Secrets ofDarkness News

Volume 1, Issue 3

January 2012

Secrets of Darknesswasn’t always as big asis it today. It oddlystarted with one, fifteenyear old boy, almosteight years ago.

I’m not even sure whatbrought me to this per-son or what I was doingto ask for my first com-mission. I just rememberbeing excited to see oneof my characters drawnby someone who wasn’ta close friend. (Ally hadbeen drawing charactersof mine since MiddleSchool).

I gave thedetails ofAce. I onlyknew someinforma-tion at thetime andhonestly

couldn’t think of a hairstyle for him. I wasblessed to find someonewilling to do a range of

pictures for me and Iended up with a few con-cepts.

To be honest I lovedthem all. I went with theone on the left. (I lovedthe eye color and thehair). From there we hadto decide on a hair color.

This was oddly, a lotharder to do than I firstthought. The greenlooked cool but so didthe other colors thatwere given. That’s proba-bly why it’s mentioned inthe story that he oftenchanges his hair color.From there I decided Iliked the red and theblue best and it was sug-gestedto justuseboth.

Though the blue hairwith red was neat, Iloved the red with bluebangs and decided onthat.

Fromthere,the firstpictureof Acewasmade.Afterthat the

story of Ace and his lifefell into place and fromhim all of SOD was de-veloped. It’s weird tothink that this wholehuge story started withone teenage boy who hada name and a basic lookand turned into… well…What SOD is today.

The original picture ofAce was done by—Seregwen Iaglin

Scaryseregwen.deviantart.com

Kittie looks to be at themost thirteen years old,but she is much older.This is just one of herillusions that she uses.She usually wears allblack along with silvercat ears and a cat tail.Kittie doesn’t speak outloud, though she can,she now only uses te-

lepathy to communicate.This is said to be be-cause when she wasyounger she was at-tacked by demons andthey did something thatmakes her afraid tospeak out loud.

Kittie is a healer and thepotion and spell maker

in Kantona. She hasher own shop whichis open whenever sheis awake. Her andChase are closethough no one canfigure out what theirconnection is sincethey aren’t dating.

Character Insight: Kittie

The Origins of Secrets of Darkness—How it all started with one Fifteen year old boy

The Origins of Secretsof Darkness

1

Character Insight:Kittie

1

FebruaryBirthdays

1

Artist of the Month 2

Picture of the Month 2

A Look Inside: 3

Story: 3

SOD and WebsiteUpdates

4

Inside this Issue

of the SOD News:

Birthdays

for February:

Vince—February 14

Ace—February 16

Jadon—February 19

Art by: AinaShadox

Artist of the Month: AinaShadoxAina is from Hungary. I’ve re-worded her answers slightly so theyare easier to understand.

How long have you been drawing?

I’ve drawn since I was in kindergar-ten. My father worked in Germanyback then, he didn’t have too muchmoney but when he returned heusually brought me colored pencils,felt tips and sketch books. I drewhim something everything he visitedus.

My very first inspiration was videogames, we had a Nintendo consolewith plenty of games, my all timefavorite (and still is) was Yoshi’s Is-land. It really got me with its color-ful graphics. I learned that thingsdon’t need to always have the samecolors. I painted skies purple andgrass blue. The kids in kindergartenfound me insane because of my oddcoloring. I liked to draw rainbowcolored puppies and I used as muchcolors as possible.

I chose a high school for artistslater, though I didn’t have thechance to learn from our teachersbecauseof theirstrangeview onwomanartists,simplythey saidwomen can’t be artist. I got very badmarks for my pictures, I started tolose the joy and interest in drawing.I got depressed and drew mostly

horrible pictures with blood andsuffering. Then I found Deviantartand people who appreciated my pic-tures. I’m still very grateful to all ofthem. This time I started to not hidemy pictures.

In art school I gathered a professionas an animator, though I can’t con-tinue my studies due to moneyproblems.

What do you like to draw?

I enjoy drawing mostly animals, anykind of them. Though I have aweakness (she explained this meansshe has trouble with them) tohorses and I am very bad in draw-ing humans.

I use traditionalmedia most ofthe time but Ipractice on digi-tal art too. Thenew type of artI’m doing is arti-san crafts. Iwork withshrinking plasticand colored pen-cils. I am also taking photos as myhobby.

Drawing was never easy for me, Ispend hours on a sketch and Inever find my pictures good enough.I draw with my right hand, thoughI’m learning to draw with my leftbecause of an illness that is hurtingmy drawing hand.

Do you have any original charac-ters of original projects you’d like

to talk about?

I use to have lots of characters andfew of them still exist, but I don’thave the time to draw them any-more. In primary school I drewmany comic books for my friends. Imade my best buddies into animalcharacters and they were all inthese comics. My comics were funnyones, I drew them very fast and theywere mostly uncolored. One of myvery old characters I still use, whois black tabby with blue stripes.

Any Commission info or anythingelse you’d like to add?

My commission info and prices canbe found on my Deviantart account.Or anyone can contact me throughmy e-mail: ainashadox@gmail.com

Not too long ago. I started a chil-dren’s book illustration abouthorses. This one needs many prac-tice and sketching. (I believe thismeans needsmore workand moresketches). Ialso work fora virtual petsite at themoment.

And for theend, out of all the people you helpedme the most, Tiffanie, I won’t forgetthis. :)

Find more by Aina at:

Ainashadox.deviantart.com

there. She did a few reallife ones and then severaldoll looking ones whichare adorable. She alsogave me the template sothat I can either commis-sion someone to do theother dolls, or she suggested do acontest and have people do theother dolls. ChaoticSkye’s work at:ChaoticSkye.deviantart.com

This month’s picture ofthe month is my 2012PresentsforSanta, SecretSanta Gift. Given by:ChaoticSkye. She mademe several charactercards and a cute Skyepurse to keep them in.

Each have been scanned and willshow up on the character profilesheets once I get them loaded on

Picture of the Month

Page 2 Secrets of Darkness News

And look for the cards on the SODProfile pages! Coming Soon!!

sodseries.com/profilesheets.htm

gotten hard. Our men are workingover time to protect the city frombeing taken over. A lot of peoplehave come to me to ask about ourplans for this war and how we planon winning.” He paused and lookedaround at the crowd. His eyesstopped on me and for a briefmoment I couldn’t breath.

Everything in me stilled. A touch onmy mind told me that he wasforming a telepathic connection tome. Sure enough a few secondslater his voice entered my head.

This is your first gathering? Hisvoice was soft and caring, lessformal that what he was using toaddress the town. I feared my reply.Speaking to the Dyohmis was ahigh honor and I didn’t want to sayanything stupid or silly. It was a fewmoments before I noticed sayingnothing at all would be just asstupid.

Yes. This is my first gathering. Itried to keep the nervousness frommy voice. Did everyone know wewere talking? Was everyonewondering why he had suddenlygrown silent?

“My plans for this city,” switching tospoken words almost made mejump. Perhaps he noticed the longpause he had taken too. He lookedat the crowd. “Is to give it up toHynomis.”

The moment the words left hismouth the crowd broke out in outrage. People shouted and yelled,some moved toward the stage inrage and frustration.

The man behind me yelled out,“NEVER!! We’ve fought to keep thiscity! Why would we just throw it tohim now!?” He shoved between meand my mother and rushed thestage. Both guards moved to blockhim but he was a shifter, andquicker than the guards couldmove, the man was in wolf form andhad slammed Dyohmis to theground.

Read More in February’s Issue ofthe SOD Newsletter.

The man looked at me, “What doyou think?” he asked, obviouslyknowing I had overheard their talk.

“I think if we are goin-“ I was cut offby a loud whistle. All of us turnedand looked at the stage. Two guardsdressed in official Kantona uniformswalked onto the stage. They lookedaround at the audience beforemoving to the corner of the stage. Ahush fell over the crowd as Dyohmiswalked onto the stage. Dyohmisdidn’t look to be any older thantwenty years old. He had blue eyeswhich showed a lot for his age.Everyone here knew what he hadseen in his time. His black hair wascut short and in a choppy style,rumored to be because of theHynomis. He wore fancy clothingmade with Ahunyest silk. Hispresents was enough to silence thewhole crowd. He looked around.

“Thank you everyone for cominghere.” He spoke with authority andno one dared to speak while he did.The two guards stayed at the cornerof the stage between him and thecrowd. There was once a time whenthat wasn’t needed, but it was hardto tell now who was there to protectthe city and who was sent todestroy it. “I know times have

After the Hynomis and Dyohmissplit the Hynomis took over his owntown. This town is off the map andvery few people knew it existed backthen, and now in present day, noone knows it is around. It issurrounded by a large brick wall onall sides protecting it from peoplecoming in. All of the houses arehigh priced. These people have aLOT of money, though it’s not clearhow they make their money. About94% of these people have lived heresince their parents, grandparents,great grandparents have and havenever even left the city walls. All ofthem worship the Hynomis. Many

were alive back when the Hynomiswas still alive, others were raised toworship the Hynomis and every-thing about him. A little over half ofthe townspeople are Ahunyest, theother half are just regular super-naturals. The town was once a largepopulated town before the Hynomiscame through and trashed it.Kantona called it a lost cause andhad all the people from the townsent to live in Kantona and left thetown abandoned and forgotten. TheHynomis took it over, moved it, andthen put a spell on it so that no onecan get in or find it and now hisfollowers live there. Only four people

in the whole town have access toteleport in and out of the town.Though the town’s location isforgotten in present day it still playsa very important part in the historyof Kantona and in the future ofKantona. Thepicture onthe left is ofthe Hynomis(sitting) andthe Dyohmis(standing).

“My plans for this city,” switching to

spoken words almost made me

jump. Perhaps he noticed the long

pause he had taken too. He looked

at the crowd. “Is to give it up to

Hynomis.”

A Look Inside: The Hynomis Town

Story: The Foundation of Kantona

Volume 1, Issue 3 Page 3

Art By: Tifabells

The Secrets of Darkness is a series of novels written by Tiffanie Shaw.

Broken into three main novels ; “Ahunyest and the Secrets it Holds”,

“Where Will you Go”, and “Eyes of the Caged”. This series was started

in 2004 and has been slowly growing since. There are several “related

novels” including, “From the Beginning” which is the story of how the

Gantos begun. “When it’s Over” is a story about the Gantos Slave

Trade, “What you See” the story of Skye at the age of eighteen, and

then “Last One Standing” which is the next generation. The stories also

include many background stories called “Before the Darkness” which

are stories from the characters in the novels told before the main three

SOD stories.

E-mail: sodseries@aol.com

Deviant art: secrets-of-darkness.deviantart.com

Facebook: http://on.fb.me/tTc8JK

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/SODSeries

Secrets of Darkness

SOD is still being re-written and many parts are being added to make the story the best it possible can be.Though the focus is still on re-writing “Where Will You Go” I’m in the process of finding an artist for one of theBefore the Darkness backstories “Fear of the Trade” once one has been found “Fear of the Trade” will be up-dated once a week on a website to hold fans over until “Where Will You Go” is published.

Though a lot has been done with SOD’s website, school has slowed the process. Plans to finish the site by theend of the month is still in works. I hope to at least have the main pages up and ready to explore and the linksin place for everything else. The new format is a lot of up front work but will hopefully be a lot easier to main-tain and keep up with, plus easier for everyone to enjoy. Hopefully once it is finished everyone will be able toenjoy the site and find everything they need for their SOD pleasure.

Monthly Newsletter will be out the 15th of the month. Next newsletter will be Feb. 15. Keep an eye out for it!

Next Month’s Newsletter will include: More of “The Foundation of Kantona”, Inside the Kantona War, Newmonthly photo, a new artist of the month and the top story for February.

“From darkness will rise the light.

From the light the darkness will form.”

SOD And Website Updates

We’re on the

web! Find us at:

sodseries.com