Author & Artist Corner: Artist
Emily Fiegenschuh: Star Shard
Emily Fiegenschuh's art career began at a very young age when she set up a card table in the hallway of her home and sold her drawings of monsters and animals to family members for five and ten cents. Later (much later), with support from said family members, she attended art school at the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, and graduated with honors and a BFA from the Illustration program in 2001. After working for one year as a product designer at The Franklin Mint, Emily returned to her childhood dreams of creating creatures and characters when she began freelancing for Wizards of the Coast. Emily has done illustrations for numerous Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks, including Monster Manual II, Ghostwalk, and Races of the Dragon. Emily's illustrations can also be seen on the covers and interiors of the Mirrorstone young adult novel series Knights of the Silver Dragon, and in the New York Times bestseller A Practical Guide to Dragons, also published by Mirrorstone. She is currently illustrating the original fantasy series "The Star Shard" for Cricket.
In her spare time, Emily enjoys sculpting. She lives with her husband, Vinod, in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, where she can be found playing video games for too long on breaks, baking cookies at 1:00 a.m., or talking to her guinea pigs Cedric, Mims, Momji, Chester, and Peppi.
"I'm thrilled to be illustrating 'The Star Shard,'" says Emily, "and I'm really looking forward to hearing comments and questions about the illustrations from Cricket readers. I sketched many ideas for the characters of Cymbril, Rompol, Loric, and Urrt. You can see some of my sketches by clicking below, along with parts of the e-mails I sent explaining my ideas to the Cricket art director. I tried to include ideas for any important accessories on each page of characters, such as Cymbril's hairpin and Rombol's goose-headed cane. I hope you like the designs, and I can't wait to hear your comments! I had so much fun doing all of these drawings!"
Click below to see Emily's instructions for HOW TO DRAW the characters from "The Star Shard."
Click below to see Emily's sketches for "The Star Shard."
- Cymbril
- Loric
- Urrt
- Rombol
- Thunder Rake
- Sketches for Part 1
- Sketches for Part 2
- Sketches for Part 3
- Sketches for September Cover & Part 4
- Sketches for Part 5
- Sketches for Part 6 (Harpy)
- Sketches for Part 7
- Sketches for Part 8
- Sketches for Part 9
I am so happy Cedric has a friend! I am glad you like my cats. I love to draw animals. Say "Hi" to Milo for me.
Bye, that's all,
Aria
(February 24, 2009 - 5:20 pm)
Hi Aria,
We said "hi" to Milo for you! He says "hello" back!
Emily
(March 6, 2009 - 2:21 pm)
Hi Emily, I answered you back up there. Ethan
(February 25, 2009 - 5:43 pm)
Absolutely love the illustrations! Loric is just gorgeous! Do you plan to do another story for Cricket? I'd love another fantasy!
(April 7, 2009 - 6:02 pm)
Hi Aries,
Love your name!
Thank you so much for the compliments! I'm glad you like Loric. He seems to be a favorite and I spent a long time trying to make him look unique.
I will be happy to work on any story that the editors at Cricket are interested in having me for! You might see some of my work in the magazine in the future. I'm not sure how often fantasy stories come up, but they're one of my favorites, too.
If you're interested in seeing more of my fantasy illustrations, you can Google my name to find my web site and check out my gallery there.
Thanks for writing!
Emily
(April 19, 2009 - 6:26 pm)
Hi, Emily!
I love your artwork! I want to be an artist or graphic designer when I grow up. My favorite thing to draw are faces. The cool thing is that you can see some of my artwork if you find the American Girl website and click on the poster contest winners at the bottem. My picture is in the older age group. (drawing). I did cartoon people there because I didn't think realistic ones would work very well.
Grace♥
(April 12, 2009 - 7:24 pm)
Dear Grace,
Thanks for writing! I looked up your poster on the American Girl site. It must be the one titled "Stand Together", right? It looks fantastic! It's a great design, and I love the way you drew all of the different girls and the messages you gave them on their shirts. It looks like you're well on your way to creating artwork for your career. Keep it up!
Thanks again for your compliments on "The Star Shard!"
Emily
P.S. I love drawing faces, too. They're one of my favorites! Especially eyes and hair. And for some reason, I like drawing teeth a lot, but that often only applies to monsters.
(April 19, 2009 - 6:35 pm)
Hi, it's me again!
I wanted to tell you how much I loved your illustrations for the last parts of the story! The way you drew the magic when the collar was broken was awesome!
I was wondering too if the special "Star Shard" feature you mentioned has appeared on the web site yet? I am still looking for it.
Also, do you know if Cricket will leave the "How To Draw" Cymbril and Loric and all the sketches for the parts of the story up? I hope they do, I love them! And I hope they also leave the episodes up for a while so I can reread them online without getting out all the magazines. It is great having the whole story in one place, I can't wait till they post part 10.
That's all for now,
Ethan
p.s. Thanks for putting up more pictures on your Website! I check it all the time and I love it when the new ones are there. I might be able to get one for my room, are you going to sell any prints?
(April 14, 2009 - 2:02 pm)
Hi, Ethan!
Thanks for writing in again! I appreciate your compliments on my last illustrations for "The Star Shard." It's been nice chatting with you about the different parts of the story as it has unfolded.
I'm not sure how long all of the "Star Shard" episodes and other related content will be available on the web site. Maybe Old Cricket or some other buggy will pop in to tell us? As long as it is still up and this comment board is still open, I'll continue to check the site. Wouldn't it be cool if they printed all 10 parts of "The Star Shard" together as one, kind of like a trade paperback like publishers sometimes do for comic books? I have no control over whether anything like that would happen, of course, but maybe I can suggest it?
The "Star Shard" feature I was hinting about was actually the "How to Draw Loric" feature. I hope I didn't hype it up too much and get your hopes up too high that it was something more involved!
I still have to check about what kind of prints I will be able to make available on my web site. There's also the possibility that my husband (who is also an artist) and I might be setting up an Etsy shop online to sell some of our artwork, prints, and other things. If that happens and this message board is still available, I will let you all know.
I hope you had a good weekend!
Thanks again for supporting "The Star Shard!"
Emily
Our Webmaster says that the Star Shard episodes will stay on the Web site for several months yet. I'll pass on your other comments, too.
Old Cricket
(April 19, 2009 - 6:38 pm)
Hi Emily,
It has been great talking to you too. Thanks for answering all my questions and writing me back. It would be so cool if they printed all 10 parts of "The Star Shard" together as a kind of magazine paperback or comic book. Lots of kids on chatterbox think so too, some are even making their own by taking the pages out of their Cricket mag. I would love a book with all the episodes together, I hope Cricket will make one for Star Shard fans!
Also thanks for letting me know about the feature, I thought of the "how to draw Loric" right after I wrote to you. I do love it a lot. I don't know why but I just thought it would be some kind of art like you have on your Gallery about the story. Like a "goodbye star shard" last illustration. But the Loric art is great, I loved doing it!
Please let me know about your art work being available online. I will look for you. Will your website update that information if this site closes? Good luck and I will be ordering something when you do.
Thanks for the wonderful art!!! Ethan
(April 21, 2009 - 1:57 pm)