Worlds of ImagenAshyun

Original works, concepts, and stories by Salathiel Silva

[artofimmy]

Top image is General Polore of the Kumaputi, drawn 2019. The bottom three images are me attempting to design a helmet for Polore, which was far more difficult than I anticipated given that I have to take into account the shape of a bear's head and not just give him a human helmet with a muzzle in the front (which is what I did in my oldass 2000's comic).

The armor design itself is still solid, it probably just needs some tweaks and details here and there. I do want to improve on the guandao, though, it deserves to be fancied up given that Polore was from a wealthy and influential family background.

The armor is Chinese inspired but not actually Chinese otherwise. Siquotia is general East Asian coded, so there is a bit of Korean and Japanese too, with a touch of (of course) Filipino because my pinoy ass can't help it. Mostly in the caste system and slavery system practiced in Siquotia. The Grand Royal Army, though, is definitely inspired by assorted historical Chinese dynasties. I am most familiar with the Ming.

[artofimmy]

I heard it's Draw a Centaur Day! Well, it was a couple days ago, so I'm late, but here is one of many of my taur-like creatures.

While I have depicted Bu'hay, God of Life, as a tiny bipedal child, that is only a fragment of the whole God. In reality, Bu'hay in Its fullest form is a kaiju-sized taur-shaped deity, with a balete tree for its antlers/headdress and leaves for its peacock-like train. I'm still deciding if the train needs a patterns akin to the peacock or some other animal like moth wings.

It's a rough concept, hence no attempts at any real rendering or shading/highlights. Mostly because I am not skilled enough to do so while conveying a sense of scale. Look at the little itty bitty person in red on the lower right corner.

That person is 6 feet tall. For scale.

[artofimmy]

Once upon a time, the God of Life created the First Man with love out of Its own Heart. But when the stars fell from the sky and broke the World, the love in the First Man turned into hatred. The First Man died and was reborn, eager to enact his revenge against the God of Life through the mortal man he was reborn as: a priest from a faraway land.

Through this priest, the First Man was able to complete his first step of revenge by slaying the God of Life and taking the rest of Its Heart. With the God of Life dead, the Cycle of Life could not turn; no one can be born, nor die, nor be reborn, nor die again. It is as if the Stars never fell on the Broken World, only with evil and suffering that will remain.

The priest, who was the vessel of the First Man reborn, was filled with regret.

Through the help of heroes, the priest was able to return the Heart of the God of Life. But It would not live again and restore the Cycle of Life as long as Its Heart remains complete. The First Man, still filled with Hatred, refused to let go of the sliver of the God’s Heart he was made of. So the priest gave his own to silence the First Man and complete the God’s Heart… at the cost of his own.

And so, I tell you, a Tale of how love can turn to hate, but love can overcome hate and restore life.

[artofimmy]

Never take me seriously. I don't take me seriously.

Redraw memes

[artofimmy]

What was originally a stupid semi-shitpost doodle became an exercise to return to my manga-esque comic art roots. No, really. I haven't made comics like this since around 2006, when I was still in the Philippines in college.

Orisa the Shrike really can't stand the idea of anyone having a romantic history with the Odi Parush ("First Man") of the Unsung Lament. Meanwhile, Commodore Omya wants to know why the man she almost married has a someone following him like a pet.

Nils just can't even with women.

Oh, btw, Happy (early) Valentine's Day!

[artofimmy]

Ga'bi Reborn, with Nils of the Moors as his vessel. This is not what Ga'bi looked like in life, but this is more or less how he dressed.

Much of the imagery is intended to invoke assorted mythological figures. I am hopeful, however, that I designed the polearm to not resemble the sacred trishula too much. Most likely the "drums" is actually some kind of hammer for swinging sideways as opposed to thrusting.

Coloring is fucking hard. I thank my buddies for assisting me in coming up with something that goes well with Nils' natural purple, which the markings (literal purple aside) is intended to be a mix of the petrel and the auklet. So if I'm going to have to update the colors, it has to be through the clothes.

This is a concept, which I intend to improve on when I get a better grasp of not only Ga'bi as a character, but on the whole of Tales of the Ba'tala, whom he serves as its biggest antagonist.

[artofimmy]

This just in: local petrel man discovers the joy of teeth.

Drawing blood practice.

[artofimmy]

Two members of the Unsung Lament, Nefila of the Gardens and Orisa of the Shrikes.

Mikra (bug) people tend to take on epithets of what location/biome where they're from while Hitoh (present-day animals) tend to take on the names of their Clans.

Both are violent madwomen who often compete over Nils' attention and affection. But good lord, they still have to contend with Nils' actual right-hand man, Liyoh of the Chameleons.

[artofimmy]

"I'm a serious artist", I say.

"Nils is a cool and composed man of culture and class," I say.

[artofimmy]

Petrel beaks are hard.

Practicing drawing and toning Nils. Yes, he looks sad on purpose.

[artofimmy]

Top: Nils concept, 2014

Bottom: Nils redraw 2026

I had to get rid of the white back frills because I ended up not liking them anymore. And he was previously a solid-purple birb anyway.

The thing I think I missed of the older art is the longer bottom hem frills. Oh well.

[artofimmy]

More Nils art.

Top one was for RP a while back, but it went nowhere. I also decided that drawing crested auklet beaks is REALLY hard, especially for emoting.

After some consideration, I went with mixing the Crested Auklet elements in him with (Southern) Giant Petrel, hence the redesign below. The result, plus making the white additional markings less defined, gives him a more solid ambiguous sea bird feel than before. Appropriate for a Himmelia.

The human portrait is an improvement from the previous attempt, which I felt didn't fit, as well as an emotive guide. For RP, it's his human disguise.

The art is still not satisfactory, but it's a start and an improvement.

Nils doesn't have a surname in canon, as Himmelia usually articles plus origin location, house, profession, or characteristic. So his name would translate to "Nils (of) the Moors".

Human disguise and for RP, idk. The old OC was originally "Nyt Muir", short for "Nythaniel Muir", but I dropped that old name, and I like "Nils" a lot more--befitting of a gloomy man aiming for destruction of an entire world. So... Nils Muir? Nils Moore? idk, going from Scandinavian to Scottish felt weird lmao

[artofimmy]

The point of concept art and first/second/third/etc drafts is that you get an idea down in concrete form and improve on it.

I hope to improve on this. I'm not happy with it. I initially envisioned him with much darker skin, but everything came up to an almost offensive blob of all darks and no lights. I can't color for shit.

But at least I have something to go by and I know what I need to focus on what can be improved on.

Gajinka-fied Nils, as an emotive base. While the human faces of Ba'tala characters are never canon, they still help me have a "feel" of the character when translated to their canonical anthro selves. This ain't it.

Maybe he's just not purple enough lmao. I miss when Nils was my oldass high school OC, wherein he's this grape-purpled bird name Nyt Muir.

No, I'm not changing the eyes. The only constant I'm keeping is the striking silvery moon-like eyes. I need to improve on the color scheme in general.

I do have to update Nils' overall design anyway. I'm moving away from basing him off of the Crested Auklet and more of a mix of that and the Southern Giant Petrel. So he has the Auklet's coloration but the Petrel's beak. No more funny Joker smile, unfortunately. I never felt it fitted Nils anyway, he's a gloomy sort of fellow.

[artofimmy]

Any excuse to show off Abena's... assets, I guess.

Realtalk, I too want a milkmaid dress. They look comfy!

[artofimmy]

Top set of four was drawn around 2020, the bottom set this year a couple months ago, hence the difference of rendering quality. I try to do at least some bare minimum shading if I can help it (though I see I missed a few on Polore's hair, dammit).

As much as possible, whenever I create an anthro, I have an alternative human version for the sake of having a reference of emotional expression that I would have to translate into the animal, as real life animals don't express emotion like we humans do (if at all). By having a human counterpart, I have a better idea on how to draw out their eyes, mouth, etc., whenever they are having an emotional moment that focuses on the face.

Also, because it's fun.

Anyway, human AUs, from top left: Kamaya, Ri'anoh, Kuraqa, Gi'utoh, Patisha, Ezamina, Ri'ita, and Polore.

Ethnicities are based on either my personal emotional history with the character (such as Gi'utoh, whose toy I obtained in Austria, hence he is the only one Euro-coded) or where the metaspecies is distributed in the real world (Kuraqa is vaguely Middle Eastern/North African as a result).

Oh no I made Patisha hot, now I have it bad for her

[artofimmy]

I might be dyslexic too, tbh.

[artofimmy]

Just got a bluesky account for my Ba'tala journaling. You can get there here.

Also: a blinking Polore.