[crispyfishsticks]

masterserris I thought it was more Icelandic and was YAR-oh-vin slimeful how did i not know for 10+ years that jeih had a full name

The Icelandic-ish version is also awesome, I like it!

I... am not sure I've ever put Jeih's full name on this blog. That'd be hilarious.

He uses the nickname for a very loooong stretch of time. To the point where everyone else uses it, Locks included, and the full name only really surfaces when Ary's trying to get his attention, or when Jarovin's around.

[crispyfishsticks]

Would you mind phonetically spelling out all of the Lock names? Whenever I read your posts, (I first found you through Deviantart back in like, idk, 2013?) I read out Jarovin's name in two different ways, one being JAR-oh-ven, the other being Har-oh-ven with the J being more silent like the J in spanish. But I could be wrong on both 😅

I can do some of them, sure.

JAR-oh-ven is right, although the spanish version sounds cool too.

Aryion always reads like Ah-rye-on in my head.

Jeihirin - Jeh-here-in. Shortened to either J-eh or Jey.

Vian - Vee-an

[crispyfishsticks]

talos-4 Would you consider a patreon or something? I've been a long time follower too, and have wanted a way to get the whole picture for a while now.

I've got one over here at Empire of Eels; currently posting when I can, as I work on stuff (sometimes art, writing, etc).

I would love to answer questions there.

[crispyfishsticks]

I’ve been following you since your early deviantart days and I’ve always loved your locks worldbuilding but there’s a lot of character and lore stuff I’m missing. Do you have an archive of sorts I can read through to get caught up?

I don't publicly, outside of this blog (though some of the older info may be out of date).

[crispyfishsticks]

biorave Little late to the picture, weekend was busy. But totally been feeding on all this Lock lore around red. My curiosity is what are the individual impressions of Red, how each lock senses him what thier impression is. I loved the little morsal about Hon's interaction... but what drove him to attempt an interaction? I have many curiosities.

Locks experience Leothal like fleas would a trapdoor spider. He's approachable, but there's no escaping what he is underneath all those layers of reality, and that he's just waiting. And what he's waiting for is kind of unclear so it puts them on edge.

All Locks, regardless of tier, are used to being the big predators in the cosmos and are only barely accepting of the concept that they can be predated on by their own kind. Jarovin's influence prevents conflict in this area, for the most part, but Red's existence is an enduring reminder of that delicate balance.

Hons' disregard for the lesser wills in many ways matches red's disregard for all wills beneath him. At least... that's Hons' interpretation of the situation. And that gets him into a bit of trouble.

[crispyfishsticks]

Does anyone know why Red is, well red?

That's also an unknown and a highly speculated upon subject.

[crispyfishsticks]

”At the moment he's chilling at North Cliff and subtlety using his influence to drive the expansion of the Abyssal Plane for snacking purposes.”

so if the abyssal plane expands, it will need to be trimmed down again, and he’s the one who gets fed from said trimming? am i understanding right?

The Abyssal Plane is a dimension that consumes other dimensions. It slowly bleeds into and mulches them. Red conveniently removes obstacles and feeds off the scraps.

[crispyfishsticks]

Wyrd66 - Wait I got distracted by my man Jarovin. Tell me about his scars.

Generally, Lockian scars translate to physical form in some way, regardless of the form. Like Vrax, who was blitzed by Hons - all his Lockian forms, and any other forms he takes, are a bit buggered. They come out a little weird in the manifesting. And like Jeih, who also got blitzed by Hons; he rebounded gold and a little scrambled, and rolled with it.

Marks are a little different; they may not show up in Lockian form but may appear in other forms (like Ary’s mark, or Jura’s mark). Marks tend to be intentional, and purposeful, and at least between Locks mutually and gracefully received.

No one knew about Jarovin’s scars because they don’t appear on his Lockian form. It wasn’t until Scott shows up and Jarovin randomly pops into human guise around North Cliff are they really revealed. Generally he’s clothed such that they’re not seen, he almost always has his vest on at the very least. The scars stretch the length of his torso front and back and down one leg. If they affect him in any way, he doesn’t let on.

So there’s some debate among Locks if they’re scars or marks.

No one knows where they came from; in the Locks’ long memory no one ever remembers Jarovin fighting anyone, or anything. He’s different to the rest of them as well, they know, both in nature and in scale; he’s not an entity one fights. So they’re puzzled. Who would try? And who/what would even be able to do that kind of damage to an entity like that?

Although his song was the first to be heard his origins are also obscure so the Locks are split; some believe he acquired them at his beginning somehow, some believe something went down between him and another creature like him, and then some theorize that at some point there was beef between him and Red at the beginning and it somehow escaped the notice of… everyone. And this beef was either settled in a mutual agreement. Or blood.

To be fair, the Locks only vaguely remember when Red showed up on the scene, although Red himself maintains he was late second generation/early hierarchy-born (third generation). A lot was going on at the time, and no one wants to be the one to share memories with him to verify.

The mystery remains unsolved.

[crispyfishsticks]

Tell me everything I need to know about Red 🍿👀🍿

As far as the hierarchy of Locks go, he's second to none outside of Jarovin. Whereas the other Locks are varying tiers of plane sweepers (inklings, lesser wills, greater wills), Leothal is a plane eater. Ie. when Jarovin is into recycling vast swaths of the cosmos, Red gets fed. This obviously doesn't happen very often, and it's somewhat a point of contention for Red... but he is patient. He'll wait eons for his day.

He has his place at North Cliff and all Locks give him wide berth. He has no love for the other wills.

Hons fucks around and finds out at some point.

In the past I'd framed the relationship between Red and Jarovin as rather antagonistic, but it's not really that. They operate on an understanding in maintaining a certain balance/shared goal and that if Red steps a toe too far out of line Jarovin will correct him. This doesn't necessarily stop toes from testing boundaries, but Leothal is generally respectful of that fact. He's opportunistic, not an idiot; he doesn't delight in needling Jarovin, and he's not about to mutiny.

If you happen to catch Jarovin outside of Lock form, and uncovered, he's got some gnarly scars. No one knows what they're from and he will not explain them.

There are certainly theories.

[crispyfishsticks]

what are some things that Red likes to do? Does he like human food?

At the moment he's chilling at North Cliff and subtlety using his influence to drive the expansion of the Abyssal Plane for snacking purposes.

I don't think I've ever put him off-world in a situation with other creatures. I think it'd be hard to convince him that that was a worthwhile endeavor... maybe Jarovin could convince him? I don't know that they'd have those kinds of conversations, though. You don't really want your plane eater out roaming, but, I don't think Jarovin has forbade him from leaving, either. Maybe he gets bored enough to go of his own volition.

I think if he did go on walkabout he'd probably enjoy a lot of the flavors humans have to offer.

[crispyfishsticks]

Someone ask me about Red. I started thinking about him again since I'm slowly revisiting that character, and would like to think more about it.

[crispyfishsticks]

Doodles of Hons as a dragon thing after a random convo with @greekceltic the other month.

Well, I tried for cartoon dragon to match the Jeih design they did the other year, and it came out more like dragon-dog lol.

[crispyfishsticks]

Are you willing to take questions about Red...? He's fascinating in the context of other locks. You mentioned in a previous post that Red is "not an unreasonable creature to meet", but what would encountering him be like? You also said that Hons likes it when he meets others that aren't afraid of him (hence why he enjoyed yahndrall's company as a hunting buddy), but what would Red's reaction to an unexpected meeting/encounter be like?

I doubt a drifting person might show up where he spends his time at North Cliff (sort of like in your Scott/Jarovin snippet), but on the off chance somebody (lock or not) stumbled upon him, would he simply ignore them? Be irritated? Curious?

Sure!

I've been thinking about that lately, because Scott does stumble across him at North Cliff at some point. The Locks know where Red is most times and they generally avoid him. He's not concerned with what the other wills are doing, he's got his own thing going on, so there's not much overlap.

Scott knows none of this, can't sleep and goes exploring to find the artist(s) that does all the cool sculpture reliefs around North Cliff, and thinks he's on his way to finding Jarovin again and ends up finding Red instead.

Nothing necessarily happens to Scott and I'm not sure what happens in the context of the conversation (or if there is much conversation)... but Scott leaves the encounter feeling particularly unsettled and with a bunch more questions.

As to how Red is, I'm still working that out. You could walk up and talk to him, he would field that. I'm not sure what his curiosity levels would be - he's indifferent in the ways indomitable/greater wills often tend to be because they just live and exist at a different scale. But he'd probably be intrigued that you found him, and might want to know your reasons.

[crispyfishsticks]

Haven't done character scribbles in a hot minute.

Ary gets sent off for emissary duty and Jeih will never not be a shit.

[crispyfishsticks]

Got the nice resin kit (right) out of storage and loosely assembled it for my shelf. I still intend to paint it some day.

What a fun collab project though, I still love the heck out of it. Crystel did an incredible sculpt job. I need to finish the dang concept painting already, it's been years, hah.

Anyway, I wanted to let y'all know again that Crystel has the .stl files available for busts of this dragon and the salmon dragon, and that you can find them here. Print, and be merry!!

Hope you all have a wonderful happy new year!

[crispyfishsticks]

I remember seeing some ink sketches way back when on your instagram, I think. Do you happen to know what kind of pens you use? Or just in general with physical media, what does your set up look like?

I haven't done traditional stuff in a while, but I used to use the cheap speedball dip pens and Windsor & Newton dipping ink for the larger, nice inks on smooth Bristol paper (the FU pieces mostly).

For sketchbook stuff I love BiC pens. Best texture and feel for me.

[crispyfishsticks]

Leothins are so cool! Seeing their design change over time in your art has been such a journey, do you still take questions about them too?

(if you do, then I have some! Ignore this if not)

What kind of range of motion do those secondary/manipulator arms have considering the way the front walking ones are a bit in the way?

A compliment with this as well, the colors and patterns you designed for them are also sooooo fun to look at, do you have any others you wanted for them but decided against for any reason?

Those long antennas (?) look a bit stiff/don't seem very flexible, is this a on purpose for their design or just how they ended up looking in the drawings? Is comparing them to moth antennas accurate to what they do?

Thanks very much and have a nice day! Your art continues to be amazing and you are so good at conveying the feel of motion in otherwise still images (especially your locks moving around in their natural state, they always look like they're moving through spaces the same way eels move through water, it's gorgeous to look at!)

Thanks for the lovely words!

Range of motion - they can reach forward a bit, down a lot, back decently, and up a bit. I'm still in some design limbo, trying to decide if I want those arms to be the main dexterous limbs or the main fishing utensils, and that may impact range of motion. Need to do more sketches and think about things.

I'm pretty happy with the colors and patterns, I really love the cinder/jungly stuff. Reds and pinks against black in cryptic patterning. It's been a while since I've done any of those, I think I got stuck on the darker colored northern guys for a bit and never got around to the tropical patterns that I was dying to do.

In the original design the head deelybobs were semi flexible and I've stuck to that. Initially, I think it was a cross of sensory organ and display since they do a lot of things via gesture. I designed the Leothins back in '05, maybe '06 - a few years before Avatar came out. I've wrestled with addressing the antennas, since. I can't really get away from the similarity but... I did it first. :I

Maybe it's time to design away from that, I don't know.