You may have noticed my website has had a little bit of a facelift. During its last version, I kept things very bland because I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to go with. The only thing I did know for sure is that when Jeff Brown finishes the cover art for Awakening, I want the design to be front and center on the site.

I’ve never been a fan of things that look too modern, which is ironic considering the previous bland look the website had. Take one look around my house and you’d see it’s a mix of cottage meets medieval. It’s full of colorful tapestries, overflowing bookshelves, a myriad of hanging framed art, a plethora of candles, and sleeping rescue pets. And out of all of them, there is not one gray item to be found.

I knew whatever facelift I did on the site I wanted it to be colorful in order to reflect my personality. I finally figured out the design I wanted to implement when I began seeing a lot of sites use AI for their designs, or omit any art at all. It made me realize how important true art is and pushed me to incorporate my own hand-drawn art into the design.

So, as soon as I finished writing Alignment’s First Draft, I was quite literally off to the drawing board. I’m not a professional artist by any means, but I do enjoy sketching and creating things. I have countless sketchbooks filled with drawings of characters, landscapes, symbols, and items I’ve dreamed up that play serious roles in my epic fantasy series. Now more than ever, with AI being used so often, I think it’s important for me to get over my shyness about sharing my art.

The look I went for in this latest website redesign was a mesh of fantasy-elven-design meets Anglo Saxon colors. I went with green as the main color for several reasons. One, it’s my favorite color. Two, it’s the best color in the world. Three, read reasons one and two. The complementary color was a bit harder to nail down. I ended up creating two separate mockups, one using green and gold, and the other using green and silver. In life, I always pair green clothing with silver jewelry. But I found that on the web, green and gold provided the pop of color I was looking for.

Since Jeff Brown won’t be starting on Awakening’s cover until early November, I still have no idea what color palate the cover art will end up holding. If it turns out the green and gold clashes with the cover, I will edit the palate to accommodate it. However, my hand-drawn borders will stay as a feature, even if their colors change.

Keep in mind, I don’t have a personal website designer at my beck and call. It’s just me and the ridiculous limits WordPress block design poses. Despite those difficulties, I am really happy with the end result! It has some modern elements while still capturing a bit of my personality. I hope my art, as limited as my skill is, brightens your day, if even a little bit.