Today I am beyond excited to share with you the artwork of Katherine Ellis, posting as Sio64 on deviantart, and starting out with this wonderful dragon image called Egg Timer. Katherine sets the scene:

The concept is a mechanical dragon who needs to steal clocks. She welds them onto her eggs, and the timer starts until the hatchlings are ready!

I just adore this piece and her art style!  You may remember that yesterday I shared a cool image of a dragon clock with my Writing Thoughts post about planning.  Searching for a good “dragon with a clock” picture brought me to many great images and artists, including Egg Timer here, and I instantly fell in love with Katherine’s art.

However, as soon as I started exploring the rest of Katherine’s deviantart profile and gallery, I realized she needed an entire post of her own.  For instance, here is another of Katherine’s dragons called Fun With Acrylics, what she says is one of her early pieces:

I love the colors, and the style of the dragon’s head, and the adorable baby!

But I was treated to a wonderful surprise when I discovered that Katherine has created an amazing webcomic, page by painstakingly-drawn, colored, and inked page, called Crankrats.  Here is Katherine’s summary of the story, which has been running for more than five years now:

Crankrats is the story of Madelene Morely, a young woman who fled from her war-torn city as a young girl, leaving her life (and more) behind her. Returning to the city to sing for a living, she’s dropped into a dystopian nightmare with danger around every turn, from the bomb-laden airships in the sky, to the toxic smog that floods the city floor and the rumors that an old threat, the Crankrats, aren’t as dead as they seem. To make matters worse, her new colleagues are nuts, the barman is a jerk and she’s being constantly judged by a moody mechanical cat. What could go wrong?

Tonight, of course, I had planned to work on the Neeka chapter further, even after the ridiculous day I had.  But instead of doing that, I found myself instead reading the entire first chapter of Crankrats, about 25 pages, and only stopping now to make this post!

Here is the first page of the first chapter, and I hope it gets you hooked.  Katherine assures her readers that the entire comic will always be available to read for free online, both at the main Crankrats site, and in her deviantart gallery as well.

Something to keep in mind when you are looking at this, as well, is that this is just the first page of the currently 360 pages that Katherine has drawn for this comic!  According to deviantart, she’s in Chapter 13 now, and I’m really excited to begin Chapter 2.  Her story has very interesting characters, a great “Gaslamp” setting (as opposed to “Steampunk”), and who can pass up a judgemental mechanical cat?!?  (Not me!)

You can read more about Katherine at her artist profile, and you can support her and Crankrats at her Patreon page, which gives you early access to the latest updates.

I’m going back to read some more, but then, I promise, I’m planning to write, really!  So take care, read some comics, and stay creative, everyone!

Image credits:
Egg Timer by Katherine Ellis
Fun With Acrylics by Katherine Ellis
Crankrats, Page 1 by Katherine Ellis