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posted 2 months ago, edited 2 months ago
I'm doing a long term doodle challenge for improving my drawing & painting abilities, I have to reach a score of 5000, Score is set as follow:
Sketch book pages 1pt
Digital painting studies 1pt
Full portfolio projects 3pt
Every 1000 it's a milestone to make changes and reassess the progress.
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A FarewellI don't trust whoever gets my childhood home next not to ruin it. My parents cut down a tree in the front yard today and it feels like a part of me was lopped off. It was sickly, they said. Bark peeling off for years, flesh laid bare in the West Texas sun. But it was the tree in front of my childhood bedroom. Its branches used to tap on my window. It shielded me from the harsh glare of the street lamp. It needed to go, my dad said. And we all sat on the back porch, dogs laying out in the grass, and I pondered the fate of the other tall, friendly oak trees stretching up into the sky. My parents moved into this house just before I was born. Twenty four years I've lived here, spare a few spent out east. They've been talking about moving for the last six. And the next family won't know. They won't know that the long, straight branch in the backyard used to have my swing tied to it until one day the rope broke and I scraped my knees. They won't know that the stains in the garage are from a sloppy DIY hydro-dipping attempt my dad and I put on one day when my mom wasn't home. They won't see the splotchy shapes of imaginary horses and dinosaurs hidden in the orange peel walls. They won't know which shelves are for pictures and which are for books. They won't know that you have to turn the ceiling fan knob all the way to the right, and then back one click, otherwise it shorts out. They won't know how the second bedroom used to be the nursery, decorated with hand-painted caterpillars and ladybugs and butterflies that you can still see the faint outlines of through the three coats of neutral grey that have been slathered on since. Ah, well. I'm sure they'll figure it all out.Furnace 3 - ??? IIIThe shiny moving thing holds onto you as it gets up, and you decide you like the contact very much. You like the contact even more when it leans on you, even if it’s making your shoulder hurt more, and can’t help but feel disappointed when it pulls away. “It was rude of me not to introduce myself earlier. My name is Oscar of Astora.” The only sounds after that are its heaving breaths as it struggles to stay standing without your help. It bats your hand away as you try to reach out your hand to steady it. “I can— I can manage on my own.” It takes another sip of the Estus Flask. You remain unconvinced. You know you would have appreciated help when you were first figuring out your limbs. Finally, it seems satisfied at taming the shake of its legs. “Say, kind undead, what is your name?” Your name…? “I don— I do no— I dun— Gah—” Sounds are getting easier, but your tongue still keeps disagreeing and it’s frustrating. “Iiiiii… dunno.” You finally sound out. It makes a sound that you’re pretty sure means it's disappointed. “I suppose we should give you one, then. Though, I certainly wouldn’t consider names to be a strong suit of mine… So let’s save that for later, shall we? For now, we should deal with that arrow in your shoulder.” “Okay!” You respond. It turns out removing the arrow hurts very very much, wayyy more than it getting there in the first place. Oscar gave you the Estus Flask after though, and that made things better. Very interesting too, the feeling of the estus and stuff. After that, there was something about you being “not ready to fight” but you’re not sure what that means, yet. “Yet” is the important part, because you want to understand since you’re pretty sure that will make Oscar feel better. Oscar wanted to do something with your hair, too, so maybe letting it do that will help it too. Oscar instructs you to sit down, and you listen, curious about what exactly it's going to do. You see it take something small from its waist, and flinch on instinct before Oscar steadies you. It looks a lot like the pointy bit of the arrow Oscar took out. “This is a dagger.” Oscar sounds out. “I’m not going to hurt you with it. I am going to use it to cut your hair. Do you understand?” You think so? Mostly? You nervously nod. “…Okay.” “You’re getting better with words.” Oscar comments as it settles down behind you, beginning to inspect your hair. You can’t see what Oscar does afterwards, but there’s a faint sound and feeling to it, and then after that Oscar is back to inspecting your hair. You make a questioning noise, and Oscar hands you a hunk of blue before returning to its work. You fiddle with the hunk in your hands, trying to understand what it is. Blue and stringy, but also stuck all together and Oscar gave it to y— Oh! You guess it's your hair then! Weird. The hair turns out to be fun to fiddle with as you wait patiently for Oscar to finish. You look at the rest of the hair on the ground curiously, and reach up your hand to feel where it used to be. It’s a lot easier to move your fingers through than it was before, and now that the feeling is gone, you realize all the stuck hair was feeling bad to be there, so now you feel better because it’s not. All this hair stuff is interesting, you decide, as you fiddle with the cut-off chunk still in your hands. You should thank Oscar, you decide, but get stuck on the words. Instead, you opt to lean back against it, trying to express your thanks through the closeness. Oscar tenses, and you realize that might’ve been the wrong choice. Oscar pushes you back into the position you were sitting in, and you turn to look at it, confused. “There’s still more to do.” Oscar quickly states, getting away from your leaning as it hurriedly moves to sitting in front of you. Oscar begins to trim the hair on your face, and it's hard to stay still when you can see the dagger so close to your face, even when Oscar said it wouldn’t hurt you with it. You can feel its gaze burning into you. Eventually, Oscar is satisfied, putting the dagger away and helping pull you back to your feet. “Next is armour.” Oscar states. “Do you know where you’re from?” It asks, as it removes pieces of cloth from the moving thing it stopped. You turn your gaze from how its removing the cloth, and look at it funny. You guess you had a place to be from, if it wants to know, like with your name, but you have no idea what it was. “I-I-I dunno.” You respond. It gives you a funny look back, as it stands back up. “I suppose that’s not surprising, if you can’t remember your name, either.” It says as it ties the fabric around your shoulders. “Was worth a try, though.” Once the fabric is secure around your shoulders, Oscar takes a step back, the tilt of its helmet showing it to be looking over you. Next, Oscar returns to the no longer moving thing, and bends down to pick something up. The no longer moving thing had used the sword— Oscar gave you the word for it— to try and attack you with it, so you wonder why Oscar is— It takes one of your hands and places the handle of the sword with it, before adjusting your hand around it. Huh. Oscar does have a sword, so you guess it’s making sure you have one too? “I’ll show you how to swing it.” It states. You think the sword-learning goes pretty well. Oscar says it goes good-enough, at least. Oscar shows you different positions and movements, and you have no idea how it remembers them all. But! If you can remember them all too, you think Oscar would be very happy with you, and then you’d be happy too because of that. You keep that thought pinned in place as you follow Oscar through a corridor and— A sudden jolt goes through your hand with a flash of hurt. The sound of the sword clattering to the ground alerts you to the fact you dropped it before feeling comes back to your hand. Oscar turns around to look at you. “Hand stopped.” You whine, pointing at the jolted hand with your other one. “What do you mean your hand— By the flame— I’ll come and look.” Oscar takes hold of your hand, inspecting the infrequent shakes. It makes a faint clicking noise. “Sit down. That will make things easier.” You comply, and Oscar walks out of your sight, returning later with fabric bunched in one of its hands. Oscar places the sword in your now-calmed hand, carefully adjusting your grip to the way it showed you earlier. It takes the fabric, unbunching it into a strip, and winds it around your hand until you can barely move your fingers, the sword now locked to your hand after it ties the strip. As it gives you room to get a feel for the swish of the sword again, you can feel it silently looking at you, more intense than when it was first teaching you. Eventually, it gives a nod. “This way.” Oscar says. Oscar moves you into a crouching position, and points towards the leftward doorway. “The asylum’s demon is there, down below. Once we’re at the ledge, on my signal, we will drop down to attack from above, then improvise with what I’ve shown you once we’re on the ground. Is that understood?” You nod, but your legs stop cooperating when you see the thing Oscar wants to fight. It’s the big moving thing from earlier. You miss Oscar’s signal, not that you’d be able to follow it. Oscar drops down, plunging its sword into the big moving thing’s head. It thrashes around, trying to get rid of Oscar, but your companion manages to hold on until it gets its sword back out, a spray of dark liquid coming out with it as Oscar drops onto the ground. You shut your eyes tight. You’re scared the fight will change, and Oscar will get hurt. You can still hear the noises, though, so you also cover your ears. You wait— —and wait— —for what feels like forever and no time at all— —and then the noises stop. You look. The big moving thing— well it’s not moving anymore, so you guess it’s no longer a big moving thing. But just calling it a big thing wouldn’t make sense because there’s a lot of big, non -moving things here, so it’s easier to just keep calling it a big moving thing and— Your thinking is stopped by a mounting feeling of bad bad bad rising in your stomach as you feel Oscar glare at you from down below, from where it stands next to the no longer moving thing. It runs a hand over its helmet, before shaking his head. Adjusting how it's standing, it cups a hand in front of its helmet and calls up to you. “Stay there! I’ll find you.” And Oscar does. When it gets there, it crouches down and reaches for your upper arm, stroking its thumb across it until the okay feeling is enough for you to stop shaking. It guides you back up to your feet and then leads you to the warming thing from right before the giant moving thing and makes you sit down. “You need to get braver.” It says. Your eyes feel funny. The two of you sit there for a while, before Oscar tells you it’s time to continue. The large key opens the large doors out into a new and intriguing view. There’s no walls as far as you can see, though maybe those rocky gray things in the distance are walls too? Though they’re a lot more jagged, and you can’t see the smaller bits they’re made of like you can with the walls, so you’re not sure. Speaking of the wall bits… “What’re th-those?” You ask, pointing at the walls that are now behind the two of you. “I-I know tho— th-they’re walls but what’re th’ stuff walls are made of? I like th-th-the shapes.” “Bricks?” Oscar responds. You nod, and remember its earlier words, from before it helped with the arrow. “I— like th’t sound. Can th-they be my name? Here a long time like me, right?” Oscar pauses. “That’s what you want your name to be?” You nod. “Well then.” It reaches out to grab your hand and bring it to its other one, clasping them together. It shakes them, before speaking again. “Nice to know you, Brick.”