Intro

A bit about me and what I’m working on.

Hello

I’ve started a Substack because social media has, over the last decade, melted my brain into a pile of unproductive sludge and I desperately want to create again without being bombarded daily by every type of shape, colour and sound the world can imagine.

About Me

My name is Emily, I’m 28, and I’m a freelance illustrator & designer working from my little home office in the North West of England. I’m late-realised autistic which has made the last couple years of my life very interesting. This year, finally having a bit of a grip on how my brain works, I’m determined to stop spending every non-engaging moment doom-scrolling on my phone so that I can participate in the things I love most but have lost a lot of passion for over the years.

I love fantasy. The kind that permeates Studio Ghibli and Jim Henson movies. I’m not a fantasy nut by any means. I haven’t read Lord of the Rings (though its on my list) or many other classic fantasy must-reads. I don’t keep up with new books and writers. I just like media that puts you somewhere else and makes you believe it.

As far as I can remember, I’ve written stories since I was a kid. A lot of them stayed in my head though. I suffered with insomnia as a teen, so in the early hours I’d be trying to save myself from boredom by making up a story in my head. I’d go back to the same one each night until I either forgot about it or hit a dead end. I’ve daydreamed through many, many classes to keep myself from falling asleep, destroying the margins of all my notebooks in the process. When I left college and started working office jobs I’d be scribbling ideas and sketches on sticky notes and scrap papers through the whole day. I liked filing the most because there was no one else in the room to realise that I was wasting so much of my day on aimless note-taking (I couldn’t stand a filing room now). Drawing and writing has kept me going through every part of my life, I don’t think that I can do anything else.

Soulsian

What I’m working on right now came to me in a dream last year, as cheesy as that is. I’d been playing bits of Dark Souls and Bloodborne over the previous weeks (hence the temporary project name, ‘Souls-ian’), and dreamt one night of a ruined city reminiscent of Yharnam. At the corner of one building the walls had been blown out, revealing a clinic inside. Stained sheets hung from the ceiling, forming a kind of tent to shield from the wind. A small bonfire sat in the middle of the exposed treatment room. In the far corner, leaning against a medicine cabinet, was a Doctor - a thin man with grey shoulder length hair wearing a lab coat, brown suit and brogues. By the fire sat a woman and a dog. The woman was tall, with scraggly, dark hair and a sour face. She wore tattered clothes and kept a sword at her hip. The dog beside her was huge. Like a wolfhound, he came nearly to her waist when standing and looked as messy as his counterpart. Thick black fur tangled in waves and kinks, with white framing his neck and face. He wore a set of rectangular tags around his neck.

I saw two other figures in the dream, separate from the clinic scene. They seemed quite disconnected from the Bloodborne-like world I’d been seeing, but I loved how they looked together so I made a note of them when I woke up too. One of them was a stocky man, the other a small woman. The man had a large rectangular frame, wore a trench coat and curiously had two heads, a black trilby atop each. The woman had the look of a 20s flapper, with sculpted curls, the typical dress and a fur-lined coat drawn up around her neck. All of these characters remain in my project, some altered to fit the anachronistic aesthetic I’m leaning towards, and I look forward to sharing each as I develop their lives.

Intentions

To finish up today, I’ll list my intentions with Substack, so that on the off-chance that somebody decides to read this and follow along with me, you know what you’re getting.

I’ll be documenting my writing here to keep me on track as much as possible. That means updates on progress, character and location bios, finished pieces of writing and other ramblings when I feel like it.

There will be no schedule (I don’t always work well with those). Just new bits when I have the brain cells to type them up and share them.

If you made it all the way down here, first of all thanks for reading. Glad I was able to keep your attention! If you liked this, consider subscribing to be updated when I post.

If you’re interested in seeing more of my artwork, you can find me on Tiktok and Instagram.