CJ Yeates

My short story, “The Merit of a Curse” is out in The Literary Fantasy Magazine today! I put a lot of myself and my experience with leaving academia into this story about a tenacious curse and the burgeoning romance between a pair of retired mages.

I’m pumped up about getting back into a more regular art practice, which of course means that the impulse to buy 5,000 new reference photos has struck.

Two small pour paintings with blue, black, white, and green. The shapes resemble galaxies.

Made a couple pour paintings today. I didn’t pour them at the same time, but the patterns ended up matching really well. May keep them as a set like this.

I am querying a space fantasy novel, and I don’t know what to do when literary agents say they don’t like space opera. Do you dislike the “space” part or the “opera” part? Because my story involves interplanetary travel but isn’t an opera. There’s no ongoing military conflict and no dystopian drama.

I’ve got three pieces of flash fiction and one piece of CNF I’ve been working on. I’m planning to send one flash piece to an open call this week. The others I’m not sure where I’ll send yet, but I’ve been wanting to expand my flash repertoire for a while.

Thank you!

BG3 is my favorite rummaging simulator.

Thank you!

Acrylic painting of a sphere in shades of pink, purple, and blue with large oval shaped holes, through which green and pink shapes are visible. Large spikes emanate from the sphere. The painting is highly textured with beads and peaks of paint, some of which are accented in gold.

Detail shot of painting showing the texture.

Detail shot of painting showing the texture.

Done with my painting of the anomaly from #Arcane! This was a lot of fun, basically one big experiment. Acrylic paint with a ton of modeling paste and also beads for texture and color variation.

A grey tabby cat sitting in a window behind a black curtain.

Saturday Caturday.

outfit concepts for Dorian Pavus

Playing dress-up with a pre-Veilguard Dorian Pavus. 🐍
#DragonAge

Highly textured acrylic painting of a sphere in shades of purple and pink with spikes emanating from it as well as large holes, through which more patterns are visible.

Texture painting experiment based on the anomaly from Arcane. I want to make a few more adjustments, but I need to let it dry.

Man I want pączki, but they don’t sell them around here, and garden variety jelly doughnuts don’t quite scratch the itch

Why is it that any time paint is labeled “nontoxic” part of my brain goes “alright, it’s finger painting time”

There is something repulsive about drinking a smoothie and suddenly getting a big lump of partially defrosted, unblended banana

Sketch drawing of a man with wavy black hair and light blue eyes, wearing a dark turtleneck.

Sketch of an old character of mine. Seriously, I’ve had some version of this guy in my head for twenty years, and I am tempted yet again to resurrect an old comic project.

Eventually. For now I’m just trying to practice drawing faster.

Today is leg day, meaning the cat is sitting on my exercise mat and watching me judgmentally as I flail my way through Bulgarian split squats.

A cartoon drawing of a long haired black cat with yellow eyes.

Just a sketch of a little dude inspired by both Flow and a fluffy black cat that lives in our neighborhood.

We’re watching Flow, and oh my god, this movie is gorgeous. Also, despite having my namesake, a cat, as the main character, I’m pretty sure I’m the lemur.

I still remember, back in college, my bestie and I having a conversation about how all our favorite pairings involved at least one character with pronounced dark circles under their eyes.

I am pretty sure that has held true in all the years since then.

I ground some star anise yesterday in the spice grinder I usually use for my coffee and nope, I definitely did not get all of it out before the coffee beans went in. Tastes nice, though.

Me too!

A gray tabby cat sitting by a patch of sunshine on the floor.

He was just staring at this patch of sunshine on the floor.

That’s good to know! Yeah, I’ve barely begun to research them but it makes sense to get one that’s not absolutely tiny.

Starting to think it’s just a matter of time before I get into 3D printing. I want so badly to learn how to make cosplay props that move. Am I finally entering my tinkering era?

Welp, it’s starting to look like everything I write from novella length up involves some sort of psychic connection or characters speaking in each other’s minds. What can I say? It’s one of my favorite things.

That is actually amazing. I’d be sad to see it go, too.

I bought a couple pumpkins to use as indoor Halloween decorations in early October and they just… never went bad. So now it’s becoming a bit of a science experiment as to whether they’ll make it to next Halloween.

Here’s a short timelapse, too. Gotta say, I wholeheartedly recommend doing an Arcane style study as an art exercise. It’s really fascinating to compare how the style works in characters with vastly different facial features.

Portrait illustration of the artist in the Arcane style. Person has brown hair and gray eyes and is wearing an outfit with a high collar and gold trim.

Self portrait in the Arcane style! I really sank some time into this one because I wanted to use it as painting practice. And as an excuse to stare at tons and tons of Arcane character art.