Here you will find lots of winged people and worldbuilding. While everything here is fictional, this is a 16+ blog due to the presence of non-sexual nudity and violence.
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☕Tip-jar
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#Vagrant Skies
Vagrant Skies (VS) is a personal worldbuilding project, based around a fictional world where synthetic winged people are common place. Most of the art you'll find in this blog is about this setting!
We've Always Been Here is a beautifully curated art book, produced by @taplingzines and starring creations by dozens of artists from around the globe! (including myself!)
Now more than ever is the perfect time to pledge—there's stretch goals that await to get met, but you're guaranteed to receive the zine itself!
Feathers? Feathers. Gotta add ALL OF THE detail to the feathers >:)
Another sneak peek for my "We've Always Been Here" piece! @taplingzines
Featherart accessories are probably one of the most common among the Ticuna people. While their traditional clothing isn't widely used anymore, it's still important for festive events, such as weddings and the ritual of the Moça Nova or Pelazón, an event to mark the coming of age of women.
Other items used in pre-colonial clothing are animal bones, teeth, pelts, seeds, and bark cloth (made of trees such as the Ficus maxima). Today, the Ticuna are still regarded as being excellent artisans.
Went hiking a few days ago, and decided to do a little experiment with one of the pics I took! A little Kae trekking through the forests around his home, loosely based on a story I wrote around a year ago.
Might do more of these in the future! It was a fun and quick exercise :)
Littleee sneak peek of my piece for "We've Always Been Here" :3c @taplingzines
Have had a blast with research and making clothes for these ladies. Ticuna clans are all based around the fauna of the Amazon Rainforest, divided by the creatures of the sky and creatures of the land. The only marriage requirement among the pre-colonial Ticuna was for your partner to belong to a different clan to yours.
Here I wanted to showcase a little bit of both clan moieties, having a member of the Jaguar clan and the other from the Harpy Eagle clan. (Yes, there's a Harpy Eagle clan irl!)
Note too the face markings; something that characterizes the Ticunas is the use of body paint! Facial markings in particular are meant to represent the clan they belong to
Kaelan hanging out on a tree, made with fineliners and a ballpoint pen. Though I don't do traditional art often, I quite enjoy the meditative nature of carving textures with pens
Made sometime in August and September 2025 (yeah it took forever lmao)
Tori ( @akaiitori ) is painting a lesbian Ticuna wedding for our queer history zine, showing traditional love and acceptance in this Amazonian Indigenous society, who accepted same-sex marriage and fluid gender identites before colonization.
q that just came to me about your recent art of roger fender: you mentioned intricate dye-jobs, how does that affect feather condition? is it a special kind of ""safe"" dye that doesn't break down/do bad stuff to oils or barbs? or other thing
Thanks for the question!
TL;DR - There's many types of dyes formulated specifically for Stratos, so they don't cause them issue! Bleach, however, is pretty harmful for the feathers. So, unless you have a naturally pale plumage, your colour options are pretty limited.
Roger getting his beauty sleep as his stylist works on his wings. His natural plumage is pure white, so to achieve a look like his reference it takes a couple days of work.
⬇️ Long answer below! ⬇️
There's a pretty big industry surrounding feather products for Stratos, which includes preening oils for all sorts of purposes (waterproof, long-staying, scent) and, of course, dyes! Since they are formulated for Stratos feathers, they have to be acidic but they don't cause major damage.
There's two types of dyes often used: powdered and liquid. The powder version is more for temporal use, often as decoration for festivals and events, or for camouflage in the military. Some are waterproof, some aren't, most have solvents to quickly wash off.
Liquid dyes are meant to be more permanent, binding to the feather and lasting 'til it gets moulted out. They can be painted on, or placed with an air brush, and lots of wing stylists offer already-made stencils or completely custom designs. As dyes often do, a bit might run off with frequent water exposure. Definitely don't go for a rain flight after a fresh dye...
Now, bleaching feathers in general is more damaging and it's recommended to never bleach flight feathers if you need to fly. The process actually causes damage, making the feather less flexible, less waterproof, and more prone to breakage. Per moult, Stratos are recommended to never bleach more than once, if at all. Similarly to hair, a black feather when bleached may turn an orange-golden colour, not white.
Also, some preening oils are coloured, so as a person applies them, overtime it accumulates and ends up tinting the feather. It's a more subtle effect than using actual dye, but still pretty popular among teen Stratos! Also popular among teens is using food colouring, and hair dye, which...definitely colours the feather, but those are actually prone to damage the feather by making the barbs stiff and hard to preen.
Happy new year! Here's some stuff from 2025. Evidently, a severe lack of illustrations lmfao. But that's okay! This year has come with massive life changes which left me with little time to draw.
Even if the illustration front was a bit weak, I worked a LOT in writing this year! And started a proper website for Vagrant Skies! Still got a long way until I can publish it—unfortunately my free time will continue being rather limited for the foreseeable future. But as mentioned in previous posts, I have no plans to abandon Vagrant Skies. It's just gonna take longer, but that's ok :)
[ 2024 summary ]
[ 2023 summary - took a nap ]
[ 2022 and before ]
Happy holidays! Here's a few festive birds :) Made for a server I'm in, I enjoy my time there a lot, so I thought about drawing some of the fave bird species from the members. I hope you tumblrs folks like em too!
Roger Fender is a Zephyr Stratos, a variety of Stratos with dwarfed wings—produced for their ornate looks rather than flight function. Roger is an immensely accomplished performer, a musician that has attained worldwide fame.
His music is well known all over Verant, boasting a juvenile and laid-back sound, encouraging people to always remain colourful. And indeed, he's rather colourful himself! His feathers always feature intricate dye-jobs, always flattered by custom outfits and makeup.
Despite his confident and friendly persona, off the stage Roger is rather quiet. It's hard to have him come out of his shell, but certain boisterous personalities have achieved a genuine smile or two.
Are any of the species of winged people hypercarnivores like birds of prey? Or are they required to have the same dietary needs as humans?
Thank you kindly! :)
The TL;DR is that yes, they are all different levels of carnivores. It's an effective way to get energy!
Now for the long version... it depends. Zephyrs (short-winged, unable to fly, and commonly present in human environments) got a pretty human-like digestive track. They still got their oddities, like a slightly shorter intestine and better resilience against toxins, but they are very much omnivores.
Cyclones are obligate carnivores, for purely practical reasons.
1- Brains capable of sapience require a lot of energy + flight requires a FUCK ton of energy
2- Where to get the energy? Food. But a flighted being cannot eat Too much or they risk getting weighted down
3- Meat is very dense in energy and nutrients compared to plants, and it requires a very short digestive track (less organs = less weight!)
So, meat is great if you need lightweight bodies that gotta absorb a lot of energy quickly! That doesn't mean they don't enjoy other foods, though. Unlike the carnivores we find on Earth (e.g. cats), Cyclones greatly appreciate sugars and the fast energy of carbs.
Whirlwinds stand at a shaky middle ground (as most things with them...). They definitely count as carnivores, as they still retain the shorter digestive track and they source much of their vitamins from meat and organs, but they do require a bit more fiber in their diet and less calories overall compared to Cyclones.
Here's a baby Mika after a banquet of excess. He's only known sin since day 1
Aka, the view of the security camera after getting the notification of a fried server room
Mika! Not too happy with how his wings came out, but it's ok. At least his face and hands are cute. Probably will rework this in the future if I ever have time lol.
Hi! It's been a while. Still drawing, just lacking energy to post. Will try to start posting again, sporadically (as always lol).
Thanks to all the people still sticking around :)
It's been complicated balancing real life and personal projects, but not even god could stop me from working in Vagrant Skies. It just means I gotta work at a slow pace—even if it's just one pixel, one word per day.
