Diodia

30s, they/them, white the burned out husk of a once would-be Character & Creature Designer Also on Bsky and Ko-fi

[astygiansump]

Nicer Nowhere

... or, well, just Ilistirgue. For now

Much like "Soul Remains" was my most self-indulgent setting, Ilistirgue is my most self-indulgent character, amalgam of most of the designs and/or ideas i've ever liked that she is

Ilistirgue is a deific entity created by sectioning off a portion of the fabric making up the plane of Yolsthro into a shape that could be interacted and conversed with by an ascetic people who saw no further value in staying, but had proved unable to leave through other means, in the hopes that the dimension itself could expel them

Despite being the culmination of their study of the plane, she was not innately capable of granting them their wish. Ilistirgue proved an inquisitive soul over the course of her tutelage though, eagerly absorbing what knowledge they had to offer, and they could not help but grow attached

Not enough so to convince them to stay, alas. Ilistirgue went on to fulfill her purpose, and was left all alone as a result. Their absence, her role in it, and the subsequent solitude instilled in Ilistirgue a sense of melancholy, but more notably a reluctance to contemplate her nature and the extent of her abilities too deeply

[astygiansump]

"Nicer Nowhere" is the name i've settled on for my current setting, though i've been struggling to muster the enthusiasm for this i used to be able to (not once did it ever feel enough). Still...

The plane of Yolsthro functions much like SR' artificial afterlife, in that people arrive there from elsewhere as disembodied souls, immortal and freed from physiological needs but now malleable through thought alone. In theory it should be more open, by virtue of me not tying its origins and/or development to a 'real world'

The... most reductive i can describe it is slather Tsutomu Nihei's impossibly huge vistas in a (primarily) Zdzislaw Beksinski coat of paint. It's kind of a gloomy place, for the most part

[astygiansump]

Can't draw environments to save my life, so i figured the next best thing is finding paintings with the sort of vibes i'm thinking of

Most of the plane of Yolsthro is empty space broken up by impossibly vast derelict structures that simultaneously look natural and man-made, and seemingly unconcerned with the laws of physics. i imagine it to be quite bizarre. Surreal, if you will...

Without further ado,

[astygiansump]

Soul Remains

Taking place within an artificial afterlife of (indirect) alien make, "Soul Remains" was probably my most valiant attempt at a setting to date, repurposing a lot of older ideas and/or designs i liked and just generally delving into many of my favourite concepts. Alas…

The aliens in question, the "Inheritors" for short, who achieved (something close to) omnipotence by joining their minds together into a telepathic network, essentially, and began probing the universe for other forms of life, heedless of the fact that contact alone resulted in assimilation

On Earth-in-all-but-name, it lead to the creation of the so-called Archons, children of those who had come into contact with the Inheritors capable (unlike their parents) of partaking in the aliens' network. Ancient history, though

The cast of "Soul Remains". They all had decently fleshed out (for me) backstories... that i didn't save anywhere, and i'm not typing all that again. Long and short of it is Ghost was the protagonist, while Asthureo, one of the original Archons (who weren't actually immortal, but could persist by basically giving birth to themselves), the "antagonist"

[astygiansump]

Now for the actual afterlife part and its denizens, the formerly human chimeras, which ended up split into (mainly) two realms. Even if it only existed in my head, there was a story that tied everything together. Progression would've been Ruins>Sun>back to Ruins>Desert>Moon>Abyss

Realm of Day

The Sun

Artificial celestial body created by and maintained by the angels

The Ruins

Once a bustling dominion now fallen into apathy and beset by undead beasts from underfoot

Realm of Night

The Moon

Sterile home of the Watchers and their Faerie underlings

The Desert

Dominion embroiled in perpetual conflict for the chance to ascend to the Moon

Abyss

The original state of the Artificial Afterlife, before it was irrevocably altered by the arrival of its first denizens. Asthureo and Ghost have their final confrontation there, each with a transformation to suit the occasion

[astygiansump]

Syphmelim

Story/setting i deliberately tried to keep smaller in scope, about an angel's headless body going in search of it inside a subterranean labyrinth inhabited by devils

Not a whole lot else to this one. The angel did have a slightly different older design i got as far as making a (probably terrible) 3D model of, though

[astygiansump]

MP-11ex

Old art. A Sci-Fi setting in name only, the gist of which was various alien species vying (or not) for the attention of so-called higher beings who aspired to become (like) planets, to mixed results

It was these four originally, then i… got bored, i suppose, and started adding more and more, on top of completely supplanting the original (skeleton of a) story i had in mind

Even older iterations below the cut. Though each lineup belonged to its own would-be setting, you can probably tell which of those designs i kept picking at

[astygiansump]

i wish "surreal fantasy" was a thing that, like, existed... does it? the fact i only really care about video games probably isn't helping jkfldghn...

[astygiansump]

i continue having high hopes for From Software, i feel like they're the closest to making the sort of thing i want. Or maybe it's that i twisted my tastes until it became the case, instead...

[astygiansump]

i wish "surreal fantasy" was a thing that, like, existed... does it? the fact i only really care about video games probably isn't helping jkfldghn...

[dykes]

everything can be improved by lesbianism

[astygiansump]

"Nicer Nowhere" is the name i've settled on for my current setting, though i've been struggling to muster the enthusiasm for this i used to be able to (not once did it ever feel enough). Still...

The plane of Yolsthro functions much like SR' artificial afterlife, in that people arrive there from elsewhere as disembodied souls, immortal and freed from physiological needs but now malleable through thought alone. In theory it should be more open, by virtue of me not tying its origins and/or development to a 'real world'

The... most reductive i can describe it is slather Tsutomu Nihei's impossibly huge vistas in a (primarily) Zdzislaw Beksinski coat of paint. It's kind of a gloomy place, for the most part

[astygiansump]

Can't draw environments to save my life, so i figured the next best thing is finding paintings with the sort of vibes i'm thinking of

Most of the plane of Yolsthro is empty space broken up by impossibly vast derelict structures that simultaneously look natural and man-made, and seemingly unconcerned with the laws of physics. i imagine it to be quite bizarre. Surreal, if you will...

Without further ado,

[astygiansump]

sorry about the monster girlification of my art it's because although i'm something of a monster girl myself it's not the cool and/or pretty type which has been getting to me more and more

[astygiansump]

ee-liss-Tear-guh

[astygiansump]

here's also the Ilistirgue model i started making that i haven't touched in over a year. Half-decent reference, if nothing else...

[astygiansump]

posting all the Soul Remains chimeras as a reblog was a mistake everyone's just reblogging the boring part (humans)...

[astygiansump]

"Nicer Nowhere" is the name i've settled on for my current setting, though i've been struggling to muster the enthusiasm for this i used to be able to (not once did it ever feel enough). Still...

The plane of Yolsthro functions much like SR' artificial afterlife, in that people arrive there from elsewhere as disembodied souls, immortal and freed from physiological needs but now malleable through thought alone. In theory it should be more open, by virtue of me not tying its origins and/or development to a 'real world'

The... most reductive i can describe it is slather Tsutomu Nihei's impossibly huge vistas in a (primarily) Zdzislaw Beksinski coat of paint. It's kind of a gloomy place, for the most part

[astygiansump]

Nicer Nowhere

... or, well, just Ilistirgue. For now

Much like "Soul Remains" was my most self-indulgent setting, Ilistirgue is my most self-indulgent character, amalgam of most of the designs and/or ideas i've ever liked that she is

Ilistirgue is a deific entity created by sectioning off a portion of the fabric making up the plane of Yolsthro into a shape that could be interacted and conversed with by an ascetic people who saw no further value in staying, but had proved unable to leave through other means, in the hopes that the dimension itself could expel them

Despite being the culmination of their study of the plane, she was not innately capable of granting them their wish. Ilistirgue proved an inquisitive soul over the course of her tutelage though, eagerly absorbing what knowledge they had to offer, and they could not help but grow attached

Not enough so to convince them to stay, alas. Ilistirgue went on to fulfill her purpose, and was left all alone as a result. Their absence, her role in it, and the subsequent solitude instilled in Ilistirgue a sense of melancholy, but more notably a reluctance to contemplate her nature and the extent of her abilities too deeply

[astygiansump]

Soul Remains

Taking place within an artificial afterlife of (indirect) alien make, "Soul Remains" was probably my most valiant attempt at a setting to date, repurposing a lot of older ideas and/or designs i liked and just generally delving into many of my favourite concepts. Alas…

The aliens in question, the "Inheritors" for short, who achieved (something close to) omnipotence by joining their minds together into a telepathic network, essentially, and began probing the universe for other forms of life, heedless of the fact that contact alone resulted in assimilation

On Earth-in-all-but-name, it lead to the creation of the so-called Archons, children of those who had come into contact with the Inheritors capable (unlike their parents) of partaking in the aliens' network. Ancient history, though

The cast of "Soul Remains". They all had decently fleshed out (for me) backstories... that i didn't save anywhere, and i'm not typing all that again. Long and short of it is Ghost was the protagonist, while Asthureo, one of the original Archons (who weren't actually immortal, but could persist by basically giving birth to themselves), the "antagonist"

[astygiansump]

Now for the actual afterlife part and its denizens, the formerly human chimeras, which ended up split into (mainly) two realms. Even if it only existed in my head, there was a story that tied everything together. Progression would've been Ruins>Sun>back to Ruins>Desert>Moon>Abyss

Realm of Day

The Sun

Artificial celestial body created by and maintained by the angels

The Ruins

Once a bustling dominion now fallen into apathy and beset by undead beasts from underfoot

Realm of Night

The Moon

Sterile home of the Watchers and their Faerie underlings

The Desert

Dominion embroiled in perpetual conflict for the chance to ascend to the Moon

Abyss

The original state of the Artificial Afterlife, before it was irrevocably altered by the arrival of its first denizens. Asthureo and Ghost have their final confrontation there, each with a transformation to suit the occasion

[astygiansump]

Soul Remains

Taking place within an artificial afterlife of (indirect) alien make, "Soul Remains" was probably my most valiant attempt at a setting to date, repurposing a lot of older ideas and/or designs i liked and just generally delving into many of my favourite concepts. Alas…

The aliens in question, the "Inheritors" for short, who achieved (something close to) omnipotence by joining their minds together into a telepathic network, essentially, and began probing the universe for other forms of life, heedless of the fact that contact alone resulted in assimilation

On Earth-in-all-but-name, it lead to the creation of the so-called Archons, children of those who had come into contact with the Inheritors capable (unlike their parents) of partaking in the aliens' network. Ancient history, though

The cast of "Soul Remains". They all had decently fleshed out (for me) backstories... that i didn't save anywhere, and i'm not typing all that again. Long and short of it is Ghost was the protagonist, while Asthureo, one of the original Archons (who weren't actually immortal, but could persist by basically giving birth to themselves), the "antagonist"