But His Skeleton Is Backwards

how's that for a visual?- 28, Floridian. follow my sideblog onlyscarcelyscaly (and also my Reddit, Bluesky, and Youtube under that same handle) if you wanna see my art and whatnot-

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

Regarding commissions

Hey all, if you’re already on my waiting list you needn’t worry, but once I finish the last of those commissions (by this Summer, optimistically) I’ll be taking a break from mapmaking for a year or more.  I do love my work but it is also very tedious, time consuming, and at times very confusing for someone like me who has only a rough understanding of the geological, astronomical, and climatological processes I aim to visualize.  There are also so many personal projects I’ve been wanting to get back to, and as such I will not be taking any new commissions for a while, though I will be fulfilling all the projects currently on my waiting list, however long it takes.

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

A work very much in-progress, of the mid-sized, Middle Eocene protocetid Rodhocetus pivoting in its dive to take a gander at us

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

Minor update before I decide what skin patterns to give this thing: added short whiskers, a tongue, eyelids, fingernails, and caustics, and adjusted some elements that were already present

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

I could keep fiddling with this for months and months if I don't stop myself, so here's me doing that; Rodhocetus is now finished, even without much of a skin pattern, but she and her background have since gained some coherence imo. That being said, here also are she and her background separated out

Digital painting, Photopea, 2026

[dilong]

Going to keep posting some older art here so I can rebuild a bit of an art gallery, this time a portrait of Dearc sgiathanach. This one I managed to complete in around 24 hours, I need to work on completing work in a short amount of time and this was a good exercise.

[jayrockin]

Runaway to the Stars by Jay Eaton

Alien, trans-species foster Talita has enough to deal with on the scrapworld of Dirtball. And the sly, crimey A.I. Bip isn't helping!

Only 9 HOURS left on the Runaway to the Stars Kickstarter!

We hit our final stretch goal! While the RttS book will be available online and in stores after the campaign, the two add-on zines are exclusive to the Kickstarter. The AMA zine compiles all three (1, 2, 3) of the oldest character askblog sessions into a single fancy book, and the fountain pen zine compiles a bunch of drawings that I've mostly only published on my Patreon (or not at all) featuring worldbuilding and character art. (Also, fear not, the Reader Questions that have been posting on the webcomic site in between book chapters will be included in the main graphic novel)

For information on how to add these zines to your pledge, check out this campaign update.

Thank you again for overfunding the book by an order of magnitude! I am blown away by the support, and very excited to tell more stories in this universe!

[jayrockin]

Less than 48 hours remain on the Runaway to the Stars Kickstarter! C'mon Talita, put your back into it!

Help us reach our last stretch goal and support a strange slice-of-life webcomic about about a bunch of scifi outcasts becoming friends! And maybe also stealing company property and assisting a criminal!

Runaway to the Stars by Jay Eaton

Alien, trans-species foster Talita has enough to deal with on the scrapworld of Dirtball. And the sly, crimey A.I. Bip isn't helping!

[jayrockin]

Runaway to the Stars by Jay Eaton

Alien, trans-species foster Talita has enough to deal with on the scrapworld of Dirtball. And the sly, crimey A.I. Bip isn't helping!

There is one week left on the Runaway to the Stars Kickstarter! If you wanted to get in, remember to do it soon!

The campaign hit two stretch goals already, one for a cover upgrade and one for an add-on compilation book of the three character AMA zines! (The Reader Questions on the comic website are to included in the main graphic novel.)

The next stretch goal is for a fancy full color zine of a bunch of my ink and fountain pen artworks, like these:

So if that tickles your fancy, check out the page and spread the news. Thank you to everyone who's already donated and helped make the campaign a smashing success :)

[jayrockin]

5 days left!

[jayrockin]

4 days left!

[jayrockin]

3 days left!!!

We are most of the way to the last stretch goal! I think we can make it!

[dilong]

It’s been far far too long since I’ve shown my art publicly so here is an artwork that I am especially proud of, a paleo accurate reconstruction of a Yutyrannus hauli. I hope all of you like it too:)

[haanpere]

I would like to draw aliens

are you brave enough to present me with one?

[haanpere]

Here's a doodle for buthisskeletonisbackwards - this creature really spoke to me, making me wonder what their oceans would look like if everything shares this double-bodied bauplan. PS: Though I don't know how they'd look from the front, I hope I did a good enough job guessing. ówò

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

A work very much in-progress, of the mid-sized, Middle Eocene protocetid Rodhocetus pivoting in its dive to take a gander at us

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

Here's what I've been up to lately! Three years after I created the original version, here's a revamp of the first planet I mapped out for @jayrockin's "Runaway to the Stars" project, the homeworld of their Centaur aliens. This post covers Phase One: Geology.

Firstly, the Equirectangular elevation maps with and without the color gradient layer, and tectonic plate map. This color gradient marks sea level, of course, and while there are inland areas that are *also* below that elevation, I have yet to determine which of those basins have lakes and seas therein, and how their shorelines compare; *that* will be seen once I figure out the climate : ) As for the Plate map, most of the smaller, oblong plates without any rift boundaries represent island chains or continent fragments that accreted onto larger landmasses; discretely marking those was helpful for placing and shaping the mountain ranges.

Next, the Poles-Centered Perspective maps, made possible with Photopea's Polar Coordinates tool. The planet's Southern hemisphere, centered on the south pole, is seen at left, and its Northern hemisphere is seen at right. Like the previous set of three, this set includes the color elevation map, greyscale elevation map, and solid color tectonic plates.

Last of all, the basis for the planet's current appearance: it's tectonic history! These gifs, in six frames, cover about 200 million years of continental drift, starting with the breakup of two Supercontinents, and was primarily achieved in Blender. This isn't my first time trying to reconstruct a tectonic history, but it *is* my first time doing so this quickly and efficiently, thanks to the process I developed here using this planet's continents as a test case.

There will be more phases in this project completed and shared in the coming months, thanks for checking out this one! Also, I've already shared these maps on Reddit, where you should be able to see them in even higher resolution. Photopea and Blender, 2025

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

Half a year later, and here's a compilation of climate map sequences for Phase Two of the Centaur Alien Homeplanet commission, for @jayrockin's Runaway to the Stars worldbuilding project. Here, also, are links to the reddit post for this video, and to the associated gallery of high-resolution static maps.

Climate maps digitally painted in Photopea, primarily modified from datasets created by Nikolai Lofving Hersfeldt (WorldBuildingPasta) and based on my own geological maps from this project's previous phase. Video assembled and exported via Blender, 2025. Soon to come (in relative terms) will be Phase Three of this project, to feature satellite-style maps, a realistic Blender simulation of this planet seen from orbit as of a given season, and some part-of-the-pipeline maps which will have made the final satellite maps possible.

[jayrockin]

Just mind bogglingly impressive work

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

A preview of the now-finished product! This is the planet as of January, seen from 51 degrees above and below the equator, respectively, as it completes one rotation. There's plenty more where this came from, now it's just a matter of exporting the footage from Blender and putting a couple different videos together : )

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

o o o o o u u u u g g g g g g g g g h

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

I think I can say that this particular video is complete now, soundless and a little fast though it may be. Although this third and final phase of the commission is done, this is not the last you'll see of it, as I will *also* be sharing the flat maps which I textured the globe with as well as some of what went into creating that sequence. Stay tuned for those!

[jayrockin]

Everyone look at this superbly beautiful ball

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

As promised, various of maps for Phase 3 of the Centaur Homeplanet commission! Those which made the previous video possible! Also, my Youtube channel now has an actual profile picture and the same handle as I have on Reddit and Bluesky, and now here as well, yay for brand consistency : )

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

Here's what I've been up to lately! Three years after I created the original version, here's a revamp of the first planet I mapped out for @jayrockin's "Runaway to the Stars" project, the homeworld of their Centaur aliens. This post covers Phase One: Geology.

Firstly, the Equirectangular elevation maps with and without the color gradient layer, and tectonic plate map. This color gradient marks sea level, of course, and while there are inland areas that are *also* below that elevation, I have yet to determine which of those basins have lakes and seas therein, and how their shorelines compare; *that* will be seen once I figure out the climate : ) As for the Plate map, most of the smaller, oblong plates without any rift boundaries represent island chains or continent fragments that accreted onto larger landmasses; discretely marking those was helpful for placing and shaping the mountain ranges.

Next, the Poles-Centered Perspective maps, made possible with Photopea's Polar Coordinates tool. The planet's Southern hemisphere, centered on the south pole, is seen at left, and its Northern hemisphere is seen at right. Like the previous set of three, this set includes the color elevation map, greyscale elevation map, and solid color tectonic plates.

Last of all, the basis for the planet's current appearance: it's tectonic history! These gifs, in six frames, cover about 200 million years of continental drift, starting with the breakup of two Supercontinents, and was primarily achieved in Blender. This isn't my first time trying to reconstruct a tectonic history, but it *is* my first time doing so this quickly and efficiently, thanks to the process I developed here using this planet's continents as a test case.

There will be more phases in this project completed and shared in the coming months, thanks for checking out this one! Also, I've already shared these maps on Reddit, where you should be able to see them in even higher resolution. Photopea and Blender, 2025

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

Half a year later, and here's a compilation of climate map sequences for Phase Two of the Centaur Alien Homeplanet commission, for @jayrockin's Runaway to the Stars worldbuilding project. Here, also, are links to the reddit post for this video, and to the associated gallery of high-resolution static maps.

Climate maps digitally painted in Photopea, primarily modified from datasets created by Nikolai Lofving Hersfeldt (WorldBuildingPasta) and based on my own geological maps from this project's previous phase. Video assembled and exported via Blender, 2025. Soon to come (in relative terms) will be Phase Three of this project, to feature satellite-style maps, a realistic Blender simulation of this planet seen from orbit as of a given season, and some part-of-the-pipeline maps which will have made the final satellite maps possible.

[jayrockin]

Just mind bogglingly impressive work

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

A preview of the now-finished product! This is the planet as of January, seen from 51 degrees above and below the equator, respectively, as it completes one rotation. There's plenty more where this came from, now it's just a matter of exporting the footage from Blender and putting a couple different videos together : )

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

o o o o o u u u u g g g g g g g g g h

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

I think I can say that this particular video is complete now, soundless and a little fast though it may be. Although this third and final phase of the commission is done, this is not the last you'll see of it, as I will *also* be sharing the flat maps which I textured the globe with as well as some of what went into creating that sequence. Stay tuned for those!

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

Here's what I've been up to lately! Three years after I created the original version, here's a revamp of the first planet I mapped out for @jayrockin's "Runaway to the Stars" project, the homeworld of their Centaur aliens. This post covers Phase One: Geology.

Firstly, the Equirectangular elevation maps with and without the color gradient layer, and tectonic plate map. This color gradient marks sea level, of course, and while there are inland areas that are *also* below that elevation, I have yet to determine which of those basins have lakes and seas therein, and how their shorelines compare; *that* will be seen once I figure out the climate : ) As for the Plate map, most of the smaller, oblong plates without any rift boundaries represent island chains or continent fragments that accreted onto larger landmasses; discretely marking those was helpful for placing and shaping the mountain ranges.

Next, the Poles-Centered Perspective maps, made possible with Photopea's Polar Coordinates tool. The planet's Southern hemisphere, centered on the south pole, is seen at left, and its Northern hemisphere is seen at right. Like the previous set of three, this set includes the color elevation map, greyscale elevation map, and solid color tectonic plates.

Last of all, the basis for the planet's current appearance: it's tectonic history! These gifs, in six frames, cover about 200 million years of continental drift, starting with the breakup of two Supercontinents, and was primarily achieved in Blender. This isn't my first time trying to reconstruct a tectonic history, but it *is* my first time doing so this quickly and efficiently, thanks to the process I developed here using this planet's continents as a test case.

There will be more phases in this project completed and shared in the coming months, thanks for checking out this one! Also, I've already shared these maps on Reddit, where you should be able to see them in even higher resolution. Photopea and Blender, 2025

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

Half a year later, and here's a compilation of climate map sequences for Phase Two of the Centaur Alien Homeplanet commission, for @jayrockin's Runaway to the Stars worldbuilding project. Here, also, are links to the reddit post for this video, and to the associated gallery of high-resolution static maps.

Climate maps digitally painted in Photopea, primarily modified from datasets created by Nikolai Lofving Hersfeldt (WorldBuildingPasta) and based on my own geological maps from this project's previous phase. Video assembled and exported via Blender, 2025. Soon to come (in relative terms) will be Phase Three of this project, to feature satellite-style maps, a realistic Blender simulation of this planet seen from orbit as of a given season, and some part-of-the-pipeline maps which will have made the final satellite maps possible.

[jayrockin]

Just mind bogglingly impressive work

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

A preview of the now-finished product! This is the planet as of January, seen from 51 degrees above and below the equator, respectively, as it completes one rotation. There's plenty more where this came from, now it's just a matter of exporting the footage from Blender and putting a couple different videos together : )

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

o o o o o u u u u g g g g g g g g g h

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

I think I can say that this particular video is complete now, soundless and a little fast though it may be. Although this third and final phase of the commission is done, this is not the last you'll see of it, as I will *also* be sharing the flat maps which I textured the globe with as well as some of what went into creating that sequence. Stay tuned for those!

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

Here's what I've been up to lately! Three years after I created the original version, here's a revamp of the first planet I mapped out for @jayrockin's "Runaway to the Stars" project, the homeworld of their Centaur aliens. This post covers Phase One: Geology.

Firstly, the Equirectangular elevation maps with and without the color gradient layer, and tectonic plate map. This color gradient marks sea level, of course, and while there are inland areas that are *also* below that elevation, I have yet to determine which of those basins have lakes and seas therein, and how their shorelines compare; *that* will be seen once I figure out the climate : ) As for the Plate map, most of the smaller, oblong plates without any rift boundaries represent island chains or continent fragments that accreted onto larger landmasses; discretely marking those was helpful for placing and shaping the mountain ranges.

Next, the Poles-Centered Perspective maps, made possible with Photopea's Polar Coordinates tool. The planet's Southern hemisphere, centered on the south pole, is seen at left, and its Northern hemisphere is seen at right. Like the previous set of three, this set includes the color elevation map, greyscale elevation map, and solid color tectonic plates.

Last of all, the basis for the planet's current appearance: it's tectonic history! These gifs, in six frames, cover about 200 million years of continental drift, starting with the breakup of two Supercontinents, and was primarily achieved in Blender. This isn't my first time trying to reconstruct a tectonic history, but it *is* my first time doing so this quickly and efficiently, thanks to the process I developed here using this planet's continents as a test case.

There will be more phases in this project completed and shared in the coming months, thanks for checking out this one! Also, I've already shared these maps on Reddit, where you should be able to see them in even higher resolution. Photopea and Blender, 2025

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

Half a year later, and here's a compilation of climate map sequences for Phase Two of the Centaur Alien Homeplanet commission, for @jayrockin's Runaway to the Stars worldbuilding project. Here, also, are links to the reddit post for this video, and to the associated gallery of high-resolution static maps.

Climate maps digitally painted in Photopea, primarily modified from datasets created by Nikolai Lofving Hersfeldt (WorldBuildingPasta) and based on my own geological maps from this project's previous phase. Video assembled and exported via Blender, 2025. Soon to come (in relative terms) will be Phase Three of this project, to feature satellite-style maps, a realistic Blender simulation of this planet seen from orbit as of a given season, and some part-of-the-pipeline maps which will have made the final satellite maps possible.

[jayrockin]

Just mind bogglingly impressive work

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

A preview of the now-finished product! This is the planet as of January, seen from 51 degrees above and below the equator, respectively, as it completes one rotation. There's plenty more where this came from, now it's just a matter of exporting the footage from Blender and putting a couple different videos together : )

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

o o o o o u u u u g g g g g g g g g h

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

Now that my niece and her partner have taken it home (thankfully not before I took 50 some-odd pictures of it), here's my completed sculpture of their dog, made with Creative Paperclay around a soft metal armature mounted to a wooden modified jar lid, and painted with oils, 2025-26.

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

Now that my niece and her partner have taken it home (thankfully not before I took 50 some-odd pictures of it), here's my completed sculpture of their dog, made with Creative Paperclay around a soft metal armature mounted to a wooden modified jar lid, and painted with oils, 2025-26.

[jayrockin]

Coming soon: Runaway to the Stars

Alien, tran-species foster Talita has enough to deal with on the scrapworld of Dirtball. And the slyly crime-y A.I. Bip isn't helping!

Hi. Runaway to the Stars (the comic I've been posting) will be funding its print run on Kickstarter this April. Click the link to get an email alert when it goes live.

Ok, thank you for your time. Steps down off the milk crate. Puts away my megaphone. Goes back to drawing comics.

[halogen888]

This is a map based on the Cassini scenario from xkcd’s What if? series and takes place during southern hemisphere summer. My primary reference for this map was a climate model run by Nikolai Hersfeldt in ExoPlaSim and explored in his blog Worldbuilding Pasta. For anyone curious, I used Gimp, Photopea, Qgis, Gprojector, and Wilbur to create this map. Feel free to use this map for anything you like as long you give credit. The heightmap and individual layers are available upon request.

In my interpretation of this scenario, the change occurred sometime before the start of the Late Cenozoic Ice Age and the subsequent glaciation of Antarctica. As a result, the Laurentide ice sheet never formed, giving what would have been Canada and the Northern United States radically different geography. In the absence of Hudson Bay and the Great Lakes, there exists the Bell and St. Lawrence rivers. Prior to the onset of the Pleistocene glaciations, the Paleo Bell river may have drained an area larger than the Amazon basin and it survives to the modern day on Cassini Earth, forming a delta at the mouth of what would have been the Hudson Strait. Cassini Earth’s major ice sheets are thin and limited to the highlands of Tibet and the Andes, causing sea level to be around 70-76 meters higher, with some extra contribution from water displaced by uplifted regions and thermal expansion caused by higher average global temperatures. 

The Pacific Northwest is now both the hottest and driest place on the continent. However, the windward side of the Northern Rocky Mountains manage to capture some precipitation, supporting cloud forests and grasslands. Greenland and Iceland are almost entirely blanketed by tropical rainforests, though Greenland’s thins out to savanna and even a small patch of scrubland in the rain shadow of its highlands. The presence of North America and Eurasia directly to the north and south of the tropical Arctic Ocean forms a particularly strong monsoon pattern as Nikolai mentions in his blog, causing much of Canada to be drier than expected. Although Eastern Canada is dominated by savanna and scrubland, the Bell River is able to supply water across much of it and floods during the summer monsoon. The south east of the continent has a broadly similar climate, just flipped north to south. Quebec and New England are subtropical, the Midwest is still continental, and the Southern United States is subarctic and shrouded in conifers. Northern California is drier while the south is still predominantly Mediterranean. Baja California and Western Mexico resemble the old Pacific Northwest. Baja California receives the brunt of precipitation like our coastal Washington while partially insulating much of the Sonoran desert region. The Mexican highlands are now capped in ice sheets surrounded by mild tundra. During the winter, sea ice connects the islands of the Caribbean to one another as well as to Central America. 

Resources:

Climate Mini-Exploration: Checking Randall Munroe's Work

A new global ice sheet reconstruction for the past 80,000 years

GIS dataset of high-resolution rebound surfaces and ice-free paleotopography of glaciated North America since the LGM based on the ICE-xG (VMy) models' predictions

Earth2014: 1 arc-min shape, topography, bedrock and ice-sheet models

Middle Miocene (~14 Ma) and Late Miocene (~6 Ma) Paleogeographic Boundary Conditions