Kokořín Castle, Mělník district, Central Bohemian, Czech Republic
Xuebing Du
KIROKAZE
taylor price

Janaina Medeiros
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
wallacepolsom

祝日 / Permanent Vacation

blake kathryn

No title available
NASA

⁂

Kiana Khansmith

titsay
Jules of Nature
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me

★
cherry valley forever
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
occasionally subtle

#extradirty
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@lillyinthevalleycomic
Kokořín Castle, Mělník district, Central Bohemian, Czech Republic
Name Reources
So, you’re writing a thing, and you need to name a character. And, as we all know, naming a character is a giant pain in the ass. I offer this list of shit I use pretty regularly, for this purpose.
Behind the Name (The etymologies are weird as fuck, in a few places, but it’s great if you’ve got a name and need to find other names that are from or derived from the same culture/language)
Behind the Surname (BTN for family names)
Academy of Saint Gabriel Medieval Names Archive (This is the go-to for medieval names in Europe and the Near East. Hardcore scholarship and a distinct lack of fucking around.)
Kate Monk’s Onomastikon (The original internet name resource.)
The Soldier in Later Medieval England (Actual names from English military rolls around the Battle of Agincourt)
England’s Immigrants (Non-native residents of England, 1330-1550)
Celtic Personal Names of Roman Britain
Mapping the Medieval Countryside - People (People appearing in English inquisitions post mortem, 1418-1447)
Wiktionary’s Index of Biblical Names
Ancient Names Galleria (The weird shit is here. If you need Akkadian or Phoenecian names, those are totally covered.)
Trismegistos People (Names extracted from the Trismegistos Texts – mostly names from Graeco-Roman Egypt.)
Personally, I use the shit out of Trismegistos People, England’s Immigrants, and the Ancient Names Galleria. If you’ve got good sources I didn’t hit, feel free to add them in a reblog. I’m always looking for more good name resources. (And almost all of what I have is Europe and the Near East, with a little North Africa.)
Dropping this update in the most recent reblog in my notes, in the hopes it falls into as many laps as possible. Here’s some more good sources for names, this time with a more African focus.
Wikipedia Category: Surnames of African Origin (which is helpfully divided into sections by language)
Wikipedia Category: Amharic Language Names (I believe this list is primarily, if not entirely, given names.)
YorubaName (“an online intervention to preserve and document all Yorùbá names in a multimedia format.”)
Writing Adolescent Fiction: Character names: Kenyan, Tanzanian and Ugandan (a list of given names and surnames with notes on how full names are constructed in each culture listed)
Again, if you know any good sources, particularly for regions I haven’t covered, let me know!
Rebageling with some more good shit:
So You Want to Name a Sino (a fairly detailed guide on how to name a Chinese character without sounding like too much of a moron)
Most Popular Baby Names for Girls Since 1960 (most popular American girls’ names, by state, from 1960-2012, as a gif)
Popular Baby Names (the US Social Security database of naming trends in the US, with search options for date, gender, location, and trend)
A Guide to Names and Naming Practises (a UK government guide to common names and structure of names from around the world, split first by continent and then by culture. PDF.)
Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature (an entire book on trends in English naming and name structure and the Puritan influence, from 1880. PDF.)
Things I am particularly looking for reliable sources for, if you’ve got them: North and South American aboriginal names, Southeast and East Asian names, names from the former USSR, Australian aboriginal names. (All of these by culture or language family, if possible, not just by current national borders.)
so. i was not happy with the 3D models of horses on offer in the CSP store or literally anywhere else i could find them, i needed one to use for my work, and i went ahead and made my own that is now available for the low low price of FREE in the CSP assets store.
textures included are greyscale basic shapes, multicolor basic shapes, and white with no shapes (but eyes, mouth, nostrils, and hooves emphasized for ease).
shape is ROUGHLY based off the silhouette of an Andalusian. size-wise, it by default stands at around 16 hands, but of course it can be resized to suit your needs. for that, I recommend sizing a human pose doll to the correct height (in centimeters), lining them up on the same plane, and resizing the horse to match the human doll's height. remember that a horse's height is measured at the shoulders!
it also comes with the following preset poses:
if you use CSP and wanna snag it, type 2204263 into the search bar in the CSP assets store. happy horsing!
Castle & kingdom in southwest Bavaria
Starting the year off right with some concept art!
Feeling really good about how the inside of the house has come together. Now I gotta figure out what the exterior looks like and the layout of the whole farm. Then I feel like I can really start producing pages and worry about other large BG’s when they come
Fantasy Guide to Employment: Household of a Castle
The castle does not run itself. The castle would remain a pile of stones without servants to keep it running. The guide below focuses on the private household of the lord himself, anybody who worked inside the main keep of the castle. I will be expanding outside the walls in a future post.
The Steward/Seneschal
This person was the head of the household staff. They would have the task of running things on the Lord's estate. They are the managers, so it is up to them to keep the staff in line. The steward would keep the castle accounts and keep the lord informed of all of the goings on of the lands and tenants. They would have to be educated needing to do accounts and write letters. Though the castle's Lady would be expected to do all these things, the steward served as a backup and assistant in all the tasks even representing the lord and lady when they were unavailable.
The Chamberlain
The chamberlain is the servant employed to look after the Lord's bedchamber. He would look after the Lord's clothes as well and keep track of the other servants' liveries, the official uniforms of the guards, pages and squires. This was not always the case, some larger households had a separate office but most medium seized manors and castles lumped them together. The chamberlain's main task was ensuring the lord was kept happy. He would even be the last servant a lord would see at night before he went to bed at night. They would be educated.
The Marshal
A Marshal was in charge of the stables as well as the military presence in the castle. They would oversee the household's horses, carts, wagons, and containers. He oversaw blacksmiths, horse grooms and stableboys. He also oversaw the transporting of goods. The Marshal was sometimes in charge of disciplining servants. They would likely come from a middle class background as well as having military experience and education.
The Page
A page was a young noble boy about seven years old who would be sent to serve a Lord. He would be in charge of tidying up after the lord, carrying messages to other servants and occupants of the castle and serving him at meals. Unlike others on the list, the page would not be paid. His experience was his payment as he would learn the running of a castle and manners of a lord.
The Lady's Maid
The lady's maid is be the female body attendant of the castle's noble women. She would be in charge of caring for the lady's chamber and her things. She would dress the lady and attend her wherever she would. (The lady's maid would basically do all the work a chamberlain would but you know the wage gap...)
Maidservant
A housemaid/maidservant works to clean the castle. She would be among the first to awaken every morning. Her first task would be sweeping the floors. The thing with mediaeval floors a that they were often covered with a thin layer of rushes, a kind of grass. Weekly if not daily, a maidservant would be expected to change out the rushes and scatter new ones. If it really needed it, she would scrub the stone floors which would be done with a soap called lye, made from ashes and lard. The maidservant would also be expected to go into the bedchambers when the occupants awoke. She would empty the chamberpots if need be. She would get rid of the ashes from the fire and ready the fire for later. She would make up the bed or strip it for the laundresses. She would wash anything that needed washing including furniture and ornaments.
Laundress
The laundress was responsible for the cleaning of anything made of fabric in the household. The laundress would have to fetch their own water either from the castle well or from a nearby river. They would heat the water in large vats and add lye soap (the most popular of the cleaning agents). The constant exposure to soap and hot water was physically tough on the hands of the laundresses and their backs. When the detergents were added to the water, the laundress would dump them into the vat and stir that shit like soup. To dry it they would pin it out on lines or beat the water from it. The laundress might make money by selling secrets. Since they are handling unmentionables, they knew what happened behind closed bedchamber doors or what didn't.
Nursemaid
The nursemaid was in charge of the castle's children. They would ensure the child was fed, washed and generally kept alive while the parents would either be away at court or busy with the lands. The nursemaid would be a common woman from the surrounding lands who would come in to care for a noble child in the stead of the mother who would be expected to get on with other jobs. The nursemaid would be an underlying of the noble governess, a sort of hands-off nanny.
Cook
The cook was one of the most important servants in the castle. They would have the task of overseeing the running of the kitchens and keeping supplies in order. They would likely be on call at all times. Henry VIII's cook was often woken in the night because his royal master wanted a midnight snack. The cook was a valued member of the household and would have been highly sought after if they were a very skilled cook. Cooks would have been paid a handsome wage.
Scullion
The scullion was the lowest member of staff. They would be responsible for scrubbing and cleaning the servants quarters and the kitchens. They would scrub floors with lye, scour pots with sand, sweep put the fireplace and clean up after the other servants. They were the first to rise in a castle and tasked to light all the fires in the kitchens.
Payment & Lifestyle
Within the mediaeval household, payment came from the hand of the steward. As the Lord's manager of accounts, he was in charge of paying staff.
The grander jobs in the castle such as the marshal, the chamberlain, nursemaid and lady's maid would pay better. They would have certain privileges including better bedchambers.
A nursemaid who was breastfeeding the Lord's children would be a valued member of staff. She would be fed better than the other servants.
The page would sleep in a chamber off the lord's bedchamber or sometimes at the foot of the bed. A page would wear the Lord's livery so he would be dressed on the Lord's coin.
The chamberlain would have rooms close to the lord and lady, just in case they were needed by the master in any kind of emergency.
The cook would sleep near the kitchens so they were close enough just in case they are needed in the night.
The other household servants would all sleep in chambers together. The women would sleep in one and the men would sleep in another. Nightly dalliances were frowned upon massively.
Most servants came from the surrounding lands of the castle. When the lord and his family were away at court or somewhere else, there would be a drop in employment. Everything would be cut down ex. Instead of three laundry maids, only one might stay on after the lord goes. The steward, the marshal, the chamberlain, the page, the cook, the nursemaid and the lady's maid were all important staff so their job would be permanent.
First art fight piece! It's been a bad day and I needed something happy to paint. @tatumsdrawing 's character Tib was perfect for that!
They take after their mom
I’m updating my art fight profile rn and I’ll realizing how little I’ve drawn the farm family
Just found the first draft of my outline and it’s 4 pages long
The current outline draft is 12 pages long
Historical essays and books are funny cause you think you still have a quarter of the book to read but then you finish and there’s like 30 pages of indexes and reference material
Researching the Celts is hilarious cause historians are like “some of our only sources pre-Christianization are from the Romans, but they’re lil catty bitches so you have to take their writing w a grain of salt cause they’re still mad the Gauls beat them in 390BC and won’t stop calling them stinky”
just finished fully reading one of my reference books. Just bought three more
I don’t know if it would interest ya’ll, but I was clearing space on my iPad and thought it’d be fun to show off the first few pages of An Honest Day’s Work during its first draft
(The last two pages are the same page but I was deciding on the best angle)
But yeah this was scrapped after I really sat down and started outlining the plot, as well as after i decided to place the story in an actual time period (the house and Tib’s boots became way too modern)
But it’s fun to look at regardless!! These pages are already a year old :O
Hi! I love that you do so much research for the comic. Since you mentioned the harvests, what was Dantes first harvest like? What did he struggle with the most?
Also i have probably missed it but what is Dantes background? How did he get to the farm?
(I was really excited about Tib and Dante when you first started posting about them and then i lost sight of them and missed a lot of your posts somehow so im glad your recent post reminded me and i can be excited about them once more. I hope you find motivation for drawing and writing them agan <3)
Howdy!! Dante’s first harvest went smoothly only because Tib’s family is used to coaching ppl through the process, so even a newbie can do well
Dante though? Hated it. The only thing that kept him going was that using a scythe was similar enough to practicing the sword that he pretended that's what he was doing the whole time. Afterwards though, he was the grumpiest kiddo who ate his dinner fast and immediately went to bed
As for what he struggled with the most? Motivation. One, because he didn’t like doing it. And two, he was slow compared to the experienced farm family, so he’d look up only having cut a few feet of hay and see that Tib and Finn had cut a few yards each. Which was more disheartening for Dante than it should have been, but he’s competitive and loathes not being good at things (which actually he was doing really well for a newbie (due to being a practiced swordsman.) But his only comparison was to two other ppl who'd been doing this their whole life.) Plus it was a hot day and there were bugs in his face
As for Dante's background, you haven't missed much!! I've intentionally been vague about it for a reveal that happens at the end of chapter one. But a crumb on knowledge for you: He got to the farm because the horse goddess Epona guided his stead there while he's on the run from pursuers
Thank you so much for sending an ask!! And I really really appreciate you being interested in my little kiddos!! It means a lot to see someone have a genuine interest in this silly little story
TELL US SOMETHING COOL AVOUT MEDIEVAL FARMING PLEASE!!!
GLADLY
ALSO sorry this took so long to answer. Every time I remembered I wanted to reply, I was at work and didn't have my notes in front of me.
SOME THINGS I THINK ARE COOL ABOUT MEDIEVAL FARMING (and/or historical farming because some of these are earlier)
So the Romans are usually credited with bringing the coulter (a sharp knife at the end of a plough) to the Celts, but there's evidence the Celts already had this technology due to 7th century carvings found on a rock in Val Camonica. Pliny also wrote that the Celts in Raetia invented the wheeled plough
Also! Apparently ploughs were usually shared throughout villages and were kept at the church to be rented out accordingly
The Celts also had a harvesting machine as early as the 2nd century!! The Celts called it a messor (and the Romans called it a vallus) but its essentially a cart with "teeth" on it and as it's pulled through a field (by oxen) the grain/corn would be pulled through said teeth and the ear would be torn off the stalk and fall into the cart
Another neat thing I found was how the Celts stored their grain!! They would place the harvested grain in souterrains- which were large holes dug into rock (usually chalk) and then covered and sealed with moist clay and then topped w soil. Apparently as the grain is exposed to the damp walls they germinate and use up all the oxygen while also releasing carbon dioxide which causes the grain to sit in a sort of suspended animation, keeping it preserved.
They also used small, raised granaries as a storage method, but I think the souterrain is cooler. You can also make silage with a souterrain!! (silage is fermented grass to feed your animals as a supplement to Hay)
Also Hay is just dried grass. I always thought it was a grain or something like wheat. But no, it's dried grass. Also you can't harvest hay if it rains. You need like a week of good weather so the hay can dry out before you bundle it and deposit into a barn/hut/loft
I also learned there's different farming. You can do pastoral or arable farming (or some combination of the two.) But pastoral farming is about cultivating animals and arable farming is about growing crops, and what you focused on tended to be dictated by the landscape. Steep areas are hard to grow crops on, so you'd focus on animals (especially ones that do good with unsure footing like sheep and goats.) But if you have nice weather and flatter land then you'd focus on growing crops
I'm planning to place this story in a setting similar to the Alps, and they have a fun tradition where in the spring they migrate their cattle to higher altitudes (the actual alps) so they can graze in high altitude pastures during the summer (there's also a lot of cheese making during this time,) and then during the fall the cows migrate back down to the valley before it gets too cold
Oh, and this is a silly tidbit; but apparently Julius Ceaser thought the Celts regarded chickens as holy and thought that they never ate them. The Celts did eat their chickens (waste not want not and all that.) They also used to host chicken fights
I've learned a lot more than this, but these are the best tidbits
Thank you for asking!! This was my favorite ask to get!!