I'm a varied artist and a self-published, young adult science fiction and fantasy author. I also create fantasy and historically inspired jewellery and digital illustrations & concept art.
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Black Opal
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Alexandrite
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Star Ruby
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digital art resources
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Aetherium
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updates on all writing projects.
chapter drafts of (select) new stories prior to publication.
digital art resources
access to the 'Patron Perks' area of my author website where you can find fun merchandise related to my art, jewellery, and books.
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Welcome
- Chapter drafts of new stories - Access to the 'Patron Perks' area of my author website for fun merchandise
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- Early access and first dibs options on all new jewellery (with 15% discount)
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"Traveller of the Realms" by Laura Hepworth (Rilaiss Art) "After months of fruitless searching, she was finally nearing the end of her long, arduous journey. But would it truly be the end she wondered? The portal that would take her out of this forsaken realm was at last within reach, it's eerie glow visible from across the canyon. Just one more mountain to climb and she could leave this world behind her. The only question was, where would this portal take her? Home, where her heart ached to return and she could once again look upon the faces of those she loved, or would it strand her in yet another unknown realm, alone and forever wandering - a traveller of the realms. Oh, how she rued the day she scorned the warnings passed down through generations in her family and wished she had stayed far away from the stone circle in the woods."
I started this painting back in June as a practice piece. I'd taken one of my old experimental digital photography pieces and planned to use it as a backdrop of a new painting, just letting the colours and forms of the photograph inspire what the new image would become. It changed many, many times with the final result bearing absolutely no resemblance to the original photo inspiration other than in some of the colours used. Which is fine, because I'll just reuse that photo for some more paintings! Here's the photo I started with.
"City of Shards" ; experimental digital photography by Laura Hepworth
It's a photo I took a number of years ago of a Bismuth crystal pendant I made. For the fun of it, I kept moving the camera all over the place as I took the photo just to see what strange results I would get and then played around with the adjustment settings (exposure, contrast, highlights, etc.) on the computer until I got the result I liked the best.
My intention was to turn it into a painting of a glacial city, but, as I worked on it, it turned into this. I'd still like to do a painting closer to my original idea someday, but I'm very happy with how this one turned out!
The figure in the painting is based off of a photograph by Armstreet (a fantasy garb company). I absolutely love how they stage and photograph their products and so asked them if it would be alright if I used them as reference images for my artwork and they were gracious enough to say yes! For this image, I used photographs from their 'Labyrinth' collection as reference/inspiration.
So, how do you like it?
Prints are available on ArtStation. New merch is also available on RedBubble. Subscriber-only merch is already available on the Patron Perks area of my author website.
"And Then the Dragons Arrived" by Laura Hepworth (Rilaiss Art) "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a village in possession of a great fortune is destined to attract unwanted pests. Valcryon was one such village. Though, in truth, it had long outgrown the moniker of 'village' to become a thriving city-state. It was thought by some to retain the title as a reminder of its humble origins, while others theorized it was more a matter of tricky than of humility. That, perhaps, if they did not boast of their great wealth they could avoid the fate that accompanied it. Regardless of where the truth lay in actuality, it was a clever ruse that served them well as they continued to amass riches beyond imagination - gold, jewels, and magical objects, the vast vaults of Valcryon had them all, yet always found room for just a little more. It had worked for centuries,..... and then the dragons arrived."
It's finally finished!! I started this painting last May, but set it aside when I ran into a part I wasn't certain how to do. So, rather than continue to mess about with it and possibly ruin the work I'd already done, I took a break to work on other projects. I finished it yesterday after deciding on Monday it was time to get back at it.
At the start of this painting, I had absolutely no concept in mind of what I was going to do. I simply picked a canvas colour (black) and decided on what colours I wanted to work with (in this case orange and red tones), scribbled all over the canvas with them, and then started using a blender brush to mix them together to see what I'd get. It was a method I'd read about in "Secrets of Corel Painter Experts" by Daryl Wise and Linda Hellfritsch where one of the artists talked about how he never planned a project before he started painting. He'd just pick a canvas size (sometimes splitting it into multiple paintings on the same canvas that he'd work on at the same time), pick a back ground colour and his colour palette, and just start painting and would just keep painting and blending until he started to see forms of what it 'could be' and would start refining it from there. It's the same method I used for my Little Red Riding Hood painting, and, since it worked then, I tried it again.
With the colours I chose, it actually didn't take very long before I had an idea. My first thought was 'I see fire' (which became the working title of the piece; fitting considering it turned into a painting of dragons and 'I See Fire' is also the title of a song from the movie The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug). At first, it was going to be a forest on fire, but then the forest became the sort of Viking-ish village you see in the final version. I then needed a reason it was burning, and, what better cause than dragons? This then lead to having someone that you can only partially see trying to fight off the dragons, and, that, is where I go stuck. I was originally going to paint in a longbow, but I could get the angle right. Also, the way I'd wanted to have it cutting across the screen as it, you the viewer, were the one holding the bow wasn't going to work as it was much too large in proportion to the buildings. It was only this week I decided to change the bow to a crossbow and that simple change made a huge difference!
My earlier dragons were rather small and difficult to see in the background, so I added just the tail of one much closer up along more fire and people running away, and, tada! It's finished at long last!
All through painting it, I knew I wasn't going to keep the working title, but didn't know what to change it to once it was finished. In the end, I have the silly Facebook games from the fairytale groups I'm in to thank for it!! In those groups, we love to play the 'ruin a book/movie title' games and one that has come up a couple of times is ruining either the title of a book/movie or the opening line of a book by adding 'and then the dragons arrived.' It was the perfect title for this piece!
Prints are available on ArtStation after this post goes public. New merch for both RedBubble and the Patron Perks area of my author website are also available!
"First Unicorn of Spring" by Laura Hepworth (Rilaiss Art) "'A symbol of innocence, as pure as the driven snow;
at the coming of the unicorn, the hold of winter must go.'
Elissa knew the poem well, it had long been passed down in her village, but she had never believed the myths of different creatures, creatures that neither she nor anyone that she knew had ever seen, heralding the changing of the seasons. Bedtime stories were all that they were to her, nothing more than fairy tales.
But that all changed on the fourteenth day of the fourth month of her seventeenth year."
This is the first of two unicorn paintings and the more 'pretty' version of one. For the next one, I have a much darker interpretation planned! As funny as it may sound, the butterflies were actually the hardest part to paint! Even in minimal detail, they're hard to make recognizable so they don't just look like strange glowing squiggles.
I'm considering making this a series of artworks and doing the other seasons also!
Prints are available on ArtStation. Become a subscriber to get access to other merchandise using this painting.
"Creatures of the Abyss" by Laura Hepworth (Rilaiss Art) The Abyssal Mountains stretched for miles along the border between Abydell and Khannar and, though all the ways around added days on to your journey, few dared to take the mountain paths for these mountains were unlike any others. They were riddled with pits. Giant, seemingly endless chasms shrouded in mystery, legend, and fear. Avoiding them was treacherous, as the slip of a horse's hooves or the sudden tumbling of crumbling rocks from the peaks above could plummet you into their depths, but it was not this fear that kept travellers from journeying through the mountains........... it was the creatures that called these chasms 'home'.
It's finished! I put the finishing touches on it over the weekend. I had absolutely no plan for this painting in the beginning. I just knew that I wanted to use some of the brushes that I've been working on and, after looking at several other digital paintings for inspiration, I just picked a couple of colours and had at it. The more I painted, the more it changed and a concept started to come together. I had to change things up a bit when I realized that the forefront row of mountains were too oversized for the original perspective I'd been aiming for. I'd vaguely been aiming for more of an epic, fantasy landscape viewed from a distance, but, because of the scale of those mountains, it made it look like the viewer was actually in those mountains rather than looking at them from a ways off. With that in mind, I decided to make the foreground into a giant pit with a bit of a cliff face overlook. Next came the waterfalls and the sentinel columns with magical crystals. I was just about finished, but then the I thought it would be a great idea to put a creature coming out of the pit and make the columns a protective defense against it. Thus, you end up with a kraken in the middle of mountain range! Because, why not? It's the very last place you'd expect such a creature which is what made me love the idea.
I hadn't planned on using a limited colour palette, but, once I picked my initial colours, everything else just jarred with them so I ran with it. I think it makes it a stronger image and makes it more eerie.
Because I was testing out some of my brushes, I painted this one in Photoshop CS6 instead of Corel Painter. The brush pack will be a set of 35 brushes and will be made available later this week. I am selling the pack on Gumroad, but, as usual, it is available to supporters on Subscribe Star or Patreon patrons for free.
So, what do you think?
Prints are available on ArtStation. Become a subscriber to get access to other merchandise using this painting.
"Yea Though I Walk" by Laura Hepworth (Rilaiss Art) "What lay beyond the archway? D'Nadrea had been raised in fear of the runic columns, with their glowing archway of pulsing magic that made the surrounding air tingle from their power. She'd heard all the tales of a wild world where death abounds. Of a place where chaos and the creatures of nightmare reigned supreme. It was where those deemed criminals by The Restorers were banished, though a banishment hadn't been witnessed in generations. Still, the question whispered in the deepest, most hidden corners of her mind: What lay beyond?
I think this painting has come a long ways from its photographic counterpart (shown at the bottom of this post along with a rough concept sketch)! When I started this painting I really had only a vague idea of where I wanted to take it. I knew I wanted it to be eerie, hinting at the sinister, and to turn the two primary features of that photo into a magic archway and a far off tower. Beyond that, I had no idea where it was going to go and just ran with where it lead me.
Originally, I'd wanted the tower a little more predominant, but those compositions just didn't look right. The perspective always seemed skewed in comparison to the archway, so I decided to make the tower smaller and to move it closer to the left side of the image.
The bones weren't anywhere in my original plans, but I really love what they add to narrative of the painting! It makes you curious as to just what this place is. Who were those people and creatures? How did they die? When I was working on the tower, I always had Barad-Dur in the back of my mind as a sort of inspiration and wanted to capture a similar feeling with my painting.
So how do you like it? Also, what do you think of the 'seed story'? Would you like to see it expanded on? Let me know your thought!
Prints are available on ArtStation. Become a subscriber to get access to other merchandise using this painting.
Original Photograph: Original photographConcept Sketch: Rough concept sketch
"Let Sleeping Giants Lie" by Laura Hepworth (Rilaiss Art) It was said that giants once roamed these lands, centuries ago, in a time now lost to stories and legends. Most scoff at these tales, dismissing them as the fantasies of an addled mind insisting that: 'the only giants to be seen in Glornarlyn were giants of mud and grass.' No one knows where they came from, these giants in the mud, but for as long as the oldest mind in Glornarlyn could recall, they had always been there. They were everywhere in fact, in the fields, the forests, and even half buried in streams. Wherever one went, they were sure to come across one. Strange figures they were, and not a one of them the same. The truth of the figures long forgotten....... That is until now, because, now, they are waking up.
This is an older artwork of mine, I was inspired by the strange mud heads at Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall, England for this piece. It's based around an idea that fascinated me of, what if they were actually alive and simply sleeping? Like my other pieces, I painted this in Corel Painter with my graphics tablet.
I hope you liked this piece and it's seed story! If you'd like to see it expanded on, please let me know and I'll add it to my 'to write' list!
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Working as an artist and author is not easy. There are always supplies that need replenishing, new tools to get, tech that goes out of date as soon as you take it out of the box or breaks on you when you can least afford it, and all manner of publishing fees no matter how much you try to do yourself. On top of covering all of this, you also have to find some way to pay your bills and put food on the table. This is the minimum monthly income I need to stop stressing about my bills and the inconsistency of art/book sales and be able to focus more on my art and writing and less on getting 'seen'.
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I love what I do and wouldn't want to be doing anything else! Reaching this goal would mean I have successfully achieved the minimum income I need to make a part-time living as an artist/author which will go a long ways to helping me continue to bring you more art and stories. It would also help me to start a fund for replacing worn out/outdated tech so that I can keep creating.
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Reaching this goal would be truly amazing as this will have meant that I have now reached the minimum income goal I need to be a full-time artist/author! It would also allow me more freedom for trying new things and test out new ideas with you. I would also be able to spend more time creating resources to help others with their art.
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This goal would be a truly awesome milestone! It would allow me to invest in new materials or software to keep up in an ever advancing and competitive field and be able to attend workshops/seminars to upgrade my skills. All of which means that I can continue to grow as an artist and share that journey with you.
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