we will flower again, i have surely seen it

➾ you can call me auspectris. he/him or they/them. welcome to my art blog! ➾ if reposting, please link back to this blog -- thanks!

[auspectris]

dormitory layout for the dragon-students of academy aquila. also pictured: Tarazed in uniform carrying her laundry

[auspectris]

mizan expression testing because i find her funny egg shaped head really difficult for some reason. also needed to feel out how her fins move because they're supposed to move like ears but they're not ears. so it's kind of hard

[auspectris]

i cant wait to draw them both over and over again 1million times genuinely i think they're so delightful. i love them both so much

[dark-alleys]

Dragon uniforms. For dragon boarding school.

Thoughts and prattling under the cut:

I'm honestly still not happy that this is what the specific setting is, but I don't know where else we would put it, and it would be a pain to change it now. That, and there are a few benefits: everyone is forced to be here, and they are all mentally ill teenagers, so nobody can escape the plot and their problems with each other sustain said plot. I think we're also just willing to cut corners on much of the setting just to be able to tell this specific story -- here, specifically, the world facilitates the plot, it is not the point of the plot. The point is watching everyone feel strong and complicated things about everything and everyone else.

Anyways. I thought that gendered uniforms would make sense here for a few reasons. First of all, everyone looked kind of naked, and without any unifying design elements they all kind of looked a bit too disparate as well. Secondly, the plot hinges pretty directly on misogynistic violence, so I think it makes sense to include the enforcement of gendered dress just to further gesture at the specter of gender enforcement. Thirdly, dragons in this setting do not have meaningful sexual dimorphism even though they do have expectations for what each sexgender is Supposed to look like -- creating a means by which to identify the sexgender category of each character at a glance simplifies things for readers and circumvents the classic exposition problem of "how the fuck are we going to explain all that?"

The straps (present in both versions of the student uniform) are diegetically a means to reduce flight risk and non-diegetically a means to address some design problems. Everyone is forced to be here, but most of them have wings that function. That poses some obvious security problems in-setting. But, consider: we don't want to draw a giant net over the entire campus because it would be kind of ugly, as well as a massive pain in the ass. We understand the straps to be a bit of a lazy solution since, obviously, anyone could just take the straps off at any point, as long as school faculty aren't watching, and then just leave. But, also, they do have guards, and that's also not important to the plot, or the goals of the story, so we don't actually care very much, and they look sort of cool. Conclusion: It doesn't really matter...?

I don't think any of that was particularly coherent but I also don't think I have anything else to say on the matter and all of this is also largely wasted air I could have spent writing the story instead. The bullet hole in my foot gains a peer today

[auspectris]

'do not forget whose you are,' 2024 sketch

[auspectris]

unposted 2023 sona sketches

[auspectris]

unposted sketches from 2023

[auspectris]

unposted marsdens from 2024

[auspectris]

unposted sketches from 2024

[auspectris]

scrapped paintings from 2024

[auspectris]

queuing up a bunch of horseshit because like i have so much old crap i want to share but i also have to be honest with myself that im not finishing any of it ever. scrapped wip paintings tomorrow, 2023-2024 sketches after

[dark-alleys]

i dont like environment design go my shitty closed campus Whatever This Place Is Supposed To Be (Probably Some Fuckass Boarding School I Kind Of Really Don't Care)

[dark-alleys]

they have designs again :) much, much, much happier with these than their original designs. feeling optimistic about this draft again, i'm just mad that i have to either write it badly or not at all

[auspectris]

cause and effect

[auspectris]

decided to line and color the sketch i posted earlier as a belated entry for the first day of brush week 2025. thought it would be appropriate for these characters to do this particular day at least because they've always been celestial themed!

[auspectris]

i think this is one of the best marsdens i've drawn like ever

[auspectris]

heart of the furnace