auraboo | Recent Entries

I draw and paint, make comics and write fantasy, often all three at the same time. I've published some original short comics online, and I'm working on two longer web serials: Kolminkertainen Sielu and The Ascended. I table at conventions and comic festivals in Finland semi-frequently and like to publish my comics and writing in print where I'm able.

I guess I'll be posting writing and general life stuff here for the most part since the lack of image hosting is kind of not great for art purposes.

Name: Auraboo or Aura
Age: 35+
Pronouns: she/her
Country: Finland
Languages: Finnish, English, Swedish, Japanese, Italian
Interests: art, comics, writing, books, video games, cats, nature, languages
Fandoms: Final Fantasy, Sailor Moon (but I rarely post or talk about fandom)

Where else to find me online:

auraboo

Auraboo on Bluesky
Auraboo.com (main hub for my webnovel, comics and short fiction)
The Ascended (+18 queer web serial that I write with my wife)

It's been years since I attempted any October art challenges, but this year I came across a short prompt list only 8 items long titled Lindentober, hosted by LindenShieldARTs on Bluesky, which looked too fun to pass up. It's been a busy autumn but in the end I managed to draw something for each of the prompts, which I'm super excited about. Here's the whole collection!

This one was for prompt 2: Witch's Garden, one of my favourites from the challenge. The first prompt and its fill are under the cut, because there's some artistic nudity (though you can't see anything critical).

A long post follows under the cut, containing 7 whole images. A mild content warning for light artistic nudity in the first one.

( The other 7 fills under the cut! )

The square ones were painted on Magnani's cold-pressed watercolour paper in size 15x15 cm, 1 and 4 were on SM-LT's cold-pressed watercolour paper (cut to A5 size), and 5 and 8 were on Arches hot-pressed watercolour paper, also in size A5. Paints were a mix of various watercolour brands I own.

So as some of you from PF may know, I'm studying Italian language and literature as my major on my second year in university (I'm not a native speaker, I started studying the language on evening courses in my mid-20s and it sort of snowballed from there because I'm a language nerd and start salivating when you hand a grammar manual to me). This autumn term has been very hectic and tiring with lots of reading-heavy courses at the same time, so I thought I'd just jot down what I've finished and what's left to do to sort of visualise everything... because the term and most deadlines are almost over actually! The end is nigh! I can't wait to read for leisure again!

Italian literature, advanced studies:

4/4 books read
exam: next week!

Advanced Italian grammar: done and credits registered

Italian lexilogy: 1/2 classroom exams done (second one early in December)

Sociolinguistics (in Swedish, part of my minor):

4/6 assignments finished and handed in
5th ongoing
1 more chapter to be read in the study book

Finnish literature and literary analysis (part of my minor):

3/4 books read
1/2 essays handed in
2nd essay 90% done

Translation course: Italian short stories (elective)

translation 80% finished and polished
cover art pending (I volunteered to do a black-and-white illustration for the anthology we're putting together once everyone's stories are done)

For those curious, I chose to translate Michela Murgia's short story 'Morgana', which I'm currently mildly obsessed with. It's an interesting take on Arthurian myths from Morgana's POV, focusing on the relationship between her and Guinevere. There were two other short stories in the same collection that I considered as well (Beatrice Cerci and Mosca cieca), but in the end I found the structure and language in this one the most compelling from a translator's perspective.

Anyway as said, I'm a big ol' language nerd, linguistics are fun. :P

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Bello e impossibile - Gianna Nannini

So I got my flu shot yesterday and as a result I've been feeling Decidedly Not GreatTM all day, so instead of trying to focus on anything that requires thinking I just decided to tackle a pending website project I'd had waiting for literal months: installing Bibliodex on my Amnesia: The Dark Descent focused fan shrine, Aura Tenebras (mostly mobile friendly, but the gallery page is very image heavy and not recommended to open on mobile).

After some trial and error Bibliodex is now up and running on the Library page, which includes fics, meta, fanzines and some other random things. I need to start adding some of my newer fics in there eventually, because I've only ever hosted the three super old fics that are not on AO3. The AO3 downtime situation reminded me that having my own official mirrors for my fics might not be such a bad idea, if it prevents people from sharing them in other places without permission. :')

Amnesia was my One True Fandom for over a decade, and even though I'm not active in it anymore or interested in the shipping side of things I still want to preserve a lot of the materials I created and contributed to the fandom over those years, so I ended up making a site on Neocities some years ago! That's basically what Aura Tenebras is: a personal archive. Occasionally I add new things, mostly meta and unused materials I found somewhere on an external hard drive etc., but last year I even drew a new piece of art, which was just added to the gallery. I also just like revamping the site and trying to figure out more convenient ways to organise and archive things, including the art gallery, which includes literally hundreds of pieces of art. A fair content warning if you decide to browse it: there are general horror themes, blood, injuries and explicitly shippy things in there.

Wait, what's Bibliodex, you ask? Why, it's a JavaScript free indexing tool that's reminiscent of old-timey library indexing cards, created by osteophage. I admit I felt like I was running out of time to do this project with the impending closure of Pillowfort, which is where I originally heard about Bibliodex, even though all the instructions and code can be found on Neocities. A piece of my soul feels at ease now, knowing it's up and running and I've managed to wrap my head around how it works.

Halloween may be over, but any season can be the season of magic and sorcery if you ask me. This piece was mostly made with watercolours, but I've also used coloured pencils and some acrylic markers for the stars and other white details (they're a really nice addition to a mixed media setup imho!). I've wanted to draw a pose like this for ages and I was so excited that it came out even better than I envisioned.

Anyway, here we have two central characters from The Ascended, the co-op fantasy novel I've been working on with my wife for the past few years; warlock and god, apprentice and teacher, and a little bit more besides. Kae (short, red, he/him) comes from a bloodline cut off from magic entirely - the only way one of the Hellfolk can learn any is by bonding with a god. He has dreamed of magic and wizards and whatnot since he was a little kid, so the pact is something of a dream come true to him.

Oh the other hand, we have Kajo (tall, pink, they/them). A former devil who ascended centuries ago, they are the god of arcane, hidden and forbidden knowledge, to whom those who are insatiably curious and who possess a strong desire to learn are often drawn to. Something of a scholarly god, I suppose. They're both huge nerds and equally excited about the most obscure stuff you can think of.

Lineart version and some making of rambles under the cut:

( Read more... )

Current Mood: calm

Hmm. Discovered a small issue with using Postimages for image hosting in that if you have email notifications enabled on DW and someone comments on a post that has any hosted images embedded, Postimages immediately freezes them and replaces them with a picture that tells you to upgrade to premium to link your images in emails. It even replaced them in my gallery on Postimages as a penalty. I guess I'm sticking to hotlinking from Tumblr and using DW's own hosting space for now.

I went and replaced the image urls already so they should be visible again but man, I did not foresee that being a problem. Been more than a decade since separate image hosting was something I needed to think about...

Decided to get started with doing some new paintings with my inks, so why not start with my favourite, the purple Storm hue? I thought it would lend itself well to something both dreamy and a touch creepy, so I drew one of my devil characters, Virvatuli, who has been having disturbing dreams about wastelands of ash, an empty world, and a black sun.

The light is not the best (daylight is very muted in these latitudes at this time of the year) but you can probably tell this paper is pretty strongly textured. I haven't tried my inks on rough grain watercolour paper before, but I like how it behaves already - it gathers more thickly in some places and created very gentle blooms with the water flow.

The sun came out momentarily, revealing the warmer undertones this ink has. I love that this hue in particular looks very different depending on the light, which is something a scanner will never be able to fully catch.

This piece is something of a paper test at the same time, because I'm trying out a brand that I've never tried before. The paper in question is a rough grain watercolour block (300 g/m2 or 140 lbs) from Fuumuui, in size 8x8", roughly 20x20 cm. Texture-wise I feel like it resembles Magnani's Toscana line, another high-quality rough grain watercolour paper, though Fuumuui's is slightly more affordable (and comes with 22 sheets, a pretty random number all things considered). So far I'm digging the quality! It's glued on 4 sides and there's zero buckling even with large amounts of water and paint, and pencil lines erase easily despite the textured surface.

Current Mood: artistic

Originally posted on Pillowfort August 7th 2021.

Written for Writer's Month 2021 on Tumblr. Day 7 prompt: feather.

LITTLE BIRD
Original fiction
Tags: fantasy, domestic, family, m/m
Rating: PG-13
Language: English

Preview:

Theodius already heard the thump-thump-thump of approaching footsteps from a way off and didn’t even flinch as the door to his workspace was slammed open behind him, even though its sheer force made glass bottles rattle in their shelves.

“Daddy!” Hilla shrieked in a voice that only a four-year-old’s lungs could achieve.

“I’m here, sweetheart,” he answered calmly without looking up from his writing. The ink on the page was still gleaming wet and he finished his sentence while small hands grasped his trouser leg and started tugging it vigorously.

“Daddy,” Hilla said again. Patience wasn’t part of her vocabulary just yet. “Up.”

Theodius stoppered the ink bottle and set aside his quill before turning to meet the stubborn stare of his daughter. Hilla lifted up her arms with an expectant expression and Theodius chuckled as he lifted her in his arms.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: calm

I finally swatched my oldest and all-time favourite inks, which are from the Colours of the Earth line by Caran d'Ache. Unfortunately, this particular series was discontinued in 2013 and replaced by their Chromatics series, which I'm less fond of. I managed to buy five colours before the inks disappeared from my local art shops, so they're very old by now!

The fifth one I used to own was my favourite, Caribbean Blue, but it was apparently the only faulty one as well, because after about a year or two of use the pigments or some other components started separating and created a rather unpleasant greenish brown hue. I don't know enough about the making of liquid inks to guess at what exactly happened there, but I ended up having to toss that one. Still miss you, Caribbean Blue.

The rest have held up well all this time. I've used them a lot over the years but as ink tends to be pretty plentiful even in regular use, they're not even half empty at this point. I like to use them like (and with) watercolours, sometimes making monochromatic paintings and sometimes using them to create the first big washes for backgrounds. I've also used them for toning comics in the past!

Out of these four my favourite is probably Storm, because of the shifting hues from purple to gray and brown. The purple itself is very warm and highly pigmented and breaks into lots of different shades when diluted with water. There's also a lovely depth to the Amazon green - a rich, almost emerald hue. I've been entertaining the thought of doing a series of paintings all focusing on a single hue, if I can just figure out a common theme for them...

A couple of examples of art I've done with just one hue under the cut:

( Read more... )

What I finished reading...

I Malavoglia by Giovanni Verga, second time reading but this time in its original Italian. It's not the easiest novel to tackle, mainly because it was written in the late 1800s and people didn't believe in paragraph breaks back in the day, so description and dialogue are all mushed together into some veeeery exhaustingly long paragraphs. Very glad to be done with this one tbh (it's for an upcoming literary exam so there was a bit of a deadline).

What I'm currently reading...

Re-reading Kyyhky ja unikko by Timo K. Mukka, a classic Finnish novel from 1970. I'm doing a literary analysis essay on this one and want to refresh my memories before I start finalising the essay text in case I've missed something or misunderstood stuff on the first round.

I'm also trying to get through Letteratura italiana: Da Tasso a fine Ottocento (Italian literature: from Tasso to the end of the 1800s), which is a course book for, you guessed it, another literature course.

What I plan on reading next...

Something that's purely for fun and not related to course work. Please. D: All my reading since August has been purely academic and I'm starting to feel like biting people... Might go for Green Rider by Kristen Britain, I've been itching to finally get started with it and my little heart needs fantasy to function.

(might try to get into talking about books and what I'm reading semi-regularly, so here's to that! These will definitely not happen weekly though, I'm not fast enough for that)

I've been thinking about where to start with introducing some of my story projects, so I guess I'm gonna lead with my biggest and longest running project: The Threefold Soul (link leads to the official homepage of the story). It's a high fantasy focusing on the romance between two men - one mortal and one immortal - and the end days of an ancient empire. I'm currently releasing the novels only in Finnish since I ran out of stamina doing everything bilingually on my own, but I still release art and comics about the characters and the universe in English. Here's a short introduction of the world itself with some hand-drawn maps!

The Threefold Soul takes place on the planet of Melkem, inhabited by various humanoid species. The dominant one, the taivashi, are colloquially also known as demons; functionally immortal, powerfully magical, they have built powerful nations and seized control of most of the world on its two continents.

Maps, rambling and some facts about the important locations in the story under the cut!

( Read more... )

All maps drawn traditionally on watercolour paper with fineliner pens and coloured with coloured pencils and watercolour. The map of the Hytherlands was toned with tea before drawing to give it a more aged look. Text and edits added digitally in Photoshop 7.

Originally posted on Pillowfort March 11th 2024.

Messy Draft Monday
Guidelines: post a bit from your messiest draft!

She made her bed in the undergrowth beneath tall trees or between mounds of moss and slept when she felt the need. The light waned, then returned again, and after a couple of days she was starting to understand there was a rhythm to it. Sometimes it was the sun, golden warm in the mornings and the evenings, bright and blinding when it was straight overhead and unobstructed by the trees. Sometimes it was the silvery light of the moon, which she saw for the first time during her third night in the woods from the meadow on which she had dozed off.

And sometimes, it was so dark that it reminded her of the deep caverns where no light could reach that she stood still with her skin crawling, frightened to the bone, and it would be a long time 'til she could convince her feet to keep moving.

It was one such golden morning that she yawned, rolled over to her side and slept on in the warmth of the sun's early rays. If the birds on the branches above would have glanced down, they would have seen this: a fledgling elf with brown skin the same gleaming gold as the sun touching it, and a shock of soft, auburn waves upon her head, uncombed and unruly. There were leaves and pine needles stuck to her locks, and her bare feet were dirty from a week's wandering in the wilderness. A long, tufted tail had curled itself around her calf. She rolled over again, blinked in the sudden brightness, and her eyes were the exact gold of maple leaves in the fall.

This is from a fantasy story in the veeery early wip stages that I'm currently calling The Last Elf. It's set in a world where elves are born as a byproduct of magic in the deep, isolated parts of the world, and usually pass on without ever encountering any others of their kind. Our currently nameless main character has left her birthplace in search of other elves, without knowing that no others have been sighted in centuries.

This bit may not look particularly messy, but I've not edited or proofread it, erm, once. :'D

(banner credit goes to

reapergia!)

Originally posted on Pillowfort February 4th 2025. I have edited the post here and there to reflect my current writing projects better. Some links to PF have also been omitted as these will be dead soon.

It's been a while since I did any blanket boxes and this one by Bunns on PF seemed really fun. Let's go, writing friends!

What's a Blanket Box?

A blanket box is a post (the box) containing a set of questions or prompts (blankets) that you can answer to help build your Fort and introduce yourself and your interests or projects to others. Make your own post, copy the questions/prompts into it and answer them. Each blanket box has its own unique theme and questions/prompts to answer.

What's this blanket box's rules? (hint: they're way more like guidelines!)

The first rule is that there are no rules!
You can interpret the questions/prompts however you see fit, and answer with as little or as much detail as you like. You can also edit or skip questions/prompts, or add your own. This box is your oyster!
Optional: tag your post with 'project blanket box' so others can find it.
Optional: link this post to your post so that others can find and use it

( Read more... )

Originally posted on Pillowfort March 10th 2022.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how I edit my raw scans from start to finish to make them resemble the original traditional artwork as closely as possible. I've purposely chosen an illustration with a colour scheme that my scanner has the most trouble picking up: pinks and purples.

What we'll need:
- An artwork to scan
- A scanner (mine is CanoScanLiDE 220)
- An image editing software (I use Photoshop 7)
- A bit of time and patience

Special note: my OS and Photoshop are in Finnish. I've translated all tools and menus to my best ability in the description, but yours might be called something else - I haven't used Photoshop in English since 2012 so I'm operating on memory alone.

1. I start by scanning the image in 600 dpi straight to Photoshop. After scanning I have a raw scan that looks like this. I don't use any backlight correction options when scanning in order to preserve the translucent, soft hues that make watercolour washes so nice to use.

( Read more... )

tl;dr: Most raw scans are not usable or good-looking as is, at least not when scanning artwork (documents are a different thing entirely!). Don't be afraid to edit your raw scans - it's not cheating, and there's no scanning trick that makes your works come out of the scanner looking exactly like the original that some artists magically know and you don't. Know your scanner's weaknesses, such as what colours it has the most trouble picking, and plan your strategy around that.

I hope this was informative and makes the task of scanning and editing your traditional works less daunting. You can do it, I believe in you. Thanks for reading!

Originally posted on Pillowfort August 6th 2021.

Written for Writer's Month 2021 on Tumblr. Day 6 prompt: amnesia. Cross-posted from my Tumblr.

Original fiction
Tags: fantasy, chosen one, villains and heroes
Rating: PG-13
Language: English

Preview:

You crumple to the ground, the Sword of Destiny clattering out of your grasp, its glow dying like cooling embers. The Sword has rejected you, in the midst of your ultimate test; it will never let you wield the power again.

The blast of conflicting magicks has left your eyes hollow and empty of essence, empty of all that was you seconds ago, and I know what you will say before your mouth opens.

( Read more... )

There isn't all that much that I can bring with me from Pillowfort, seeing as most of my posts are art (don't worry, they're safely cross-posted on other platforms + my website), but I'm going to migrate some of my favourite original fiction posts, short stories and maybe some blanket box memes that still feel suitable after all these years. I'll try not to spam too many in one go, though!

Currently I'm in the process of taking screenshots of nice comments and comment threads people have left on my posts over the years so that there's some good memories to bring with me. It's actually kind of soothing, re-reading them and getting to re-experience just how great the community has been this entire time. Makes everything feel a little less sad and kind of just helps with letting go.

Originally posted on Pillowfort August 2nd 2021.

Written for Writer's Month 2021 on Tumblr. Day 1 prompt: protective. Cross-posted from my Tumblr.

Original fiction
Tags: fantasy, pre-relationship, winter swimming
Rating: PG-13
Language: English

Preview:

Theodius was never a morning person, but if he were to choose, October mornings were to his liking the most. Frost-hardened leaves crunched beneath his soles. The air turned white with his every breath. The sky and the lake were the same silver glass, mirrorsmooth and still. There was thin, translucent ice clinging to the reeds, and his toes twinged when he dipped them in the water.

There was nothing pretentious about Octobers. No unnecessary promises. Everything was exactly as it appeared, and that pleased him. Theodius waded in the lake and kept going until the water reached to his chest, inhaled as deeply as he could and submerged himself entirely.

( Read more... )

Originally posted on Pillowfort August 1st 2021.

Written for Writer's Month 2021 on Tumblr. Day 1 prompt: protective. Cross-posted from my Tumblr.

Original fiction
Tags: fantasy, pre-relationship, more or less mutual pining
Rating: PG-13
Language: English

Preview:

There are tiny red shards all over the floor that glimmer unpleasantly in torchlight. Theodius kneels down in front of Giendei and tilts back his head without saying a word. The elf's eyes are dilated and strangely unfocused, and he doesn't react to the touch at all. Theodius exchanges a look with Luuneyd.

“Don't,” she says firmly.

Theodius turns back to Giendei. The curse has hit him hard; there's no indication that he can even hear them or understand where he is. Theodius presses his fingers above Giendei's jugular, feeling his pulse thrumming against his touch, and reaches out to the flow like he always does. Only, this time it's different. It's like there's a wall dividing the source in two – the one that nordlings like Theodius wield, and another, fainter one that glows a sickening light he's not meant to touch. He pushes into it. It makes a wave of nausea bloom at the pit of his stomach and sends out a sensation like static electricity up his arm that makes his jaw clench up. Giendei must feel it, too, for he jolts but doesn't snap out of the spell.

( Read more... )

I'll put together a proper masterpost for all my creative projects and where you can read/view them asap, but since I today got the happy news that I've been accepted to table at Tampere Kuplii (one of the biggest comics festivals in Finland) next March, let's do a quick roundup of my wip projects for the time being!

The Bard's Duet - a SFW 13-page comic about the King of Autumn Court granting Joonatan, his human bard/lover, fae powers and a permanent place in his court. Horizontal format, grayscale, all pages completed and waiting to be scanned + lettered digitally. Sequel to The Bard's Bargain (also SFW), available to read for free on my website!

Divine Instruments - a collection of short fantasy comics, probably around 50 pages in total (I still have new shorts in the making right now, we'll see how many get picked for the print version). Probably focused on The Ascended, the web serial I've been writing with my wife for a couple of years now, since I have a lot of short comics about the characters at hand. You can take a peek at some of the comics here (PS. some chapters of the story are NSFW but the art/comics aren't).

The Threefold Soul: Comics - as of yet unnamed zine for a bunch of short comics focusing on my Finnish webnovel, called The Threefold Soul in English (blurb and introduction on my website). I don't know if the webnovel itself will ever be completed in English, but all the comics I make will always be available in both languages. The print version will be in Finnish and will be sold as a 'companion release' to the trilogy - I got the first book printed in June and the second one's planned for Tampere Kuplii! :)

Pyry & Tuomas - a short, humorous and spicy comic about a troll and a boy out in the wilderness. Based on very old OCs that I wanted to make a webcomic about nearly 20 years ago, but decided to revive for a oneshot instead. I'm not sure this one's making it to Kuplii as it's only at the scripting stage and I'm both studying and working rn, but we'll see! (making an attempt to draw my first ever NSFW comic aaaaa)

All of these will eventually be free to read online, so no worries if you're not from Finland and can't make it to events here (or can't read Finnish for that matter, haha). I'll post links to completed works once they become available!

PS. I figured out how to install a custom theme! This one's by gelateria, I'm adding a permanent credit somewhere on my page once I figure out how to do that.

*dusts off blog*

So with the depressing news of Pillowfort shutting down, I guess I should give this place another shot. I was never super active on LJ and I only posted here a couple of times in 2018 when the great Tumblr purge was imminent, so I don't really know how this place works beyond just making posts on my own blog. I guess we'll find out.

I mainly mourn the loss of my writing communities and pals with the downfall of Pillowfort, so I would like to use this place as a hub for some original fiction snippets and, if there's any community activity (idk how stuff like that works here), maybe try to join some and participate in events? I'm not really into fandom nowadays so I hope there's a niche here for original stuff somewhere. I'll miss the commenting culture on Pillowfort for sure.

I know I made a fandom community for an old fandom I was in years ago when I last visited, not sure where it is and how to delete it... I kinda don't want anything fandom-related tied to my account anymore. I've left up an old fan art post just so my main blog page doesn't look so empty, but I might take it down later.

Anyway, I'll take a better look at this maybe tomorrow, gotta rush to work soon.

Current Mood: blah

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Auraboo's lair

art, writing and stream of consciousness

Recent Entries

Sticky: About me

Lindentober 2026: October art challenge

Study timeline, autumn 2026

Neocities shenanigans

The Conjuring (finished piece + lineart)

(no subject)

More ink trials: Tatterwings

Writer's Month 2021: Little Bird

Caran d'Ache: Colours of the Earth

WWW Wednesday 28th Oct '26

Worldbuilding talk: maps of Melkem

Messy Draft Monday: The Last Elf

Writing Blanket Box

Auraboo’s scanning and editing tutorial for traditional art

Writer's Month 2021, day 6: Amnesia

(no subject)

Writer's Month 2021, day 2: Cold

Writer's Month 2021, day 1: Protective

Comics I'm working on

Another Pillowfort refugee