The Point of Art

I’ve been thinking about creativity and art a lot in general recently. This came mainly from an interview with Neil Newbon while he was at EGX. He was, of course, talking about Astarion, the arrogant elf vampire he voice acted and mocapped in Baldur’s Gate 3. A character I latched onto very strongly (along with most other female presenting gamers I’ve seen) while the male presenting gamers I’ve talked with generally stabbed him the first scene they found out he was a vampire.

And Neil said he was happy whenever people had any kind of strong reaction to the character, good or bad. Because art is supposed to make people feel things. It’s not up the artist to dictate what that is.

Now as a writer of fiction, I do try to dictate, but I also understand my intention is not going to be everyone’s interpretation. Eventually my novels will be released for public consumption (not that I have experience with this on a large scale yet) and then it’s for those public to decide.

I saw the above interview around the same time as one of Chuck Wendig’s posts, referencing a piece of ‘fanmail’ he’d gotten about a recently published book. The email, among other things, complained about the ‘politics’ in the book, to which Chuck replied, “Anyway, this is your reminder that all art is political and who gets to write the art and who is included in the art and who gets mad at the art — that’s all part of the politics of a piece. Like it or not. Thinking you can keep politics out of art is like thinking you can keep a fish alive out of water. It has to swim there even when it doesn’t realize it’s swimming there. Just because the fish doesn’t know what water is doesn’t mean the water doesn’t exist.”

All art is a reflection of the artist. I remember as a child hating when my English teachers would demand I see a certain message in the ‘classics’ we read. That stories should just be. What I didn’t realize at the time was that just the fact that certain books were considered classics, and certain books were read in school, and the messages therein were pushed, was all a part of the politics. I mean how many ‘classics’ did you, going to school in America, read that were written by someone other than a white male?

Now that I’m older, more experienced, and am paying attention, I can’t not see it. And I know my own politics and opinions and morals come across in my own books, because I’m human. The novel I finished most recently was very influenced by COVID and American politics (mainly 2016-2022). Both of these things have had a severe and lasting impact on the way the world occurs to me.

And part of that was an awareness, an actual understanding deep in my soul, that there are some people with whom I will never get along and never agree, even if I believe the basic nature of humans is good. This means that attempting to please everyone is impossible, and that most definitely includes with my chosen art, writing.

Because one of my main goals, when it comes to my writing, is to interact with people’s interpretation of my stories. Like I am super excited about the idea of fan fiction/fan art of something I’ve written. I’ve actually said before that if my work ever got adapted to film or TV, I would be fine with them changing things, because it’s basically just another fan fiction. And I want to get that first review or piece of mail that hates my story too. I mean I’m sure part of me will be crushed by it, because I have a fragile artist’s soul, but at the same time, it is still a strong reaction to art that I have put out there in the world. And that’s what I want.

Gryffins: Oh God There’s More

Yes, this is the last installment of my collection of gryffins. For now …

Gryffins in Plush

My collection of gryffin stuffed animals, because of course I have some to snuggle with.

The biggest gryphon (back left) is actually a puppet my mother bought for me. The one with the wild eyes (back right) I saw at a store one day. The one that looks like it has a cutie mark (front right) is from Busch Gardens where they have the griffon roller coaster*. There is also the gryphon plush I bought for World of Warcraft (front middle) that came with an in-game pet (I just never got a screen-shot of while I was still playing the game.) The round one (front left) is a limited edition griffin from Squishables. I actually missed the first run of them and only managed to grab one from the second (and final) run.

*More on this later. 😀

Gryffins in Cards

Magic the Gathering has a good and fairly constant set of griffin cards that come out. While I don’t have all of them (I’ve kinda fallen off on keeping up with the sets.) I do have a good number of them. I even have some that aren’t considered griffin cards, but that have griffins features in the art.




Other Gryffins

I also have a mug. It is also from the Griffin roller coaster in Bush Gardens like the plush.

And this gryffin sconce was made by a local artist. It sits just above my bed. Yes, the colors don’t really go with the wall color, but there you have it.

Gryffin Sightings

And here are examples of gryffin sightings in the wild.

This is the rollar coaster from which come the gryffon plushie and mug. It is at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg and is my favorite rollar coaster because if you get in the front row, you really feel like you’re flying.

This is a bar I passed by while in Las Vegas. I don’t drink, however, I had to record my #gryffinsighting.

And there you have it. That is my collection of gryffin-related items. Thanks for putting up with a bit of my insanity.

The Wildroses are in Bloom

It’s that time of year when the wildroses around the farm come into bloom and the gentle smell permeates the air. And they always make me think of my Wildrose.

Wildrose © Laura Highcove

Like Tabitha I had a commission of Wildrose done as well. He is a wizard who was raised by gryffins, and he is part of the most effective Storyteller team the Guild has.


Wildrose © Laura Highcove

If you want to know more about Wildrose, you can click here
to get the first chapter of The Storyteller and meet him for yourself.

If you want more information on the artist, you can find it here.

Cover Art

As much as my logical brain wants to claim that cover art on a book isn’t important, it really is. Most of the books I have picked up cold were either by an author I already knew or the cover art grabbed me (and the back cover copy was interesting after that).

At the same time I’ve read about how, in traditional publishing, the author has very little to no say in what the cover looks like. Most publishers will work with an author if they really hates the cover, but they’re under no obligation to. On top of that, the cover art doesn’t always accurately represent the insides of the book. The publishers are trying to make a sale, not show a scene.

Which makes me nervous, in a genre where it’s popular to put women in revealing clothing/armor, I really really don’t want Tabitha to end up looking like a girl on the cover. I feel like that would defeat the point. Maybe I’ll get lucky and my cover art will be a close up of an eye or a picture of a sword or something, then I won’t have to worry about that. Then I’ll just be left to twitch when the second book of my series comes out and the font used for the title on the spine is not the same size as it was on the first book. (I’m looking at you Windwitch.)

Now obviously, I first have to get to the point where I have a publisher, but that’s a different story.

Character Art

So I’m not to the point of having fan art, since not much of my stuff has been out there in the world. However, I have commissioned pictures of different characters over time. Some of those characters are from stories that have become trunk novels, but the pictures are still nice. These are the ones just from the stories I mentioned in my first post.


This is Silverfire and her otp Redstone. My naming conventions were not quite as developed back then, but Silverfire was the first original character I ever came up with. art by Ajinryu


Shani is from ‘The Colors Of’ which started out as a pokemon fan fic. She actually has silver hair that she dyes black to hide it. art by Sarah Ellerton.


The three main characters from Shifting Winds. Angelica is the princess. Dylan is the demon who captures her, and Rusty is Dylan’s servant/apprentice. (I never finished coloring Rusty.)
art by Ajinryu

Commission of Tabitha

This is a picture I had commissioned of Tabitha from my novel, The Storyteller. I love it tons. Not really much else to say about it. A picture is worth a thousand words after all.

Tabitha © Laura Highcove

If you want more information on Tabitha,
you can click here to get the first chapter of her story.

If you want more information on the artist, you can find it here.

Notes and Procrastination

I was talking with my mother Wednesday (as I do every Wednesday) and was telling her about how this project often feels overwhelming. But at the same time, even though it feels like I’ll never accomplish anything, the alternative is to stop writing. That possibility does not exist in my world. So the only path is to continue forward.

As such, I am still in the process of adding notes to The Storyteller. I’m not quite halfway through, though I am making quicker headway than I was. As long as I can sit down and remind myself that all I’m doing is writing down notes, things go smoothly.

And what is the logical follow up for deciding you are going to continue on a project come hell or high water? Well it’s to procrastinate of course!

You may or may not be aware that I have some skills in Photoshop. That banner ^. Totally made that myself. I have, in the past, made (pseudo) book covers, banners, and wallpapers for my stories as inspiration points. This is the one I put together this past week for The Storyteller. I even made sure this time to get free-use pictures.

I find that having pictures that represent my stories helps me to feel like they’re more real somehow. This wallpaper is now my desktop background and I am able to look at it and it encourages me to keep going. I’m pretty happy with it.

More gryffin progress

Dove into painting this bad boy. I fixed the top of the left wing from the previous picture. (See if you can find the error.) I finished painting the back end of the gryffin, which I was a little worried about, but it came out nice. Then I added the chestpiece and painted it a little. I need to finish that up, and prime the man who sits on the gryffin (Karl Franz turned into a high elf. 😀 ) and then it’ll be pretty much done.

Top of the Gryffin

Been a long while since I worked on this mini, mostly because I’ve been in Florida. I finished the detail on the bottom of the wings, but the pictures look pretty crappy. It’s hard to get a picture that shows off the detail without it being washed out.

But as for the top, the pictures at the beginning of today, and at the end of today.

High Elf Army

Last in a series of posts to show off minis I have painted in the past two years.

I like the high elves in Warhammer. They’re pretty and I like the minis, so I started painting some minis of them. Not for playing, but just for painting.

This guy took a long time to finish. There was a lot of detail. I’ve gotten a good number of compliments on him.

Just one guy in the little group of sword guys. He was the captain, so I finished him first. I am probably going to change the color of his jewel at some point, but I still like him.

I bought the dragon knight set cause they just looked so cool. It took *forever* to get these guys done. I only have the captain up here because I don’t have any good pictures of the rest of them yet.