i draw what i want when i want 👍 and sometimes i post it!
art tag is #aves art
oc tag is #aves ocs
i have art commissions open! you can find information on them here or on my ko-fi below
Support AStrangeAvenue
i include image descriptions in the alt text of the images i post (can be found by clicking the 'alt' button in the bottom left corner of an image). i can also include it in a reblog if needed! just ask
my sideblog is @aveterhours, i talk and reblog stuff there more. mostly whatever fandom im into at the moment
i can be found under the same user (AStrangeAvenue) on most other platforms - though i only really post art to insta and twitter, and less than here
At this place again. Unfortunately this has been a pretty shit year, and there's some bills to pay that we just cannot get done on our own and have passed their due. No insurance for my wife and Medicaid being particularly difficult to get applied for have made us liable for an entire hospital bill, and we really need this off our plate. I hate to ask, but if anyone has the ability to help in any way, it would really really be appreciated. I'm at the end of my rope here.
$0 / $2,328.91
Paypal
Photo of our very cute cats for your consideration
I *love* your pyke, rett, ko and pixel spec bio redesign! Can I ask what inspired you to go with those designs specifically? Just curious
OF COURSE ! i love talking about my design thought process for stuff like this youve given me a treat . lets just see how much i remember...
design link for reference
in general i was inspired by a lot of other specbio stuff out there, i cant be too specific cause theres So Much but id say jay eaton's works deserve a shoutout since they came to mind a lot in the process
this will be long so watch out
pyke - i knew i wanted solari to be birdlike (pheonix motif !) but i didnt want them to be flighted so id say the body and general shape is largely inspired by ratites like ostriches and emu. good at running. their tails are pretty ostrich like. in my mind solari used to be able to fly but lost that ability relatively (evolutionarily speaking) recently but they kept those full wings cause theyre still considered 'attractive'. the long colorful feathers around the head are also for show. went through some drafts where the wings and main arms were one and the same/the wings could touch the ground for a quadrupedal posture but nothin stuck so i just went with a pretty normal additional set of arms. it was important for me to keep pykes ability to punch and also smoke a cigarette. i kept a pretty strong star theme too; the facial crest is a five pointed star, its not very shown with pyke but their hands (and kind of their feet) have five digits that splay out like a star (you can see it more with rex), their wings are shaped like a swifts wings cause it reminds me of comet trails, and those longer feathers around the head and tail are like rays or trails. id imagine it as influence from alara along w coloration. the face was a lil tricky to get correct but i think i maintained that solari/elf vibe while still making it alien. the lower mouthparts are actually two separate mandibles cause i thought itd be neat. also since solari and nilari share a common ancestor theyd be pretty similar in build, though nilari would lean more reptilian with scales n shit not feathers and less star motif
rett - i knew aetherons needed to be dense, solid, and hard to move but also have the build for engineering so i opted for that centaurish build; most move with two limbs available for manipulation but they can walk on all six. i think they are surprisingly flexible and well adjusted to functioning in different gravity situations . since aetherons exist in proximity with aether often and can tolerate breathing it i imagine them to be distantly related to aether whales and such, which is where the three eyes comes from. the rocky textures/growths just seemed appropriate. the part on his side that juts out from his clothing i imagine to be part of the respiratory system used for breathing and also releasing controlled jets of air/whatever for zero grav propulsion. you can only see the two big digits on each hand in the drawing but there are smaller more dexterous digits hidden on each hand as well. his jaw also splits in two and i gave him only one cybernetic eye instead of three cause i thought the asymmetry was fun idk. main animal inspos were largely aquatic mammals like whales and otters and seals
ko - i had solid design ideas for every species before i started drawing them in full but i think it was raizo i improvised the most on... they also pull from sea creatures largely because of their storm and electricity associations, electric catfish, frogs, and dunkleosteus come to mind. you can kind of see on ko some gill-like scales along the neck, i like to think they used to be more aquatic or are more aquatic in earlier growth stages. i also knew they had to be Big And Loud And Strong, hence the overall build. they usually walk on all fours but can stand up on their back legs with extra support from their tail, usually for intimidation. theres plating on their chest so they can beat it like drums, and another function of their tail is that they can strike it against their own plated backs or their environment to make thunderous noises. they can also make thundering vocalizations thanks to an optimized respiratory system and an air sac under their chin. the quills are for conducting electricity and grow back pretty easily since they are broken often; i think there are conductive minerals in their plating as well. big ol tusks and horns because of course. they have four eyes with lightning shaped pupils cause i thought it was fun. i think one of the most dangerous things to a raizo, naturally speaking, is another raizo so theyre built to beat each other up. they do have dexterous digits on their hands theyre just folded up and protected when standing or walking. ko can still wield her weapon or ride her motorcycle its just a Big motorcycle. also carving into or painting or otherwise decorating scales/plating is common practice
pixel - glowblins get to keep their sorta humanoid posture because i wanted to keep them primate-like, though they draw more from lemurs than apes. i imagined their home habitat as a bioluminescent forest and glowblins as a species that dwelled largely in the 'trees', so their hands and feet are built for climbing. they have an extra limb joint because why not, and their back set of limbs is longer than the others and resembles tails but has less finesse than the other four limbs. shoes are rare because theyre not comfortable for long and hinder movement. the hair is basically a mane, though some glowblins might have more along their body - i do think pixel shaves some. i also think that glowblin hair is actually colonized by a bunch of symbiotic color changing glowing bacteria, without it glowblin hair is translucent/white. their skin changing color and glowing is all their own though. color changing and glowing helps with communication (and has all those helpful ttrpg effects) since glowblins are a highly social and friendly species. the antennae help with sensing, and the little dots around the eyes are actually eyespots to help with more visual sensing. hidden in the mouth are sorta insectoid folded up mouthparts. pixel also uses makeup that eyeshadow and lipstick is not natural. definitely the most similar to humans out of the rest of the crew ive drawn. other animal inspos include parrots and chameleons
and okay i know you specifically didnt ask about ziggy and i get why. he didnt get all weirded up like the others BUT i still want to explain myself . if you dont want to read just skip this paragraph. all i really did for ziggy was lean more into the 'sophont dinosaur' idea so i took inspo from some of the dinosaurs that walked on both two and four limbs for the posture as well as adding some feathers and making it so the hands have five digits but two of them are thumbs. very iguanodon other than the feathers. also kangaroo inspo a lil. to me most of the alien weirdness for saurians is less in how they look and more in how diverse their features are while still being one species but i couldnt really show that with just ziggy... hes def not an anatomically correct trike though. also i think saurians use their beaks pretty often for manipulation since they cant raise their arms up very far. i probably couldve weirded them up more but i just didnt feel like it maybe one day ill revisit
BUT thats about all i can remember ! the stuff i didnt mention i probably just made up or thought was neat w/o knowing a direct inspo but if you have any further questions feel free to ask
I've never been on board with the idea of a non human species looking like and having characteristics of humans so you de humanoiding the sdra crew brings me joy. Helps that your designs are heckin interesting.
YAYYYYY im glad you enjoy them!!! and same forreal like i understand neon odyssey is inspired by that retro sci fi intelligent-aliens-are-weird-humanoids but we could be so much more free... take my hand... specbio is so fun i will take any chance i get to dive in and make shit up and i loved making those designs
Hey guys, I know I’ve asked for a lot of help with rent these last few years, but I really need help this time because things are getting a little wild on my end.
I'm not normally one to put my personal business on blast like this, but long story short, my mom has gone off the fucking rails. We're planning on moving out of this shitty apartment in the next few months. Keyword here being 'months'. however, my mom thinks that because we're planning on moving, that means we're already moving, which means we're practically already moved out and our next place is guaranteed.
We do not have a set move date. We do not even know if we're approved to move yet. We just have a place picked out and an idea that we would like to move.
Given my mother's crappy logic, she believes that means she doesn't owe our landlord rent anymore, because why pay for another month if we won't be here for it? We will very much still be here for it. This is where even more of her shitty logic comes into play; my mom thinks she can "game the system" to keep us from getting evicted and thrown out on the streets before we're ready to move. The system being the legal system. The fucking. Legal. System.
Her plan is to not pay for this month, not pay for next month (July), hoping that they'll start the eviction process at the end of July and she has some weird plot of being able to drag it out through August and into September by filing a response to the eviction once it's been filed for non-payment of rent.
However, for some reason, she seems unaware that they will start the eviction process at the end of this month and have everything ready come July, because they can, do, and have evicted people for being behind one month of rent. They have proven this time and time again, especially in the past with us when they've tried to file for eviction (the last time I was here was because she was mad at our property manager and decided not to pay rent as a way to "get back at them" which we saw how that turned out).
I would very much like to not be thrown out on the streets into the heat during the driest spring on fucking record here in my state. I have senior dogs and senior cats who will already be stressed out by the impending move, and being homeless will only make that worse. I am begging for help so I can literally go behind my mom's back to pay our rent before the next billing cycle rolls around with the start of July.
A friend was kind enough to give me half of what i needed, so the bar will be much lower than it normally is. I don't know what I'm going to do about July yet, I’ll have to wait and see if I can convince her to pay then. as always, please share if you can't donate! Every bit counts <3
caught up on the newer ava/avm episodes recently and they reminded me of the dragonifications i did over a year ago but never posted . i share them now in case they touch upon the souls of any other like minded individuals
last one is of my ava ocs rider and dragon having a dreadful mid-flight encounter during the reign of terror. moments before disaster
caught up on the newer ava/avm episodes recently and they reminded me of the dragonifications i did over a year ago but never posted . i share them now in case they touch upon the souls of any other like minded individuals
last one is of my ava ocs rider and dragon having a dreadful mid-flight encounter during the reign of terror. moments before disaster
SMASHES THROUGH YOUR WALLS OMG OMG YOU HAVE A CENTIPEDE TF OC TOO!!! AND IT DELIVERS POWERFUL ELECTRIC SHOCKS TOO!!! WE WERE BOTH SMOKING THE SAME SHIT WHEN WE MADE OUR BUGS,,,
YUUUUP every one knows centipedes harness the power of electricity thats just how it works . your creature can probably fry stuff better than flagtail though hes kind of fail <3
Would you be willing to elaborate on the ableism in that isat au? I mostly know the au in passing so I’m not super informed, but I’d like to know so I don’t make the same mistakes with my own creations. Genuinely no pressure though
Disabled character who is presented (or at least interpreted as by others) being unable to/incompetent at taking care of themself on their own. Implies that disabled people need to be taken care of instead of knowing how to live with the disabilities they have and experience every day.
Is blind but doesn't use a cane or read braille and is instead given magical explanations for how they can get around these things. Implies that these things are unnecessary or that blind characters would be more interesting/palatable to a (sighted) audience if they are shown to not need those pesky mobility aids/accessibility tools.
Completely blind except for magical exceptions (seeing the stars) (and this helps them to circumvent certain aspects of blindness that are not realistic). Implies that a character must have some kind of workaround to their disability in order to be capable of portraying, because leaving them to experience the full breadth of that disability is "too hard" to attempt.
Is apparently very skilled but is constantly infantalized (example: can't let the disabled person fight despite being fully capable). Implies that no amount of effort a disabled person might put in to being competent at a skill will ever be enough to be treated like an equal.
There's a whole thing about touching other character's faces to see what they look like. Blind people don't do this. This is an extremely common and offensive trope that blind people are sick of. Implies that we give a fuck about what a person looks like when that is completely irrelevant information to someone who is blind.
Portrayed wearing sunglasses, which is another trope that most blind people do not do, and at this point it's so uncommon in reality yet popular in media that I think it really does not need to be on the table anymore. Also cloudy/white eyes. Very few types of blindness cause that. It shows a lack of understanding over how blindness works/a refusal to do research into actual conditions that cause blindness. Implies that the aesthetic preferences of a sighted person is more important than what is truthful to a blind person's reality.
An AU almost entirely done through a visual medium (comics) and yet has no accessibility offered so real blind people could ever engage with it. Implies that we are not expected to exist in this fandom and would want to engage in fanworks, or that our thoughts/input would be desired on a portrayal about us.
I wrote up a post talking about how to write/draw blind characters, because while these issues frustrate me in any work that poorly portrays blindness, I would rather see people learn and improve than to not try at all.
creatures and critters and characters galore @astrangeavenue - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
