Art

I've never been terribly consistent about making art, but now and then I get in the mood to draw up some of my characters. Click on any of the images below for a close-up.

Besides character art, I also sometimes make abstract art, paintings, jewelry, and whatever else catches my interest. If you like, you can check out my art site, Neitherwise, to see more. I also have a Redbubble shop where you can get some of my designs printed on just about anything.

Short Stories & Miscellaneous - art related to some of my short fiction, and just general SFF

Works in Progress - art from some of my longer works in progress

Short Stories & Miscellaneous

Some of these drawings are related to specific short stories I've written, and some are just SFF for the fun of it.

digital drawing of an androgynous Asian person striding forward with their head up, eyes closed, and hands outspread; there are gold cracks on their right hand and forearm, left wrist, and their throat; stars spin around their hands and clouds billow in the background

This is a character in my short story Imagine a Thief with Golden Fire in Their Voice. I won't say more—you'll have to read the story!

a rough sketch of a young person walking with a bicycle over a colorful abstract background

A quick sketch I did for my short story Something Lost. I used an old fluid painting for the background.

digital drawing of an old glowing Black woman reaching up to the face of a silver titan that blends into the spacy background, heavily stylized

This was originally an illustration for a flash fiction piece I wrote several years ago, but I rather like it in its own right. It was also originally done in markers; trust me, this digital version is much cleaner.

pencil and ink drawing of a young Indian woman holding the head of a mechanical dragon perched on the broken wing of a plane

This isn't tied to any specific story, just something I drew for the heck of it. Who needs an excuse for cool dragons and their mechanics?

digital drawing of two young Black women; at left, Sahar, in white and cream-colored armor, standing in a defensive stance and holding a sword; at right, Asra, sparkly teal dress and rose headdress, smiling as she reaches toward the sun

Sahar and Asra, from a novellete of mine that starts with a twist on the Sleeping Beauty premise and then leaps off in new directions. I'm not normally much for fairytales, but I'd be lying if I said I don't have a soft spot for some good queer fantasy romance here and there.

stylized digital drawing of an old Black woman in a neon green dress; at left, a full-body image where she stands smirking with shadowy animals, a monkey, a large cat, and several butterflies; at right, her head and shoulders, with the shadowy monkey perched on her shoulder and fingering her beaded earring; she looks at the monkey and says 'How many times I tell you don't play with my earrings!'

This is the Demon Catcher! Early conception of a character who has since grown off in other directions, so this illustration isn't entirely accurate anymore, but I still like it.

Works in Progress

Some character art from longer works in progress.

digital drawing of a young non-binary person sitting under a ceiba tree and looking up, with a large raptor (dinosaur) resting beside zim with its head in zer lap; both are dappled in golden sunlight coming through tree leaves above

This is Yexet and zer raptor Tetziryah. Yexet's one of the major characters in What Springs from Bloodied Earth, a non-binary magician with a knack for animals.

digital drawing of two people; left, an androgynous dark-skinned person in a military uniform holding a saber, in shades of indigo over a white background; right, a woman wearing a dupatta, holding an aruval and a pistol, in shades of orange over a black background

Sinhi and Jaksa, Sync protagonists, siblings who have crossed paths for the first time in decades and don't know whether they're on the same side. (Technically, half-siblings, but they never really cared about the "half" part except as a means of allaying all the "Wow, you look nothing alike!" comments.)

digital drawing of two people sparring; Saeed at left dodges a punch from Jaksa at right; Saeed is a thickly built man with a goatee and a scar on his leg, and Jaksa is an older woman with curly hair and one arm; the scar on the shoulder of her missing arm can be seen

Jaksa, sparring with her pilot Saeed. They spar regularly, and she splits it 50/50 whether to spar with or without her prosthetic arm; she likes to be able to hold her own in a fight either way.

digital drawing of a slender Black woman with dreads wearing headphones and typing at a computer

A secondary character in Sync, Jaksa's programmer.

digital drawing of two Indigenous characters; one is preparing a turkey for cooking and says, 'You wanna try?' The other says, 'I'm not sticking my hand in that.'

A couple of the protagonists of Dust and Lightning, ostensibly preparing a meal together.

© Riley Neither