A young man walking through a wood meets a captivating bird then a captivating woman, but neither are what they appear to be.
Music: “Exploration Mystery (loop)” by Albert Fernandez (Audio Alchemist, Potion Studio)
Video description
Video Description: “Nikola and the Two Crows” Trailer. Duration, 40 seconds. “Exploration Mystery (loop)” by Albert Fernandez. Digital drawing. Right half, a young man in three-quarters profile is running and glancing behind himself through a burning wood full of thorny branches, with two crows flying beside him. Some force or material emanates from the open beak of the crow in the foreground toward the burning branches ahead. Title card with the words “Short Story” and “Genre: Fairy Tale,” is displayed at top. Tagline is displayed at bottom. It reads: “A young man walking through a wood meets a captivating bird then a captivating woman, but neither are what they appear to be.” Lines from the story appear in sequence at bottom: “‘If all you say is true, then I still do not mind. I gladly grant my heart’s joy to my love. What harm does it do me?’ ‘Much harm, my friend,’ said the crow. ‘Much harm…as she takes more and more from you, your heart will begin to grow cold and hard…Then you will die.’” Site URL appears at bottom center throughout and fades at end. Sound effects: A crow caws as the story title appears at center, and a text card appears at top that reads “Available to Read Now.”
Welcome to Year 10 of Storyfeather
Every year’s short stories (mostly) follow a theme. For the tenth year, every month’s stories share a genre or theme, some anchor point that the reader can rely on. But within that, there are strange concoctions brewing. The genre’s merge, archetypes collide, mythologies mash…welcome to the Year of Fusion.
April Base Element:
🐉🧚🏽♂️ FAE-PRIL! 🧚🏽♀️✨
FUSION RECIPE
Base element for April: The Fae (Fairies)
Fusion Element: pet bird, crows, flask full of liquid, and firethorn
The initial premise was that someone’s pet bird would turn out to be the person of their dreams. I quickly ditched the “pet” part of it, because that was creepy, and instead had the bird be a wild bird that captures the attention of the main character. Then I thought about the various tropes in fairy tales about lovers and transformations between a human form and an animal or creature form. I started by challenging myself to twist or challenge some tropes, but I ended up with a lot of them in the final story, including a randomly helpful animal, and a thorny plant, and illusions upon illusions.
How I did the digital drawing for my story, “Nikola and the Two Crows,” from a sketch to the final image.
Video Description
Video description: Drafting of story image from Sketch to Final. Duration, 19 seconds. Digital drawing. Right half, a young man in three-quarters profile is running and glancing behind himself through a burning wood full of thorny branches, with two crows flying beside him. Some force or material emanates from the open beak of the crow in the foreground toward the burning branches ahead. Text at bottom reads “Digital Drawing for Short Story.” A fade animation displays a portion of the starting sketch. The words “Sketch to Final Drawing” appears at top right. All the text and the final image fade to show the full starting sketch. The video transitions through several images showing the starting sketch of a crow; then the inking, the laying down of base colors, the addition of a color gradient as a background, and finally, the addition of shadows, highlights, and textures to arrive at the final image. The story title, “Nikola and the Two Crows” appears at bottom. A watermark of “Storyfeather.com” appears at bottom center throughout.
Genre: Fairy Tale
Tags: Bird, Crow, Golden Mist, Gray, Lady, Nikola, Sage, Sister, True Love, Valiant
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