Flattered beyond compare

I have never been flattered more than just recently.  I told someone about Veiled and she made me a fanart of the ONE thing I have drawn for it.  I just can't even say how proud and happy getting the  appreciation and pure honor of this fanart.  

http://i.imgur.com/ddZrWHC.gif?1

Avatar state

I had a dream recently that was awesome.  This dream started off more like a meditation.  I found myself in a calm, blanketing canvas of mystically deep waters.  I gained a moment of lucidity and invited a friend.  Adara showed up and I asked her to teach me how to firebend a la the show Avatar.  I proceeded to lose lucidity at this point, but what I partook in was the bending equivalent of a philosophical jam session.  

I'll continue in first person now to get deeper into that moment.

Adara showed me first: "it feels like this."  Her thumb on my head shares with me a moment from her past.  The fire that ignites in my hand feels like pure creation.  It is like holding an entire army of Celtic fiddlers all pouring their souls into an astonishing piece about life's perfection.  It is like coming up with an idea that will change the world.  It is like being pregnant with the universe.  My heart overflows into movement and every flicker of action is creative and full of pure life force.  Wherever I move, the burning passion of life in its prime wreathes me as I go.  I swathe fractals in flame limited only by the life in the infinite being of all existing within my heart.  I believe in my strength when I firebend because in doing so, I am life itself-- my breath is steady and my fire can warm, soothe, dazzle, or protect all the beauty this universe has to offer.

"It feels totally different from my native element, water."  I raise my palm in yang to show her.  To bend water, one's mind must be at the bottom of the ocean; dark, but constantly moving, the source of all nourishment, yet so easily tugged around by the moon and by man.  I become infinitely humble as to never be broken.  A double helix of water rises as my arm paints upwards.  Now arisen, I slide humbly and exhale out.  Water humbly follows with all the strength of the tide.  This tidal force envelops all that my communicating and healing waters touch, wholly and completely.  I am in perfect communion with the one truth that all things share.  I believe in my strength when I waterbend because my depths are unfathomable-- I can contain within me any anger thrown at me and unleash a calming deluge in response, exactly proportionate to the situation.

"Now, Adara.  Where in water and fire, one communes with a force of the universe beyond them, air is entirely and completely different.  Air is purely movements of the self."  With a movement of my hand across my body as I lower my presence, a vacuum opens and the wind pours in to fill the void created by my movement.  Slowly, at first, but as my gestures become more bold, mighty oaks may fall to the movements of my soul.  With air in mind, there is action and reaction, movement and the fury of the storm that follows.  I must be careful, but I have nothing to fear, for my gentle hand touches all.  I believe in my strength when I Airbend because I know do not have to change anyone-- I need but change myself, the world will align by causality.

"As with fire and then water, it is wind and then earth."  Earth bending feels surprisingly weak of power in my physical form.  It is an allegiance and a bond with the earth that respects the fragility of me, but when fully realized, my strength is infinite because it is the entire earth moving to aid me.  Each pebble believes in me so much that I need but point and the earth itself flocks to experience what I believe is there.  I am a YouTube celebrity.  I am but a piece of clay on this earth, yet others believe in me.  I need but move my arms up defensively and this world bends its entire might to shelter me from harm, for I am important.  I believe in my strength when I Earthbend, but only because I know that I am but a pebble with a voice to inspire.

"To envision the avatar state, I must inform you of what it is like without."  When I waterbend, my entire being was water.  My focus is so heavily on the connection and the unfathomable depths that my mind cannot experience the exact opposite of the infinite high of conducting a symphony of fire at the same time!  To do both at once is surely impossible.  To bend more than one element at once is to feel multiple experiences at once.  It is to experience multiple lives, all lives even, and pull out of that sea the movements that rewrite fate itself.  To fly away backwards on a cloud while flinging boulders, one has to be both completely focused on moving the self while needing those movements to inspire the earth itself to leap to action.  To slam my fist into the ground and encase my target in electrified water, I must fill the unfillable depths of my soul with the intensity of the fire I hold in my heart.  Each combination is unique and each feels more like I am looking at myself from the void of time than it does feeling and moving and acting like each element individually.  All four elements at once, like the caging of Vaatu, is a feeling of such intense unification, I have a hard time describing it.  In bending all four at once, I become the world I bend.  It is no longer me bending my surroundings, it is my surroundings bending to make way for my will on this earth.

...

Ok, I hope you enjoy.  I feel like an ABSOLUTE nerd at this point and feel like I should go hide in a corner forever.  kthxbai

Veiled

Welcome to Veiled, my first YouTube project.  I have had pipe dreams of turning this old dream into a comic, but I am not a high enough caliber artist to dedicate myself to that work for the years it would take to go panel by panel.  I also find myself fond enough of writing to desire to write my own books on these, but I am not a high enough caliber writer to fashion an entire book.  

Why not do both?  I have an imagination, surely I cannot believe that an artist must be limited to one medium or the other.  Veiled will be done in a visual novel style with a voice over of my episodes with some flash of my artwork to aid the narrative.  Each episode will be YouTube length and will be able to be watched for the most part in any order even though order will of course add to the experience.  

Veiled is about the nameless protagonist who is trapped by the current God in a single moment in the present.  She is trapped so that she may learn enough to succeed the current one.  This god is a troll dad and has set up an experience she is familiar with: earning achievements.  Each achievement is some important lesson she gleans from the moment.  There will be some filler episodes like an achievement for walking 500 miles complete with her getting upset about getting the song stuck in her head.  Also: God is depicted as a chipped coffee mug with "best dad" printed on it.  Because ... Well that's how it was in the dream it came from.

I drew it on the back of some notes for a job I was doing on my clipboard with a knife-sharpened pencil.  The work is entirely my own save for the ... Whoever that is behind her.  That was drawn on there by someone else, but I like it.  If you look close, the sun's lens flare eclipses the best dad mug as well as the title.  Her skirt (which is not what she normally wears, this is a publicity piece) has some super intricate designs on it that might be hard to see (nevermind, I inked it).  She is floating on a cloud overlooking vast plains and mountains framing the sunset.  When I photoshop this, the "angel" will be practically a watermark, and the color pallete will be somewhere between dark souls two and the earthy pastelles of a hippy wardrobe.

Enjoy and wish me luck.  I'll be attempting to get my YouTube career up and running with this and a few other shows I'll tell you about later.  

I have to level with you, dear reader.  I am a geyser of creative energy right now.  It is absolutely insane.  Between all this YouTube stuff AND the Red Alert earlier, I have work that needs doing.  The lion in my heart is charging forward with unstoppable tenacity and I am holding on for my life, may chance to see these things in my soul to be given life on our plane.