Laki - Narrative Designer | Author | Artist
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lakilarian.bsky.social
Laki - Narrative Designer | Author | Artist
@lakilarian.bsky.social
520 followers 620 following 320 posts
✒️📖 Writer, artist, and occasional animator
Bi, Fluid, and 100% Human

☆Currently playing - Metaphor: ReFantazio☆

WHALESONG 🐋 (in Empire of Beasts anthology) -> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/202135189-empire-of-beasts

SPIRIT.I. 🔍✨️ (is evolving... 👀)
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lakilarian.bsky.social
Coolest nonhuman character in my book is Shadow Friend, Sage's silent sidekick.

The little shadow spirit peers over Sage's shoulder during investigations, and helps out by slipping into tiny gaps or moving light objects.

When not on detective duty, it likes to play and nibble on things!
February 24, 2025 at 2:15 AM
lakilarian.bsky.social
STOP

THIS IS A CUTE ANIMAL PIC CHECKPOINT. PLEASE SHARE A MINIMUM OF ONE (1) CUTE ANIMAL PIC BEFORE PROCEEDING.

THIS IS A PRECAUTIONARY MEASURE TO PRESERVE THE MENTAL HEALTH OF THIS SITE. WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.
Koda the incredibly cute tricolor Cavalier King Charles Spaniel sitting pretty for a holiday portrait, surrounded by lots of decorations and stuffed animals.
January 8, 2025 at 3:21 AM
lakilarian.bsky.social
These are some conceptual sketches I did of my story's love interest, Thistle, when I first came up with them! I would love to do a more elaborate picture for them sometime soon.
Hand drawn digital character art portrait with basic color blocking. Thistle has a gentle, yet clever spirit here, rainbow threads in their white coat and white hair. They have actual thistle leaves in their hair and magenta-plus-green irises that are meant to evoke the plant. Their costume implies the prisms of rainbow light given off by a prism of crystal. Some of their hair is green, especially at the ends. Must be a Spirit Eye thing? Full-body image of Thistle with their antlered, obsidian mask on and crystal knives out. They're swoopijg in over a watercolor-washed background of hazy yellow light, ready for action.
January 8, 2025 at 2:53 AM
lakilarian.bsky.social
Fun Fact: The reason I choose Shadow Friend as my initial muse for any animation/flipbook program is that coloring is the hardest part. Shadow Friend lets me test everything else first in black and white.

#Art #OriginalCharacter #IndieAnimation
January 7, 2025 at 7:17 PM
lakilarian.bsky.social
So I also have goals to do more animating this year!

My favorite subject for trying out new frame-by-frame art programs and their tool styles is Shadow Friend, the silent, unblinking little buddy of my WIP's MC.

Here's a sample reel :)

#PretendPanel #animation #fantasy
January 5, 2025 at 6:15 PM
lakilarian.bsky.social
You've been kidnapped. The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who is coming to save you?

...

Oh, ohohoh no... I am royally and unequivocally screwed 🫠

Maybe just... leave me with the kidnappers, guys.

#AmazingDigitalCircus
Episode Two poster for The Amazing Digital Circus, a surreal CG animated show. Pomni, a sort of jester doll, is pinned screaming to the front of a semi truck that's careening right toward us in a candy desert (get it? desSERT? Nevermind...). The other victims/inhabitants of the bizarre world of the Digital Circus hang off the truck's sides or peek over the top, all of them strange toy-inspired figures, and all of them are clinging on for dear life... Except for Jax, a lanky rabbit toy with a boot-launching gun who looks pretty pleased.
January 5, 2025 at 5:58 AM
lakilarian.bsky.social
The Haunted Wood
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal (1829–1862)

This speaks to Spirit.I.'s contrast of childlike perception and looming otherworldly discomfort quite nicely.
Rough watercolor gouche painting depicting a cramped grove of trees. A woman in a blue dress clings to one while reaching back to dare at touching a specter behind her. The ghostly form appears tree-trunk-like at the base, and vaguely human at the top, with a shadowed face crowned with brown hair, and the suggestion of an upright arm.
January 4, 2025 at 8:35 PM
lakilarian.bsky.social
Slowly making our way through all our classic Christmas movies as a fam. This one always sparks a conversation about me as a writer. I semi-joke that it's my annual roast 🫠

#writerlife #authorsky
Photo of the Blu-ray menu for The Man Who Invented Christmas.
December 21, 2024 at 2:45 AM
lakilarian.bsky.social
#WIPPit

👁🔍

Having trouble with the spirits in your home, abandoned mall, or decrepit underground city? Then when your phone rings, answer it.

The man on the other end may be a little... strange, leaves spilling from pockets, moss in his hair. But you'll never know he was there. 🌿

#F #PN #M #LGBT
Pitch design collage for Spirit.I. featuring three poloroid frames with hand-drawn images inside. One is of Shadow Friend (a black spindly shadow bunny creature walking on hind legs with a pinecone scale necklace and a mug), another is a medium shot of Sage (smirking, white-and-green-haired hero of the story), and the last is of Sage's flip phone (where a crackle effect on the inner screen spells out "Help"). A quote from Sage says: "If your problem is too mysterious to understand, it shouldn't be too hard to imagine the solution could be just as strange, yeah?"
December 14, 2024 at 11:40 PM
lakilarian.bsky.social
🌿 MUSHISHI x DRESDEN FILES x OWL HOUSE 🌿

Spirit.I.

Veil-hopping psychic saves spirits and desperate mortals, all while pursuing the love and trust of a fellow misfit.

🔍 Wonder-filled P.I.
🕊 Healing Scars, Helping Nature
🎃 Dark Corners
💘 "Make a home with me"

#WIPPIT #NA #F #PN #M #RF #LGBT #FBW
A character board for the two leads of Spirit.I., Sage a clever looking young man in a navy blue trench coat, and Thistle a mask and dagger-weilding nonbinary figure with long hair and a white robe emroidered with rainbow trim. They both have white hair that turns green toward the ends. The center picture features them both looking back over their shoulders (presumably at each other), with individual images in opposite corners. Sage's character features list says: Sage (pronouns he/him). "Ooh, this looks fun!" Mad or Marvelous? Reader's call. Shadow Friend is Best Friend. (Note: in both of Sage's images, there's a little shadowy creature with long spindly limbs and ears, and two round glowing eyes.) Thistle's character features list says: Thistle (pronouns they/them). "This is the duty I chose for myself." Always has; coffee, panflute, wits. Definitely sees you first. A small quote at the center says: Partners? No, we'd only be distracted, and distracted is dangerous.
December 14, 2024 at 5:21 PM
lakilarian.bsky.social
I enjoy seeing the finished color pieces back-to-back with the outlines/sketches sometimes, and this is one of them.
The line-art-only version of the same picture as the post above. The pine and holly sections are notably rough/faint because they were never outlined like the character, simply painted.
December 11, 2024 at 6:24 PM
lakilarian.bsky.social
Time to hang some pictures in the new (Bluesky) house here. 🖼

Starting with some of my older creations, this is Myrrh, dressed for the Winter Solstice. She's the adoptive mother/teacher of all the MCs in the magical mystery series I'm writing. 🌿

#FantasyArt | #ArtSky | #ChristmasArt | #NatureWitch
A picture framed, portrait style digital painting of Myrrh, a mystical woman with white and green hair. She's holding a birch staff, casting a spell of a gentle snow swirl around it. Her makeup and outfit are whimsical, vintage, and nature-referencing, befitting a ritual leader. Huge branches of actual myrrh fan out from behind her ears, and two corners of the frame are laden with pine and holly decorations. Signed; Laki, '21.
December 11, 2024 at 6:20 PM
lakilarian.bsky.social
I'm going to odd-combo Free Friday of #QueerPrompts and "lovers" from today's #WIPSnips to share a neat quirk of my WIP 💙📚

The text will be presented like a found archival object, the Love Interest handwriting their own commentary into the margins, and the MC (+Narrator) doodling illustrations ✒️
Writing document screenshot. Text in white says; I kept my curiosity-prone fingers shoved into my coat pockets for the time being. They were the only two reserved for hands. The rest were stuffed with stones, dried petals, leaves, bark, or wood baubles. I was what you could call a generalist, so the tools of my trade were many, and I could adapt at a moment's notice. Then text in red gives illustration instructions; arrow drawn to underline/cross out 'a generalist'. The love interest's replacement note says "a hoarder".
December 6, 2024 at 8:08 PM
lakilarian.bsky.social
Seems like the perfect time to introduce Sage, MC of my current passion project and guy with major Jack Skellington/Doctor Who vibes.

His blatant disregard for personal safety has his poor love interest constantly sweating and losing sleep 😆

#WIPSnips #amwriting 💗🧙‍♂️⚔️
Book quote with a simple colored drawing of the character in question with a clever smirk. Quote says; "His hair, from head to scruff, was a strange white velveteen that aged green at the tips, like something living itself. There were satchel bags and a dozen pockets all over his legs, and vials strapped to the chest of his coat – a vagrant collector of odd bits and pieces." Signed; Spirit.I. - Fantasy Mystery Series @lakilarian
December 1, 2024 at 7:52 PM
lakilarian.bsky.social
Oh absolutely! To be the perpetual pangolin tapping its nails together in hopes of acceptance is *thrilling* 😆

Thank you so much for the add! 💙
Three collaged photos of adorable baby pangolins standing on their hind legs, front claws tentatively overlapped. Meme caption: Baby pangolins always look like they're waiting to nervously ask you to prom.
November 30, 2024 at 6:39 PM
lakilarian.bsky.social
100% same! It's addictive for a *good* reason, which is so refreshing.

Also, is that a Cav I see in your banner!? The party continues!
(this is Koda 💙)
Tri-colored Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Koda, with a party ribbon accessory, looking up at the camera with big brown eyes
November 30, 2024 at 7:44 AM
lakilarian.bsky.social
Might be a little late, but puppies are good long-term medicine too. (Best wishes that an even better opportunity opens up for you soon!)

This is Koda - being festive, being sleepy, and being upset at the AKC inside the TV
Tri-colored Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Koda, looking up at the camera with a party ribbon accessory Tri-colored Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Koda, sleeping soundly on a couch, with his rear leg kicked up onto the back cushion Koda the Cavalier Spaniel standing on his hind legs to bark at a Bichon Frise being shown at the dog show on TV.
November 30, 2024 at 7:17 AM