Hey there, my name is Stan! Genderfluid bisexual disaster of an artist right here! Don’t repost my art without proper credit! This blog will consist mainly of my art and writing! Feel free to talk to me, I’m on often so chances are that I’ll see it! I have a Haikyuu sideblog if you want to check it out, it’s @bokutos-last-brain-cell! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just be yeeting myself off into the oblivion!! (The fun kind usually)
And with May 31st, we have another Marot Mart Gang birthday this month with no one more fitting than Mei, happy birthday Mei!
I struggled quite a bit with color correcting this one, her scales are a lot more turquoise in the actual piece, but I didn’t want to spend hours trying to get it to look exactly right after spending so long on just drawing the piece. I was also pretty stressed over if I would actually get it done in time so all things considered, I’m ok to call it here!
Though I did think it would be amusing to have Mei’s birthday be in May given her name is pronounced the same way, it’s not the only reason I chose it. One of the reasons was because I wanted Varius to have a birthday month buddy, and the dynamic I’ve come up with for her and Mei is so precious and I thought it would be absolutely adorable for them to get to share celebrating their birthdays together! I bet Mei was so excited when they found out when Varius’ birthday was because not only does she finally have a birthday buddy but also it means Varius can’t weasel her way out of them celebrating it! 😂 Also when I was talking about it with Cam, they actually brought up another reason that today in particular is fitting because May starts with an “m” and her birthday is the 31st.. MEI… M31… Yeah, I really don’t know why that hadn’t occurred to me, it feels kind of obvious!
While this may be the last official day of Zora May for this year, I still have one more piece I’m working on and I should hopefully have it done within the next month! At the very least, I promise it won’t take me until August to finish this one up 😂
Under the cut is just a couple more thoughts so this doesn’t get too long
This ended up being one of those pieces where there’s a bunch of tiny little things that didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted unfortunately, but I’m for the most part just relieved that I managed to get it done in time given just how unfocused I was by the end of this month, it was a struggle for sure. All in all though I am still decently pleased with how it turned out and I hope you guys like it too! This is another one where the design may or may not change slightly, but this is at least close to what it’ll look like in the end!
(Also Pri, to answer the question you asked on Varius’ about how long these kinds of pieces take, it varies a little based on a few different factors! If I already know what I’m doing when it comes to drawing their design or at least have a very good idea of what I want them to look like, it tends to not take as long. On the other hand, certain colors of mine take longer to build up than others so that can slow down progress. And of course the time it takes me to finish one can depend heavily on how motivated and focused in on it I’m feeling when working on them! Going just by the number of days I spent on them, Ledo’s took 3 (I had a really clear vision for his design and his was one I’d really been looking forward to finally drawing) while Fronk’s took about a week (building up the black took a loooong time), but usually it seems to range around 3-4 days. But I also wanted to give you an answer in terms of the actual amount of time it takes, so I made sure to keep track of how long I spent on it this time! Day-wise this one took roughly 5 days but if we only count the number of hours I was actively working on it, it cumulatively took just about 24 hours, a full day’s worth of work!)
I Don't Know Just Yet Who You Take Me to Be (And I Don't Want to Spoil Your Impression of Me)
Zora May prompt: comfort/support
Word Count: 2,685
Pairing(s): Chromatic Scales (Cleff x Varius (oc))
Warning: None aside from the mention of non-descriptive injuries
Summary: As Cleff is checking over Varius' injuries to make sure everything's ok, Varius tries to convince him to let her go out on another run. Cleff tells her that the store will be fine while they wait for her scales to grow back in, but Varius isn't exactly assuaged by that answer...
(Or as one of my friends described their dynamic in literally the funniest way possible but is also absolutely correct: "It's giving scrappy alley cat learning to trust the man that leaves out tuna")
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So this story's actually been sitting completed in my notes since the end of November lol, but I've only just now gotten around to posting it because I wanted a drawing to go along with it and I was struggling for so long with getting these poses right, especially since I did the bulk of them without reference (not by my own choice, I just couldn't find any that worked for what I pictured). And then of course you have the struggles with zora anatomy being a bit different from humans on top of that, made even more difficult by the fact that there are not a lot of good references for the backs of zoras' heads, and with all of those combined you end up with a drawing that takes you ages to wrap your head around. But I got there and can finally share it with you guys!!
I’ve finally written something for Chromatic Scales! This takes place at the same time the second Miphrius story does, two days after Varius gets hurt on her first solo run as Cleff’s supplier but this is obviously how things happened in the normal universe. Since you don’t have a magic healing princess around to take care of them, Cleff was the one who bandaged up Varius’ injuries and Varius can’t immediately get back to swimming, even just to practice. She ends up having a conversation with Cleff not too dissimilar to the one she had with Mipha in the age swap au..
I’m thinking I want to make something like this for all of the Marot Mart Gang with Varius, to demonstrate the sort of dynamic she has with each of them! Though given how long it took me to post this story, I have a feeling that might be a bigger undertaking than I initially anticipated
(The title is from the song "sorry haha i fell asleep" by Egg)
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The moon continues to climb to its peak in the night sky, Varius meandering aimlessly around the domain’s courtyard as she waits for Marot Mart’s business hours to be over for the day.
Cleff had sent her out about an hour before the Coral Reef’s closing time. She’d been inside for most of the day on the off-chance she’d be able to even remotely help out in the store and despite the fact that she actually was given a task to do earlier in the afternoon, she had been getting pretty antsy by that point. The shopkeep had noticed this of course, because why wouldn’t he have, and so insisted that she go take a walk until the store closed for the day. When she would be allowed to come back in, Cleff had expressed wanting to check over her injuries and change out her bandages, so all she could do was wait until then, the time seeming to drag on longer and longer, even more so than the rest of the day had felt.
Eventually Varius sees from across the courtyard as Marot heads into the store to talk to Cleff so she waits a bit longer, and around 15 minutes passes before Marot comes back out again and starts walking towards the stairs. As she does so, the bubbly zora woman takes notice of Varius looking at her and she doesn’t say anything but she grins kindly, giving her a friendly wave. Despite it catching her slightly off guard and making her duck her head a little, Varius manages to give her a small wave back, and Marot grins even more when she does so before heading up.
After that little exchange, Varius walks over to the store again and sees as Cleff is almost done with putting things away, stopping just inside the entryway so as to not get in the way as he does so.
“Ready for me to look you over?” Cleff asks when he looks up and sees her, and she nods wordlessly. At that answer, he smiles and tells her, “Ok, go ahead and sit down then, I’ll get the first aid kit,” before he slips into the back room with the last armful of swift violets.
Doing as instructed, Varius goes over to the chair by the counter, pulling it out a bit from where it’s tucked into the corner so that she won’t be squished into such a small space and there’s room for Cleff to actually work. She sits down on the chair then and waits for a little bit before Cleff comes back and walks over to her, first aid kit in hand which he places down and takes some things out from it.
Once everything is set up, Cleff sits down in front of her and starts on removing the old dressings, asking her, “How have they been feeling? Any notable pain or discomfort?”
“No, they’ve been fine. Pain’s not any worse than what was there to begin with,” she tells him and he nods.
“And how about in general? Have you felt off at all?”
“No, I feel normal.”
“Ok, good,” he says as he carefully looks over each of the injured areas. “Given that and the fact that they look alright, I’d say nothing’s gotten infected and they’re healing like they’re supposed to.”
“That’s something at least..” Varius mutters, possibly to Cleff or possibly to herself. All Cleff does is hum in acknowledgment.
The two of them sit in silence for a few minutes as Cleff first takes care of the smaller nicks and cuts on her torso, making sure to clean each one once again before covering up the areas that still need it, which unfortunately is most of them.
After those are taken care of, Cleff then works to unwind the bandages on her arms to reveal the worst of the injuries she’d sustained and definitely the ones that will require the most attention. Luckily cleaning them doesn’t sting as badly as it had the first time around, but it’s still not comfortable and she holds in slight hisses of pain. It’s thankfully over soon enough though and she watches as he starts covering them up with new bandages, even more carefully than the others.
“Cleff?”
“Yes Varius?”
“Can I get back to doing runs tomorrow?”
He doesn’t look up as he tells her, “It’s too soon for me to send you out on a run, Varius, you only got hurt a couple days ago.”
“But I’m fine, it’s only a few scales,” Varius insists.
“Your scrapes haven’t healed yet, you need to give them time to do so before trying to go out again,” Cleff explains. “Otherwise, you could end up hurting yourself even worse than before and need even longer to recover.”
“But we won’t have anything for the store if I don’t go out!”
“We’ll be fine on inventory for a bit while we wait for your scales to start growing back in, there’s no rush,” he assures calmly as he keeps wrapping her arms.
“I can go on another run though, really! I’ll make sure I’m super careful and everything too, I promise!” Varius tries to argue, giving Cleff a pleading look. “I’ll only get the easy stuff, I’ll go slower, I’ll stay as close to the domain as I can, I’ll even get everything checked on by the healers afterwards, just please send me on another run, I can do it-!”
“Varius,” Cleff cuts in calmly as his hands still from their task and she promptly stops talking, avoiding his eyes. “What’s this about?”
“What’s what about?” she mumbles in an effort to dodge the way this conversation is starting to go, her tone not snippy or anything, but pointed enough that she’s hoping Cleff will deem her stubbornness in giving him straightforward answers to be too exasperating to be worth the effort.
To his credit however, Cleff doesn’t heave a sigh or grumble at her response at all, instead remaining just as soft and kind as he takes hold of her hands and gives them a small squeeze. “The insistence that you need to be doing something. As if you aren’t allowed to take a break. Where’s this coming from?” he asks gently, looking up at her from where he’s sitting on the ground in front of her chair.
“I..” Varius starts before trailing off, Cleff waiting patiently all the while. Taking a deep breath as she closes her eyes for a moment, she then lets it back out and finally looks back at him. “The whole reason you hired me was for me to get stuff for the store, and on the first run by myself that you send me out on, I already managed to put myself out of commission. It doesn’t feel right to still be getting paid when I can’t actually do the job I was given in the first place and I’ve barely even done anything for you at this point, I can’t just sit around and do nothing to help!”
“While you may not be able to right now because of your injuries, you still plan to do your job once you’ve healed. I’m willing to pay you even if you currently can’t go out because I know that you’ll work hard once you finally can,” Cleff says.
“But how can you know that? You’ve only known me for two weeks, for all you know I could’ve taken this job just as an excuse to stay in the domain and I’d work hard for a few months before starting to slack off and not do my job!” she posits.
“Trust me, your impatience for me to send you out on another run is proof enough that you’re taking this seriously,” Cleff says with a chuckle and Varius feels her cheeks get a little warm at him being able to call her out so blatantly. “I’m genuinely not worried about whether or not you’re actually going to do your job, because I trust you and I can already tell that you will. All I need you to be focusing on right now is resting so that your scales can grow back in, because the sooner you let yourself heal, the sooner you’ll be able to work on learning the currents around here, and the sooner you learn the currents, the sooner you can go on more runs.”
“But we can’t just wait forever for me to get back in shape for more runs, we’ll run out of stock eventually,” Varius says, frowning slightly.
“The store isn’t going to suddenly go out of business just because you’re unable to go on runs for a couple of weeks, Varius, you don’t need to put that kind of pressure on yourself. Running this store is a team effort, and being a team means that we look out for each other and make sure we’re taking care of ourselves,” he tells her. “We—Marot, Mei, and I—are here to pick up the slack if you aren’t able to help out like you usually can, you’re allowed to take whatever time you need to get back into things.”
“If I’m not able to help you for so long though, how can I..? Why do you still want to..?” she trails off, unable to string together anything coherent from the scattered thoughts in her head, at an utter loss for how to express what she wants to say.
Luckily Cleff takes pity on her and cuts in, adding, “If you’re really that bothered by the idea that I’m paying you for doing nothing, then you can consider it compensation for picking up that first shipment for me. You really helped me out of a bind, it’s the least I can do to thank you.”
“I thought giving me a job was your way of thanking me,” she says, giving him a slightly confused look.
“Ah, well, I suppose it could be seen as one,” he concedes with a tilt of his head. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d consider it that way with that essentially being like me telling you ‘Hello new zora that’s only just arrived at the domain, I know you just did a favor for me when you were under absolutely no obligations to do so but would you be interested in doing even more work for me?’” he jokes slightly, saying the latter half in a silly voice, before he grins up at her.
Varius giggles softly at that. “Well I would’ve had to start the nerve-wracking process of looking for a job when I’m already nervous about talking to new people anyways as you’ve probably picked up on by now, so you unintentionally saved me from needing to do that in the first place. So I consider it a thanks.”
Cleff nods. “Fair enough.”
“But you’re really ok with me not being able to help out much…?” Varius asks hesitantly, looking at him with a slight frown.
“Yes, I’m genuinely ok with that,” Cleff responds, meeting her gaze with steady assurance, and she studies his face for a moment for any possible sign of him changing his mind.
It doesn’t happen however and taking a deep breath in, Varius closes her eyes before letting it back out and hanging her head with a small nod. “Ok, ok yeah.. Sorry for you having to calm me down like that, me freaking out isn’t your problem to deal with,” she murmurs out in apology, opening her eyes again.
Cleff just gives her hands another soft squeeze before he resumes with tending to her injuries, saying, “You don’t need to apologize for that, I understand where your worry is coming from. It’s true that I’ve only known you for two weeks but by that same token, you’ve only known me for two weeks and you don’t yet know who I am either. You don’t know what to expect from me or how I’ll react in these types of situations, it’s only natural that you’re nervous about the fact that you’re not able to work right now.” He then pauses once more to look up at her as he states, “So this is me outright telling you that I don’t mind that you’re going to need some time to heal and then to practice swimming around here. However long it takes is however longer it takes, and I’m more than willing to wait if it means it’ll allow you to put in your best effort like I know you already want to.”
“You’re already very trusting of me,” Varius comments a little amusedly.
Cleff hums lightly as he finishes with the last bandage, securing it into place before lowering their arms down to rest against her knees. “Well, you make it easy to trust,” he tells her in response, looking back up at her once more with a smile.
Varius’ face immediately flushes and she sees from her peripherals as the scales on her arms and legs turn pink, no doubt a sign that the rest of her body is the same color, but Cleff doesn’t make fun of her for it at all.
Unsure of how to even approach that, Varius takes a breath before casting her gaze down to their arms, Cleff’s hands still gently holding on to hers, as she says, “Thank you, for taking care of my injuries..” admitting, “They probably wouldn’t’ve been treated as carefully if it was up to me.”
“Yes, I’m very much aware of that,” he states bluntly but the tone in his voice clearly indicates that he’s amused. “But you’re welcome,” he then tells her softly, giving her hands one last squeeze before he starts putting away the remaining first aid supplies, Varius unthinkingly picking at the edges of the bandages that were wrapped around her arms a mere minute ago before she realizes that maybe she shouldn’t be messing with the work Cleff’s just done to help her, and she instead tucks her hands into her lap as she waits for him to finish up.
It’s once again quiet, the sounds of the waterfalls the only thing that can be heard by this point in the evening. Cleff does one more check around the store after putting everything away, peeking into the back room to make sure, before he walks over to her again and she looks up at him.
“Alright, I think it’s about time that we head up to the sleeping pools and get you some rest, yes?” Cleff says with a warm smile, holding out his hands for her own in an offer to help her stand.
“Mhm,” Varius quietly hums out in response as she meets his eyes, placing her hands gingerly into his and he pulls her up gently, taking care to not just yank her to her feet.
Cleff doesn’t let go of her hand after she’s up, instead holding on to it and leading her out of the store and up the stairs to the second terrace where the pools are, most of the other zoras already asleep by this point.
Walking over to one of the pools, Cleff quietly asks her, “This is the one you sleep in, correct?” and she nods, letting him help as she sits down on the edge and lowers herself slowly and carefully into the water to avoid waking the others.
She turns around to face him once she’s in, propping her arms up on the edge of the pool as she looks up at him.
“Settled in?” Cleff whispers, kneeling down in front of her.
“Yeah,” she whispers back.
“Ok good. Sleep well then, I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I will, and mhm, see you in the morning.”
“Good night, Varius,” Cleff tells her, smiling at her once more.
“Good night, Cleff,” Varius tells him back, giving him a small smile in return.
With that, Cleff gives her a nod before he gets up and heads over to another one of the pools, and Varius turns back around, closing her eyes with the smile still on her face.
I booted up my game of BOTW to take some reference pictures for a couple of my Zora May pieces and did anyone else know that Cleff yawns when it starts to get dark? I saw him yawn twice in the span of like, 30 seconds. Who was going to tell me about this?? Why will Nintendo not let this man sleep???
At least this lends credence to my headcanon that Cleff wants bright-eyed crabs in TOTK because he’s sleep deprived /hj
For our fifth Marot Mart Gang birthday, May 8th has rolled around once again for my girl, happy birthday Varius!!
It's because of Varius that I decided to give birthdays to every member of the MM Gang in the first place, so she's to thank for you guys getting these portraits from me, and I think this is the best one yet! But before I say anything further, can we just take a moment to appreciate that gradient??? It's not very difficult to do it for digital pieces but physical medium? Colored pencils specifically? And with a complimentary color transition? Now that’s a challenge, and it turned out so good!! Can you tell I’m very proud of my gradient? I’m very proud of my gradient :))
Aside from the challenge of doing the green-pink gradient with colored pencil and making sure I kept the lines for her markings neat, this one was the easiest by far (which I figured would be the case) because I already know what her design looks like and I’ve also just drawn her a ton so I have a good feel for her shapes! I had a lot of fun with this one too because I just really love her colors, especially that blue
Varius’ birthday is actually a rather significant day for her, because the day of her 100th birthday was when she had the idea to travel to Hyrule and try living there as a way of proving her independence as a newly recognized adult. She didn’t leave immediately and spent some time planning, but she did eventually make it to Zora’s Domain two months later! It’s because of that specific birthday that she has the life she lives now, and so she’s grateful for it. She doesn’t put too much importance in celebrating her birthday for its own sake however, but the rest of the MM Gang won’t let that slide and are the only reason she isn’t allowed to spend the entire day working! 😂
As always I hope you like the piece and we’re officially at the halfway point, 5 more birthdays to go!
Today officially marks the start of Zora May 2026 and to kick things off, you may remember that I mentioned I’d come up with some side quests for Varius when I first revealed her design just over a year ago but haven’t said much about it since. Well we just so happen to have the perfect prompt for it from one of the previous years, so I’m finally going to be sharing them with you guys!!
My initial plan was to have a few drawings to go along with it but I can always do that another time, I’ve kept you guys and myself waiting for this long enough! And given this is me we’re talking about, the explanation is of course quite in-depth so I’ll have them under the cut! I hope you guys are excited, cause I’m excited to finally tell you! So without further ado!
Zora May prompt: Sidequest!!
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In case anyone is new here, Varius would appear in Tears of the Kingdom as she had moved to the domain in between the events of BOTW and TOTK, so that’s the game these side quests would appear in by extension. I originally had an idea for a few different possible side quests involving Varius but I realized I could actually combine them into a small series of side quests where Link would help her out! Also I just wanted to mention that though I have my own personal headcanons and interpretations of the games and their stories, these quests adhere to the canon events in Tears of the Kingdom. This is simply a hypothetical of what I think it could look like if Varius was a character in the actual game rather than being a rewrite. And even though I’m sticking to canon in regard to story, these play a little bit fast and loose with the actual map layout, such as the locations of certain materials and monsters surrounding the domain
Given her job as the Coral Reef’s supplier, that’s actually where her side quests would come in, because of the fact that she doesn’t stay confined to the domain itself but instead often explores the wider area. Things were a lot easier when she first moved and started working but after the Upheaval, there are more monsters and things have become a little dangerous outside the domain, making her main job harder, which isn’t great because she’s the one who’s responsible for acquiring everything sold in the store that isn’t fish!
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So there would actually be a pseudo-quest even before the little series of side quests where she’s on the outskirts of the domain, having been tasked by Yona to get more splash fruit to clean up the domain from the sludge. She specifically mentions that Lady Yona appointed her with the task, seeing as it’s one of the usual things she’s supposed to get for the store but Yona requested that she make that her main priority
The reason Varius is at the edge of the domain and hasn’t set out yet despite it being top priority is because she’s trying to figure out where there would be any splash fruit left since they’ve been using up so much of it. If you say that you’re here to get some as well, she’ll actually give you what she’s acquired already to take back to the domain while she goes further out to get more. It wouldn’t necessarily be a quest per se but rather something to aid you with a quest you already were given and would be another way to get the items necessary to complete it!
And I’m thinking you actually can still get splash fruit from her even if you’ve already gotten rid of the sludge, and she’ll say that even with it cleared up, it’s probably a good idea to have some on hand and since she’s going out to get more anyways, she gives you what she had!
Her actual series of side quests would only become available after you’ve taken care of the sludge
❗The first quest would be where you’re properly introduced to her now that the sludge is no longer endangering the domain and you would find her once again at the edge of the domain towards one of the areas where you can collect a lot of materials, with her looking in that direction warily while muttering to herself. When you interact with her, she jumps a little in surprise (with a brief flash of neon blue scales of course) because she was so lost in thought. If you ask her what’s wrong, she’ll explain that she’s the supplier for the Coral Reef and needs to get more for the store’s inventory but lately a monster camp has been set up in one of her usual spots and so it’s become risky for her to try to get to it. She asks if you would be able to clear out the monster camp for her so she can get what she needs but says that she’ll try to figure something else out if you can’t. If you accept her request and do so, you can then meet her back at the domain and she gives you some of what she was able to collect thanks to your help
❗The second quest is unique because it would actually be possible to start it one of two different ways. The first way to start it would probably be the most common way players would discover this quest, which would be by talking to Cleff. He will be looking a bit concerned next time you see him and you would be able to go about general business with him buying and selling stuff as usual, but you can also bring up that he’s acting differently. If you do, he’ll explain that the zora who restocks the store’s inventory went out to go on another collection run a while ago but she hasn’t come back yet. He says that usually she’s very quick and her trips don’t usually take her that long (except for when she occasionally gets distracted while out) so it’s strange for her to not be back by now, and since there have been more monsters around due to the Upheaval, he thinks something might’ve happened that’s stopping her from being able to get back. He tells you the general spot she had been heading to this time and asks you to try and see if she’s there if you wind up in the area. He also gives you the information/clue that due to her color-changing abilities, she might be a little hard to spot if she had to hide somewhere
The other way to start the quest is just by spotting Varius in that area and talking to her. If you talked to Cleff first and tell her that he sent you to look for her, she’ll say something along the lines of “Oh gosh, Cleff’s worried about where I am?” but if you talk to her first without seeing Cleff and simply ask what she’s doing all the way out here, she’ll say something like “Cleff’s probably wondering where I am by now…” Either way, she’ll then explain to you that she was gathering more items for the store since they’re running low on some things but one of the big monsters (I’m leaning towards hinox) showed up and is cutting off the way she came with there being no other way she can escape. She asks if you would be willing to defeat the monster and come tell her when you’ve taken care of it and when you do so, she’ll then be able to head back to the domain and the quest log will tell you to go talk to Cleff again. Once you get back to the domain yourself and go into the store, you’ll find her and Cleff talking to each other and when you go to interact, you’ll hear a little snippet of their conversation before Cleff notices you and thanks you profusely for finding her, saying that she told him all about how you took down the monster and helped her be able to make it back safely. He then rewards you (maybe with rupees) and the quest is complete. If you talk to Varius directly after that, she’ll also have some dialogue where she thanks you
With this quest, I’m imagining she’s hiding by a tree near some sort of foliage and her scales having turned green to match her surroundings! This is why I bet more players would know of the quest through talking to Cleff first, rather than just chancing upon her. And a fun mechanic I’ve come up with is that you can actually locate her a little bit easier by using the nature of her color-changing to your advantage. The example I thought of is that if you set off something like a bomb flower in the general area, the explosion will cause her to jump and turn neon blue in surprise, and if you spot that brief flash of color, it helps you find her faster than just trying to meticulously look for her or get close enough to see the side quest indicator!
❗The third and final quest would be started just outside the store’s entrance, where Varius is standing and will say that due to the recent increase in monster activity and Cleff’s concern about her safety, she thinks she probably needs to change the spots she goes to get the things the store needs. She says that she knows you’ve helped her a lot already but she has one more request to ask of you that should be much safer than the previous times you’ve helped her out. If you ask what it is, she’ll say that she would like for you to go find some safe areas relatively close by with the items she needs and take pictures of them to show her. If you accept the quest, she’ll then tell you what items she’s looking for and once you do as asked, she’ll reward you with something like a diamond for all of your help throughout this series of quests!
After you’ve completed all of Varius’ side quests, I’m imagining there’d be some sort of change in the domain that’s a result of your help. Like maybe you could then find Varius wandering around the areas surrounding the domain, where she’d act as a traveling merchant selling a few of the same items that the Coral Reef sells, obviously because she’s on one of her runs getting them for the store. And potentially she could also be selling some bright-eyed crabs, something which the store doesn’t sell… And I don’t know if this would be a reasonable mechanic in the game or not but I also thought it could be kind of cool if before you do these quests, the Coral Reef restocks like usual but if you help them out, the store would stock twice as many of each item as the other stores! I’m not sure if it would be a little overkill having both of those things, but I think having at least one of them would be interesting!
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So there are all of Varius’ side quests!! As I did with her character in general, I really tried to design her side quests so that it feels like she’s a natural part of the world and could be an actual NPC in the game. I wanted to make the quests so it’s not something that’s necessary to progress through the game but if you choose to do it, you get to know a bit about her as a character and get to see a tiny bit of story involving the store and two of the zoras that work there. Also since Cleff really only directly appears in Varius’ second side quest, I don’t think it interferes with his own canon side quest too much so his could still be included!
I know this is quite the lengthy explanation so thank you if you read all the way to the end, I had a lot of fun coming up with this hypothetical series of side quests for Varius and I hope you guys enjoyed hearing about it! I’d love to know if anything in particular piqued your interest or what you think about them overall!
I’m sure this doesn’t come as a surprise but I just wanted to mention that I will be doing Zora May again this year!
Alongside Vari’s birthday, I have a few other things in the works that I’m hoping to get done and share with you guys! We’re not being as ambitious as last year though, no digitally painting the domain courtyard just for concept art 😂
April 30th is our second Marot Mart Gang birthday for this month with Fronk, so happy birthday Fronk!
This one ended up being quite a challenge not with figuring out the shapes for his features (that part actually wasn't too bad this time around) but because of the colors, it was a bit tricky building up the darker colors! It's still not as dark as the color I have in mind for Fronk's design but this was about as dark as I could achieve with my colored pencils without making the outlines practically invisible, it's at the very least the correct hue
It's kind of interesting that Tona and Fronk are birthday month buddies because they're very different personality-wise, I have the feeling they probably don't interact too much with each other. The reason I think it's interesting is because it's a distinct contrast to our two zoras in March, Ledo and Marot. Obviously my portrayal of the MM Gang is a lot more fleshed out than what they're able to do in the games, but I picture Ledo and Marot getting along really well and being close friends, so it's a lot of fun for them celebrating their birthdays together. The dynamic between Tona and Fronk is a lot more nebulous though, since they only really know each other because both have a family member who are coworkers with each other. Anyways, this isn't related to the piece at all but I thought you guys might enjoy learning some more info on the relationship dynamics I have established for the MM Gang!
As always, I hope you all like the piece and are looking forward to the rest of them! You guys actually get to know this time who's birthday will be coming up next since it's one I've already celebrated once before, because it's none other than Varius! Her birthday is May 8th so you guys really won't have to wait too long!
April 16th is the next Marot Mart Gang birthday with Tona, so happy birthday Tona!
Given the fact that I already have Cleff's design figured out (from the shoulders up at least), I tried to include some similar features to Tona's design since they're siblings, which made it at least a little bit easier than it had been with Ledo and Marot's. There are still some tweaks I plan to make to this design too but luckily I know exactly what changes I need to make and they're pretty simple ones!
Feel free to read below for me being a nerd about small details because I got too excited and it ended up longer than I had anticipated:
As is the case with basically every character detail I come up with, my choice for each of the MM Gang's birthdays was very deliberate and had a lot of thought put into it, and I wanted to explain the reason for Tona's just to give you guys an idea of what I mean by that!
So whenever I'm trying to figure out a specific day for something such as a character's birthday, one of the methods I use is to look for some kind of notable 2, 3, or 4-digit number associated with another detail about them that can correspond to a date on the calendar if you were to write it out numerically (and just so no one gets confused, I use the month/day format for this not just because that's the way I grew up using but because if I were to do it day/month, it rules out every number with the first two digits higher than 31)
As you guys may or may not know, Tona is a member of the zora band I created, the Luminous Tones, in which she plays the flute. A simple option I could've gone with is April 21st (4/21), as 421 is the classification number for any edge-blown aerophones or flutes (which Tona's flute falls under) in the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system. I felt I could find something better though, and so I kept looking. There's a type of flute in the Western concert flute family called a flûte d'amour (sometimes called a mezzo-soprano flute), which sits between the common C concert flute and the alto flute in terms of size. "Flûte d'amour" translates to "love flute" which I thought was quite fitting due to Tona being a member of the Prince Sidon fan club and would be a cute nod to her being a bit of a romantic
The flûte d'amour is pitched in either A♭, A, or B♭, and has a range from G3 to E7. Within that range is the A above middle C or A4, which is a noteworthy (hehe) note because it's most commonly used as a reference for tuning by adjusting it to have a frequency of 440 hertz. Unfortunately this number doesn't correspond to a real day but right under A4 is A♭4, and remember how I said that the flûte d'amour is sometimes pitched in A♭? If you pull up a chart of the frequencies of all the different music notes, A♭4 has a frequency of 415.3047 hertz, which has a whole number that does correspond to an actual day!!
You may be wondering why I chose to make her birthday April 16th rather than April 15th since if we use the most common rounding method (called "rounding half up") to the nearest integer, 415.3047 would round down to 415. I however decided I was going to round up (also known as taking the ceiling or rounding toward positive infinity) because April 16th is World Voice Day! Given that Tona's name is a music pun based off the word "tone" and the voice is a very common way of making music, her birthday being April 16th is a neat little reference to that. And though she doesn't play an instrument that allows her to sing at the same time, her instrument is one that requires her voice to a degree!
Not every one of their birthdays has quite so many layers to the reason behind me choosing them, but most (if not all) have at least two, because even though I really don't need to spend so much time on figuring this kind of stuff out, I have a lot of fun with incorporating little references like these!
Sorry I just like, keep dipping out after posting a few things you guys, I promise it’s not intentional 😅 I’ve been trying to work on art but these past couple weeks I haven’t been getting a ton of sleep and it’s (unsurprisingly) been affecting my energy levels. Unfortunately my parents were to thank for that last week cause they kept waking me up with their conversations in the morning, but my mom’s back at work from her spring break now and I’ve been letting myself sleep in a little longer than I usually need to help catch up on the sleep that I’ve been missing, and I’m feeling quite a bit better now!
I was also struggling with figuring out some new character designs a couple weeks ago and it was legitimately frustrating me enough that it was the only thing I could focus on until I did so, so that also limited me on what I’ve been able to do so far this month, but you guys will for sure get to see at least 2 new pieces by the end of the month!
It’s surprising I’ve posted this much in only a handful of days (excluding Linktober of course) but it’s been for good reason and we have one more thing to celebrate because today officially marks the one-year anniversary of Varius’ design reveal and introduction!!
It was honestly quite intimidating to share her for the first time because it’s my own character and not a character that is already well-known and beloved, but I’m glad I was brave enough to take that chance because I’ve been able to join the wonderful little zora community here as a result. To my zora mutuals who have far bigger followings than me (y’all know who you are) that have constantly been encouraging me to carve out a little space for myself within this community, I just want you to know how incredibly grateful I am for you and your support, it’s made it a lot less scary to talk about her knowing that you guys love hearing about her if nothing else! And I appreciate the support the rest of you have given me as well, because I truly have been having so much fun with developing Varius’ character, much more so than I had initially expected! I know things have been a little slow-going with me sharing more about her but hopefully that will change soon because I genuinely am excited for y’all to get to know more about her!
So in the spirit of that and in honor of Varius’ one-year anniversary, here’s some new concept art for some gear of hers that you guys haven't seen yet!
With March 22nd we have our second Marot Mart Gang birthday, so happy birthday to Marot herself!
The gang actually shares a neat little phenomenon with my own family in that most of them share a birthday month with another zora in the group! Just to give a few examples from my family, my sister and one of my uncles shared a birth month, my dad and older sibling share one, and I myself share with both one of my aunts and one of my cousins, and this is just on my dad’s side of the family! Since it’s not always convenient to celebrate everyone’s birthdays on the actual day, we will usually get together sometime in the month to celebrate the people who have a birthday in a particular month, which I like to imagine the MM Gang does even though they do also celebrate everyone’s individually. This was completely coincidental on my part because I chose each of the MM Gang’s birthdays independently of each other and most of them just so happened to end up with a birthday month buddy by the end of it
Marot’s design is definitely one I’m going to be tweaking, it’s not quite right yet but this at least gives me a good start and I hope you guys still like it! Either way, I’m now really excited about getting to the rest of their birthdays!!
March 20th marks not only spring but the first Marot Mart Gang birthday of the year with Ledo, so happy birthday Ledo!!
As I’ve mentioned previously, I have come up with birthdays for everyone in the MM Gang cause it felt weird for only Varius to have one while the rest of the gang didn’t, and that simply wouldn’t do! I adore them all, they all deserve some love from me and what better way to do that than with birthday art!
If you can’t tell, I’ve been really excited about the first one to come around because this will be the first year I can celebrate all of them! By the time I’d thought to give them all birthdays last year, I’d already missed about half of them, and was too busy to do anything for most of the other half. Now though, I’ve got ‘em all figured out and they’re all getting art!! Another reason I’ve been so excited for this is because it finally gives me an opportunity to figure out my designs for everyone! These designs may be subject to some slight changes if I haven’t already solidified them by the time their birthday rolls around but these will essentially be how I plan to depict them!
Anyways, I really enjoyed getting to do Ledo first because he’s just great, his positive energy makes me happy :D His design was the one I’ve been looking forward to figuring out the most, so hopefully you guys like it as much as I do! (And we may or may not have another birthday coming up in a couple days so you guys can look forward to that as well 👀)
Working on the two Marot Mart Gang birthday drawings for this month (and struggling with one of them) right now but I just wanted to show you guys something kinda funny. So I was messaging my friend Jaden a few days ago and when I was typing, look at what for some reason one of the suggested words was
Like, why are we assuaging Dento? What shenanigans have the others in the MM Gang gotten up to this time?
The topic of this conversation was completely unrelated so the only conclusion I can draw from this is that my keyboard’s become just as zora-brained as I am lol
Sorry for such a slow start to the year and being a bit MIA guys, obviously the first piece took a while and then I only recently (as in literally 2 days ago) managed to finish the slideshow presentation I wanted to make on it for therapy, so my brain’s just been fried
But I have some plans for the upcoming month that I’m excited to get to so you can look forward to that! I won’t spoil all of them but if you remember from a few months back, I mentioned that I’ve been coming up with a birthday for each member of the Marot Mart Gang, and we have a couple coming up 👀
While Wild may have come into the Chain's lives later than they would've liked (like this piece *cough*), they're glad to at least have their chaotic wild child now!
For my first piece of the year, I have some Wolf Trio art for you guys! I just really wanted to make a cute winter-related drawing of them and then I thought about Wild getting all stressed out that he can’t give all of them anything special for the holidays other than food and Time and Twilight surprising him by claiming Wild himself is their gift because they love just having him! 🥺💜 Suffice to say, the idea of Time and Twilight putting a bow and a little gift tag on him got stuck in my head and I knew I just had to make it
You guys have probably figured out by now why this took so long to finish 😅 I know at this point we've even exceeded this being fashionably late cause at this point the "holidays" in question is Valentine's Day lol (I can’t even say it’s for the zora winter holiday I’ve been making cause that ended over a month ago), but it really needed the time in order to be the best it could be. At the very least, it is still winter so it’s not completely out of season and hopefully it was worth the wait if nothing else!
As usual with my more complex pieces, I'll share my thoughts down below the cut so that this post isn't too long!
Yeah so I decided at some point very early on in starting this that I wanted to draw them in casual clothing but then I started thinking about what their winter outfits for the holidays might look like and then it promptly spiraled out of control and got way more involved than I meant it to! How involved you may ask?
This, this is how involved. I legitimately designed and made a physical paper snowflake for Wild’s outfit. Wild’s gave me a lot more trouble than I expected actually, even more so than the other two, because while I had a lot more to work with for inspiration, I just couldn’t seem to quite figure out what I wanted to do with it! I ended up sketching out a bunch of different ideas as you can see in the second picture, only to end up going with basically my first idea (I always start from the top right of a page down to the bottom left) 😭
And of course I put just as much effort into designing Time and Twilight’s outfits as I did for Wild’s, and tried to include as much detail as I could that felt reminiscent of them and where they come from! Feel free to let me know if you spot anything interesting, it’s likely that whatever it is was something intentional!
I’ve definitely been staring at this for too long since it’s literally the only thing I’ve worked on for an entire month and a half but overall I’m actually very satisfied with how it turned out! As usual, the colors look better in person but hopefully I did decently with photographing it and doing color adjustments
So I was hoping to have the piece done by today but that’s not happening, however I am getting pretty close to being done with it! I can’t promise exactly when it’ll be finished but I should be able to show it to all of y’all within the next few days, within the next week at the absolute most! I’m going to try not to push myself too hard in this last stretch just for the sake of getting it done, because I want to make sure I’m putting in my best effort for every part of the piece, it’s what this one deserves with how much time I’ve put into it!
Anyways, I just wanted to give you guys an update cause I know I’ve dropped off the grid for the past week or so while trying to get this piece done, and I didn’t want anyone to worry about my radio silence. I’m a-okay, just been hard at work on this piece
I’m really close to finally having it finished (and I mean it this time, I can actually see the end in sight) but I’ll have to take one more break today for my back. Hope you guys are looking forward to it!
