Youtube Channel…Kind of Up!

Well, back from all the Holidays and it was time to get settled back in and back to work!

I recorded this video a while back, but editing, adding music, text, and all the like for videos is not as easy at Youtubers make it seem! But, I’ve got a video finally that I’m proud of, so I uploaded it to Youtube. I do not get ad revenue from the videos I plan to post. At least at this time: once I start making income, I plan to purchase the music licenses for the songs in this video and start monetizing. That’s a long way off folks, so for now, this is just posted to show my progress and hopefully gain an audience of fine people who enjoy watching me flounder through the art world 😀

You can find this image for sale in The Shop, both digital copies and the hard copy painted here.

In other news! After having to skip a post for Act 5, and the Act 2 revamp, last week, our Dark Horse schedule is back on track! You can read Dark Horse FOR FREE (because, free stuff rocks, um…even when it doesn’t!!)

Comic Fury
Tapas
Smack Jeeves

You can find me hanging around the forums on these sites, though admittedly not nearly as much as I probably should be. I’m most active on Comic Fury, of course.

Another happy little addition to the family is, after much debating, good advice, cajoling, and ado about nothing, I finally opened an Instagram page. Now people can look at how terribly I photograph my art XD

But seriously, it’s actually been pretty cool. And there’s a lot of neat art out there.

I will not be opening a Pintrest, though.

Nope. I’m not going to be opening mouth, inserting foot later on this one. I hope. XD

Have a fantastic 2019 everyone! And keep on truckin’!

~Blue Dragon
aka
Ashleen

Posted in Newest Additions, Regular Art, Updates. Tagged with comic fury, Dark Horse, instagram, Manga, smack jeeves, tapas, youtube.

By Ashleen

January 3, 2019

No comments

Act 1 Revamp FINISHED!!!!!

I am soooo excited to announce that I just completed the Act 1 Revamp!!!! Here’s the last page (don’t read, if you don’t want spoilers…though it is just the first act XD)

I am so happy with how this turned out! I hope others enjoy it, too. You can of course read Dark Horse for free over at Comic Fury and Tapas, but if you wanted to own a .pdf copy of your own, I have those for sale in The Shop. Feel free to skip on over there and check it out 😀

Posted in Blog: Cerulean Sessions, Dark Horse Art, Updates.

By Ashleen

October 30, 2018

No comments

Dark Horse Volume 1 New Cover!

WWWWWHHHHAAAAAAA!

I’m so excited to unveil the new cover for Dark Horse!!! This took about two weeks to complete, as I’ve been retained working on a Halloween Collaboration on Comic Fury and also half-*ss participating in Inktober. I’m going to complete it, I’m just running behind.

But, after redrawing Kanna three times, and redoing Keisuma twice, I finally settled on a cover I think embodies the story better than the original cover. I can’t wait to complete the revamps cause I want to get volume one printed sooooo bad!!!! *-*

Once Halloween hits, I’ll be sharing the Collaboration I’ve been working on for Comic Fury, but we aren’t supposed to post it anywhere until Halloween :3
I’ve also started working on The Whimper in the Dark once more, so this comic will be updating again 🙂

That’s all for now!

Blue Dragon
aka
Ashleen

Posted in Dark Horse Art, The Whimper in the Dark, Updates.

By Ashleen

October 15, 2018

No comments

Act 2 Dark Horse MAJOR Revamp!!!

Holy cow!

So…I just finished inking the last page for the Dark Horse act 1 Revamp….including a new cover image I’m in the process of mapping out and inking. I want it to be more epic looking, so I took a little inspiration from one of my favorite animated films, Heavy Metal, and set things up the way I wanted it.

Inspiration:

Creation:

This is the same outfit Kanna wears in the current opening of Act 2. The weird hair style is an homage to Usagi, from Sailor Moon. I’ve always been a big fan, so this was how I paid tribute 🙂

You can somewhat see the inked image behind Kanna, which is Keisuma. I still need to draw the Dark Horse, and Kanna’s lotus. It’s coming along though!

With the near completion of Act 1’s Revamp…I needed to start thinking about how to fix/improve Act 2. And…Act 2…is a mess. So….I’ve am engaging in a major undertaking: Combining and splitting Act 2 and Act 3.

The plus is that these two acts will make more sense, have some filler cut out, have more characterization (I’ve already gotten my “thumbnails” sketched out,) look better. And you won’t have to re-read the comic to still get what’s going on. It might be a good idea, but it’s totally not necessary if someone’s already caught up and doesn’t want/need a refresher.

The negative is…I’ve added more than 26 pages, will have to get the whole thing complete before I post it (at least, on Comic Fury, on Tapas, I’m just uploading as I get things done, which is nice,) and it is going to take quite a bit of time.

But! The end result is going to be, I feel, a much better telling of what happened to Odysseus, background on the plague and the new government (better world building,) and it’s going to make more sense. Rather than BOOM! Flashback, I’m taking the first part of Act 3 and making it the beginning of Act 2, then cutting into the flashback (where it currently just says “an act later”) and ending Act 2 in the middle of the flashback.

The flashback is also going to be indicated by black borders, which is something I meant to do to begin with but *stupid me* forgot :/

TL:DR: Act 2 and Act 3 of Dark Horse are getting mixed and split and will look and read better! Ideally 🙂 In lieu of these changes, Acts 2 & 3 may also get new covers! Which is exciting for me, because I love to draw fancy covers 🙂

Here’s a colored version of the above picture, to close this with an image 😀

Can you tell I don’t watercolor! Ach! My shading is terrible on this! Maybe I’ll go back and blend things better later. That’s one thing that’s nice about water colors!

Oh! And I forgot to post this little video I made for my Patreon page.

Thanks for reading! And Keep on Truckin’!

Blue Dragon
Aka
Ashleen

Posted in Dark Horse Art, Updates.

By Ashleen

September 22, 2018

No comments

Patreon is Here!

Hey there!

I’ve been working so hard the last few months to make sure Dark Horse improves. I have been pouring hours into the revamp of Act 1, and working of course on the regular weekly updates. I am happy with my progress, but plant to continue improving!

I’ve also got some more art to be sharing with people soon, fan art, and prints for the shop. Things are going well, and I hate going to sleep because there’s so much I could be doing! But, I finally completed a big project I’ve been creating a lot of graphics for: my Patreon launch! On Patreon, I’ve got sooo much planned, so if you like keeping up with what’s going on, please head over there 😀 There’s several tiers to choose from, even a $1 a month one (cause, I never have much money, but I often want to help out, so offering something like that make it seem doable 🙂 )

Also, I have opened a new DeviantArt page. There’s not a lot there right now, but if you like art, you can “watch” me there (that’s creepy sounding,” and see some cool fan arts and pages and other stuff I’m working on.

Here’s a little WIP image to make sure this post doesn’t look boring!

Thanks for reading, and keep on truckin’!

~Blue Dragon~

Posted in The Miscellany, Updates.

By Ashleen

September 13, 2018

No comments

Updated Shop!

Good Day!

Just stopping in to say the Shop area has been cleaned up (again,) and updated! I have some added art, and band new stickers in the Dark Horse shop!!!! Check them out here!

Patreon is coming along and will be opened soon! I am working on the Tier images right now 🙂 That’s where the stickers sheet came from 😀 I had been meaning to create this sheet for a looooong time. More will come. I will also have smaller sized sheets available sometime soon, as well.

You can read Dark Horse on Comic Fury, or Tapas 😀

Have a great rest of the week!

Blue Dragon/Ashleen

Posted in Dark Horse Art, Updates.

By Ashleen

August 28, 2018

No comments

Tapas, Anyone?

Mmmm…..tapas. With veggies.

Oh, I mean, hey everyone! I have been working super hard these past months to get a few things going! For one, I’ve just finished creating a Tapas Comic page for Dark Horse! I am currently uploading the Revamp of Act 1, so if you’re further along than that, by all means stick with the Comic Fury link 🙂 If you are new to Dark Horse, or prefer to read your comics on Tapas, then you can visit the new site by clicking here:

In other news, I’m also working on a Patreon, and a donate button for my sites.

I want to make one thing clear: Dark Horse will always be free online, and the addition of these to the site is to help me along with income. If you feel so inclined to donate, that would be amazing! If not, that’s perfectly fine: I am creating comics and art for myself, and to share with others. While I’d like to be able to make a living of this, just sharing the story with people is my real passion. At the same time, I wanted to make sure it was known I was working on these things, and I will more than likely make a post about it later on once they are ready to go!

One good thing that I personally like about the whole Patreon angle, is the addition of “rewards” for donation. What I like about it, is that it’s a great way for me to set goals, share more art, and certainly get more prolific with my art. It’s also a great way to share some extras with some great people who are kind enough, and financially able, to support the things they enjoy.

I’ve also been creating a lot of extra graphics and some T-shirts (not Dark Horse related shirts.) Once I get a couple of them ready to go, I may be adding them to the shop page. I know…I don’t have much there now. I’ve been using my time off from employment to create as much as I possibly can and provide some quality art and things that people may actually find fun. I still have a sticker page in the works (Dark Horse related,) and some digital prints I’m working on to add to the shop. I’m very excited to have the time to get some work done, and I hope it brings some enjoyment!

As always, thanks for reading, and take care!

~Blue Dragon~
aka
Ashleen

Posted in Dark Horse Art, Newest Additions, Updates.

By Ashleen

August 16, 2018

No comments

Work is Never Over

Hello, Good Day! Salutations!

Over the last week, I’ve gotten so very much done with Dark Horse. I’ve also been working a little bit on revamping the other acts. Here’s a sample:

I will be inking this drawing in the future, and replacing the Act 2 cover with the new artwork. Lots is going to happen in Dark Horse, so please check it out 😀 It’s free, and you can catch it here. You can also learn more about Dark Horse by clicking the comics tab in the Navigation Buttons.

Hope you’re all well, and having a nice summer (if it’s summer where you live.)

Cheers!

Ashleen
aka
Blue Dragon

Posted in Dark Horse Art, Updates.

By Ashleen

July 30, 2018

No comments

Format Change Coming Soon

Hello people,

I realize I’ve been away for a while–I have been preoccupied with a lot of changes life-wise (full time work schedule, cooking most of our food from scratch, working out to prove I can do it, even though I’m lazy and shiftless, and to a very small extent, household chores–which means, barely keeping up with laundry and dishes enough to not have roaches.) However, I intend to begin work on re-organizing this site a bit. I want the front page not to be this blog update, but rather a page with samples of my art. I’m not abandoning these posts, I just don’t feel they need to be the page people see when they come to Cerulean Dreams.

I also intend to have some focus be on art I’m creating for art’s sake, in addition to the comic art I work on (which unfortunately has needed to be set a side for a while.) I have been working on Dark Horse, I just had some upset regarding losing a lot of work I did on the computer, which dispirited my efforts. And, instead of buckling down and working harder to make up for the losses, I drank and played The Legend of Dragoons and other video games. You know….like an adult.

But, I haven’t given up. I just had to take a break. And I’ve been working on a lot of stuff. For one thing, I’m going to finish off the last 2-3 pages of Dark Horse Act 4, and then I’m going to start inking and making progress in Act 5. Today, I am going to share some of my sketches for Act 5. But you have to earn it by slugging though all this crappy text. Or you can just skip all this and get to the goodies.

Okay, so the real last thing I want to say, is I’ve been working super hard on improving Dark Horse. Not just regarding the characters (although damn, Mark Crilley is amazing and every aspiring manga artist needs to go over to his youtube,) but also the backgrounds, the framing, and the story-telling (or “showing”) in general. And while I am working on Act 5, I am also still plugging away at upgrading (or revamping) Dark Horse Act 1. My hopes is to get it finished, clean up the rest of the acts, then put together a couple acts and print a few hard copies. I would like to start participating in conventions in my area, and I need to have something to sell! I guess I’m not getting any younger, and I need to work better on actually achieving some of my life goals.

So this was a loooong update, but it was also a long time coming as I haven’t posted anything in a while. I have finally gotten a weekend to myself (not blaming my partner at all–I distract myself plenty) so I’m finally taking some time to work on this!

As always, to anyone reading, my sincerest thanks and keep on truckin’!!!

Blue Dragon
aka
Ashleen

And now for something…completely the same:

Posted in Dark Horse Art, Updates.

By Ashleen

September 24, 2017

No comments

Whimper in the Dark Now Updating!

Hey hey what can I say?

Well, Whimper in the Dark has it’s page up, though I have a lot of layout work to do 🙂 It updates every Thursday. So you all can check it out here.
Additionally, here’s a nice little character study of my dog, Julius 🙂

Dark Horse is nearing the end of Act 4! Holy crap! I need to get to work on Act 5 right away! I did work on a few *small* script additions, and I’ve got the cover art drafted. I’ll have a few pages after Act 4, such as the Author’s note, a Web Short, and some other images to help pad the comic until I get a couple pages up and running. Gotta have that cushion 😉