"Lost In Yesterday's Thoughts" Illustration by Rutkotka · 11:09am Nov 4th, 2023
This illustration was created by the lovely and talented Rutkotka on Deviant Art, for A Kindled Change's Chapter 5: Found. This piece depicts the unsurety Chrys feels after waking up in an unknown home. It's the first time she's felt the kind comfort of a bed and the enchanting atmosphere of a candlelit night. She is mesmerized by the candle's flames dancing on their wicks, and she can't help but to lose herself in thought by looking at them. Yet, somewhere in the image of the fire is something troubling that is buried deep in her mind, so despite it's alluringly lulling effect, she staves it off to think more on her new circumstances.
What is there to say that can't be seen with your own two eyes? This piece that Rutkotka created is incredibly beautiful in so many ways. What initially attracted me to her art was a piece I saw of hers recently titled "Light and Shadows". I've mentioned this before, but ever since setting down on this art-train I'm on, I've been able to truly appreciate just how wonderful art can be, and Rutkotka's art does such a fantastic job of being able to tell a story with just a single snapshot illustration. Not only is the entire piece visually stunning and so pleasing to the eye, but it does such a great job of reflecting Chrys' mood and manages to heighten that complex emotion that she's feeling at that moment.
To be honest, I had a particularly hard time choosing a moment for Chapter 5 to illustrate, and while this scene was the most descriptive and easiest to imagine in my minds eye, the emotion being told by Chrys in that moment and the visual representations/storytelling component of the piece was completely beyond me. So I'm incredibly happy that Kotka was able to do such a fantastic job with it. Like straight away, she had it! I gave her a tiny a preliminary description of the scene to start with so I could get ready to write a more comprehensive description of it if she decided on accepting it, and she was able to use that little prompt I gave her to make such a lovely and apt depiction! Perhaps I might just be easy to please, but that feels like magic to me. Like if she can somehow read into my mind better than I can, because I had no idea how I was going to transcribe the emotion that Chrys was feeling in that moment.
Also, that tiny detail of showing a couple of already melted candles! I don't know if she did that on purpose knowing the story or not, but that's super perfect for this illustration, since Twilight mentions that Chrys has been sleeping for a good while while she recovers from her injuries.
She also honored my request in the best way by making it out to be in her most unique and expressive style. The kind of sketchy and personal style she used for Light and Shadows. At the end of every commission, my biggest hope is always that others can take as much pride in the work they did for me as I did, and so I'm touched that she would go out of her way to make this illustration as special as it is. I hope she loves at as much as I did, but I doubt she does, because I really love it and that's going to be hard to beat/match.
I mean just look at the colors! I mentioned this to Kotka, but I don't know what it is about blues and soft orange colors like that. They're just SO beautiful and compliment so well. I don't know much about color theory, but this has to be a winning formula for color composition, surely! I kinda feel like I'm Chrys here, and my mesmerizing flame is in the way of the art. I can't look away. The lighting and shadowing work is just so detailed and wonderful. Everywhere you look, there's something to be awed. Like the dimly lit corner of the bed. How the warm candlelight shading adds to the reflective sheen of the bed's headrest. How the glow of moonlight is touching the tip of her ear and her blanket. Even the wonderfully soft looking clouds in the back which are blurred to give a depth of field effect and set a little low to give the impression of this being Twilight's old treehouse... It's so good. So so good. It such intricate layering and effects work, that's for sure! Just like in her Light and Shadows, Kotka's mastery is on full display here.
You know, Rutkotka said something very wonderful that I've been giving more thought to ever since hearing it. "Everything we create with love is alive." Take me back in time to 5 years ago, maybe 4... No scratch that, take me back even a year ago and maybe I wouldn't have understood what that meant in the truest sense. This marks the 40th illustration I've commissioned for Chrys, and the 10th artist having depicted her in their own unique style. When I first created her story 11 years ago, I never saw Chrys as her own character. She lacked dialogue. There was no real personality to talk about. She never even obtained her name until 2022 when I returned to FIM to finish her story! For all intents and purposes, she'd only ever been a stand-in for the readers. A vessel by which to imagine themselves in her scenario.
I don't know when that changed. I didn't return to her story with the intention of making her come alive and into her own character. And by the time I finished her story, that still held mostly true. I think it might have started around October of 2022. I wrote a small blog titled "Feeling better. Finding purpose. Doing good." It was shortly after returning to this site after 13 years away from all things MLP related, and I had just finished her first story. I was already a few chapters in to her new sequel, and I was loving every moment of writing it. But in writing her new sequel, I had a moment of clarity pretty early on, an epiphany of sorts. All I'd written before just kind of clicked together beautifully with what I was writing and intending to do, and in those very moments, her very character and soul had taken its true shape at last.
I couldn't have imagined that Chrys would become such a huge part of me. Even in my normal day to day when I'm working or hanging out with friends, her story and her character has become such an integral part of my life. I've poured so much time and money talking about her and making art for her after all! Out of pocket and with nothing to really gain from it. But my work on her stories has driven me to be more outgoing and outward, when before I used to enjoy my solitude almost exclusively. Now I find I talk about her a lot with anyone who will listen. Maybe not directly, but in other ways. Like when my coworkers talk about how they're raising their children, for example. Instead of droning it out like I would have before, I now listen in. When others talk about art or storytelling, you know I'm there when before you couldn't have expected even a passing comment from me.
I've changed a lot thanks to Chrys. I've become so much more empathetic. You know what it is? I've been practicing what I'm preaching, in essence. Making Chrys out to be the most heartfelt, wonderful character I've ever created has in turn influenced me to be a better person. Writing all these stories has truly opened up my desire to be better in a way that it never has before. If I was walking towards eudaimonia before, I'm now sprinting towards it.
Sorry for the long read everyone! Last thing I wanted to mention has been my short absence as of late. I haven't had a break from my day job and real life. If I'm not working a literal 60 hour work week (now entering my 4th one in a row), I'm busy with people and places and projects and chores and friends and repairs and after-work calls. I don't think I mentioned it, but just about two weeks ago, I wasn't even at home until Saturday, since I was driving for most of it on a business trip. And I don't enjoy driving, so it was especially painful for me. I had maybe about one or two good days off in that entire time, and for my mental health, I used them to just relax, disconnect, and diffuse. If my absence continues, do no worry, I'm still doing what I can to write my stories, whether that's skipping my hour lunches to write or taking an hour or two to inch towards a new chapter. I'll get there eventually. Soon too. 70% of the way done with one right now.
But my biggest regrets always go to my writer friends who have been on some awesome writing momentums lately. Wish I could upkeep with ya guys on time! I'm sorry for not being a good friend lately. I'll get around to it eventually! Promise. Right now, my priorities lie in writing my chapters. Soon as that's up, I'll get to reading your stuff. My backlog is already at 6 chapters, and that's going to burn the midnight oil when I finally do, so definitely give me a little more time than usual! Love ya fellas 
That's it from me for now though. Until next time! (Hopefully soon)
Oh, I can agree wholeheartedly.
I am glad that writing helps you.
In many ways, making any kind of an art is a healing and developing process. Helps to organize and explore yourself, figure out what matters to you, and most importantly—express it. This is a wonderful journey to be on and to share with...
I get that you've been one busy man, pal! That happens to me too sometimes. I always look forward to when you can check out my work.
The artwork is, as always, beautiful!