf will do, human too. But what they want is dwarf. A creature of the earth. For the Earth. Mother is hungry.

So they wait, there upon that rise. Wait for the right moment. Wait for the right person to come. Three lizard men of the Anza Sin. The right one will come. They know this.

They wait beneath a hard sun, in a stark and barren land.
***
This is my art.

 

[Moe Ronalds]

Maybe this is mean, cruel, or (god forbid) helpful but...


1. English classes. They can seriously help your writing to become more polished.

2. Lizardmen studies. If you just read the monster manual I'm sure you'd find a wealth of usable information.

3. Visits to your local gamestore. They would likely have at least a dozen or so books for you to read on the subject.

4. Bring your "art" to life. Learn how to describe expression. Learn how to "animate" your work, make it seem as if someone could close their eyes and paint it perfectly based off of your description.

6. Get in the habit of writing. Write when you're waiting for someone. Write during a business meeting. Write for family and friends. Write for strangers you meet. Carry a notebook along with pencils and pens so you can write whenever you feel the urge.

7. Whenever you feel tempted to write something, give in. The opportunity may not pass your way again.

8. Get in the habit of redoing work that doesn't quite suit what you want. But, always keep your eye open for anything that might be better than what you'd originally envisioned. In other words, keep your eye on the goal, while keeping your eye out for unforseen possibilities.

9. Grow a thick skin. You're always going to run into people like me. People who will tell you your wondrous work is not as good as your friends say it is. People who will get on your case about improving your "art", your technique. (I was going to say "encourage" or "urge", but they weren't strong enough to get my message across.) We're not being mean, we really do want to see you do better.

10. Make writing your life. You want to be a professional writer, you have to keep practicing, keep training, keep improving. In addition, get in touch, and stay in touch, with your local writing community. Not just your local Internet or common interest community, but your local geographical community. You will meet more than your share of flakes, but you'll also meet folks who can and will help immensely.

11. Never reject advice out of hand. Even my advice. You'll find that most people showing an interest in your work want to help you become a better artist. Some of them will even know what they're talking about.

Not to offend, but some of your stuff isn't even worth writing on a bathroom stall. Then again some is worth publication. Just keep working at it!

 

[Tsyr]

In the interests of fairness, and because I consider myself an amature (Hoping to be more one day) writer, I'm going to provide some honest comments. Granted, you would never know it from my spelling.

Frankly, to start with, I'm just going to say right now that your writing isn't exactly my "taste". But I'll try to be objective. Same with any preconcieved notions I may have about you from some of your other posts.

A hard sun above a stark and barren land.

I wouldn't have used hard here. It's not the common word... harsh would have been a better choice, IMO. I'm all for choosing non-standard words, in fact I encourage it and do the same. But sometimes an old standard is an old standard for a good reason. And in this case, using the word hard is somewhat jarring to the reader.

Scattered brush where the scarce and precious water comes closest to the surface, providing shade and shadow where small animals can hide from the glare of the star overhead.

Pretty good. I wouldn't use the phrase "scarce and precious" though... you are, in essense, repeating yourself. This is a good technique to enforce a specific feeling, true, but it doesn't work so well when the words are only seperated by "and".

A low rise, a place where a long vanished ridge once loomed above the plain. On that rise are three figures.

The second sentance there is rather abrupt, too much so in this case. It doesn't mesh with the rest of your writing style, which I'll get too in a minute.

They stoop upon their heels, their long, stiff tails behind them. Their form is much like that of a velociraptor of old. But in their eyes is the light of sapience. In their hands are spears.

Stoop isn't really used correctly here. Stoop generaly means to bend down or similar, and marriam-webster backs me on that. Unless you wanted to infer they were crouched over, which is possible, but if that's the case you might want to make that a bit clearer. And if that were the cast, I find it odd they would "stoop" on their heals.

"But in their eyes"... But isn't right there. But should be refuting something, but it's not in this case. Drop "but" and you have a decent sentance. And again, your second part... the plain, abrupt "in their hands" bit, just doesn't seem to mesh with the rest of it. Mind you, I like the fact you tried to set it off. But when you do that, it works better if you don't vainly try to make an entire sentance out of it. I would rewrite it to read something like "In their eyes the light of sapience gleams. In their hands, spears." Though I question the use of the word sapience... It's a very archaic word, used in the way you are using it. Generaly, this is ok... and it's not technicly wrong... but for a description, it's best to make yourself as clear as possible.

For that matter, it might make more sense to move the entire bit about spears down a bit more... I'll cover that when I hit the other clothing...

Their plumage is the plumage of mating. Body feathers dark grey with white at the throat, white on the shoulders and back.

You should link the reference to the body part and the colour with something other than brute force. "Body feathers of dark grey" keeps the flavor the same, and sounds alot better. And if your going to make a list of white, just drop a few words... "with white feathers adorning the throad, shoulders, and back"... no need to repeat white.

tail feathers are green and yellow, forming a blade along its length much like that of an Aztec sword.

When using an object as an adjective, as you are trying to do here, avoid using an object that is not readily understandable. I consider myself rather well versed in history, both martial and non, and for the life of me I can not call up an image of an "aztec sword" in my mind.

They are adorned with amulets and necklaces. Armbands near the shoulders, bracers upon the wrists.

Necklaces, while not technicly incorrect to my knowledge, is a very awkward word. And that is very important when you use it to end a sentance... it makes the entire sentance feel awkward. Furthermore, if your going to describe where other things are on the body, you should do the same for a necklace, no matter how common knowledge that may seem. For example, "Around their necks hang numerous necklaces, while armbands and bracers adorn their arms and wrists. In their hands are short spears of bronze."

Note how I added the spear bit in there? Try to keep those things together, since they are of a similar nature. Otherwise it sounds vaugly like you asigned each object a number on a die and just started rolling randomly for your description.

Their muzzles are painted with designs geometric. Their claws daubed in red and blue. The great talon, the tearing claw, is limned in red upon the cutting edge, green along the spine.

"with designs geometric"... *sigh*. I hate this. It's one of those little tricks that I used to use a couple years back to try to show that I knew how to write in an artsy style that I learned really don't do that, and in fact tends to irk people a bit. Trust me, it really adds nothing to the work to do it, and -again- it's jarring. Jarring is not always a good thing... in fact, normaly quite the opposite.

If your going to establish a precedent (And it's a good one, I think) of using "are" in the descriptions in this paragraph, keep it up. Don't drop it for the next sentance like you did here. And to make it worse, you dropped it, then picked it up as "is" in the next sentance. Not consistant.

Nice use of the word limn, for the record. It's a word you don't see used often. And in this case, that's a bad thing. First of all, a lot of people aren't going to know what it means. Second, it looks alot like "lined", which has a similar enough meaning that a person very will might think you just made a typo. It's similar to the phrase "oft"... I used to use that alot in informal writings, until someone told me they thought I forgot to finish the word "often". When an arcane word is similar to an existing one and they mean about the same thing, you don't gain anything really by not using the existing word, except a load of potential misunderstandings.

Unfortunatly, my ride for gaming tonight is sitting here tapping his foot, so I'm not going to finish those last two phrases, but...

 

[the Jester]

Hmm, I'll agree with Tsyr here on most of his points. Good analysis, Tsyr!

Moe, on the other hand, was just throwing your own words from another thread back at you- and while they might make for decent advice to a certain extent, I don't think they were meant constructively here.

Anyhow, my opinion is that your writing shows a fair amount of promise. Get a good editor (the first time I gave my stuff to an editor and got it back covered in red ink I learned an awful lot) and practice, practice, practice! Take Tsyr's advice there to heart- he made a bunch of good points- and try to write things in multiple ways to try out how they sound. Another thing I find useful is to read the things I write aloud. It's often amazing how much of a difference that makes in analyzing how something sounds. It might look fine on paper (or on the screen), but one of the hallmarks of good writing is that it should sound good as well.

Good luck, MM- and everyone, even if you've been offended by his (admittedly somewhat offensive) comments in the past, try to treat him like you'd like to be treated, okay?

 

[CRGreathouse]

A hard sun above a stark and barren land.

This is a fragment; it should be completed.

Scattered brush where the scarce and precious water comes closest to the surface, providing shade and shadow where small animals can hide from the glare of the star overhead.

This, too, is a fragment. Changing "providing" to "provides" would fix it, I do believe.

A low rise, a place where a long vanished ridge once loomed above the plain.

Actually, this is another sentence fragment. I suggest adding "There is" or a similar phrase at the beginning.

On that rise are three figures.

Gramatically correct, if a bit dry for my taste.

They stoop upon their heels, their long, stiff tails behind them. Their form is much like that of a velociraptor of old.

While technically correct, "of old" feels out of place here.

But in their eyes is the light of sapience. In their hands are spears.

This should be added to the last sentence -- the first part is a fragment, while the second part is choppy alone.

Their plumage is the plumage of mating. Body feathers dark grey with white at the throat, white on the shoulders and back.

The latter part is a fragment and should be joined to the first; I would suggest a colon.

They bear a fringe of yellow along the bottom of their arms.

Good.

Their tail feathers are green and yellow, forming a blade along its length much like that of an Aztec sword.

The anticedent for "its" appears to be "tail feathers". Correct this ambiguity, and make the pronoun agree in number with its anticedent.

They are adorned with amulets and necklaces. Armbands near the shoulders, bracers upon the wrists.

Once again, you've used an incomplete sentence. I suggest replacing the ". " with ", with".

Their muzzles are painted with designs geometric.

While this would be correct in most Romance languages, the qualifier in this case and language must precede the word it modifies: "geometric designs".

Their claws daubed in red and blue.

This is a hopeless fragment.

The great talon, the tearing claw, is limned in red upon the cutting edge, green along the spine.

"Talon"/"tearing claw" is redundant, and fails to add poetic meaning. Remove one or the other.

They are waiting. Waiting for the hunt to begin.

Combine to reduce fragmentation.

Not a hunt for prey. A hunt for sacrifice.

Combine! A single sentance out of the two fragments would be best, but the artistic use of a fragment here would be acceptable as well.

Elf will do, human too. But what they want is dwarf. A creature of the earth. For the Earth. Mother is hungry.

This is needlessly choppy, and contains only a single complete sentence -- and the sentence is incorrect.

So they wait, there upon that rise.

Good, but a little wordy.

Wait for the right moment. Wait for the right person to come. Three lizard men of the Anza Sin. The right one will come.

I'm sick of the fragmentation.

They wait beneath a hard sun, in a stark and barren land.

Good.

 

[alsih2o]

comparitively, i wouldn't consider this more than a quick sketch. i assure you that much of the art in here took hours, possibly days to complete, is your intent to insult these people again with this comparison?

how about showing something a little effort has gone into.

 

[S'mon]

Ugh, pretty bad!
Some of the worst bits include 'Like a Velociraptor of old', also the references to both Aztecs and elves & dwarves in the same text destroys any sense of time & place and practically forces the reader to lose suspension of disbelief.

 

[Tsyr]

Now, see CRG... that type of stuff I really don't care about as much. I have no real objection to someone using incorrect grammar, if it at least sounds good. Much of what we call poetry is just butchered grammar... but it SOUNDS good, theoreticly.

This stuff, on the other hand, didn't really sound good.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Now, see CRG... that type of stuff I really don't care about as much. I have no real objection to someone using incorrect grammar, if it at least sounds good. Much of what we call poetry is just butchered grammar... but it SOUNDS good, theoreticly.

Did you notice the part where I said (paraphrase), "This part is OK, even though it breaks grammatical rules"? In most of the places, it just didn't look good.

 

[Simplicity]

Their form is much like that of a velociraptor of old. But in their eyes is the light of sapience. In their hands are spears.

This is my favorite part. So much is wrong with these three "sentences", I can't help but laugh when I read them.

The worst part is the utterly failed parallelism in the last two "sentences". Their eyes have sapience, their hands have spears!

I hate arrogance and bureaucratic systems. I also hate egg sandwiches. Sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it? It you want to be abstract, be abstract. If you want to describe reality, describe reality. Definitely don't intermingle the two and expect it to sound anything but idiotic.

Another note on that god-awful sentence at the end. Gee. Those poor lizardmen. Can't seem to get rid of those spears. They don't do anything with the spears. No "grasping", "clutching", or even
simply "holding" spears. The spears are just in their hands.
Any editor worth his salt would cross out every freaking "to be" word in your piece and say start again.

"They are waiting"?
No... "They wait."

"But in their eyes is the light of sapience"?
NO... "Their eyes shine with the light of sapience."

"They are adorned with amulets and necklaces."
NO!!!! "Amulets and necklaces dangle from their SCALY FREAKING NECKS!"

Come on! Is this a story about a still life? Everything is
in the passive voice, or you manage to drop the verb entirely
from the sentence which dooms this piece to an even more
static, boring death.

Finally, Tsyr, you can say all you like that it's okay to mangle grammatical rules to get your message across... I agree; however, the transition between sentence one and two is a period. A freaking period! Commas are quite useful for separating compound sentences. Especially when you use words like "But" at the beginning of a short, simple sentence.

Again, you bring criticism upon yourself. I hope it was what you
desired.