#dear drifter

[spectralstitions]

WOW Tumblr cannot handle these colors but ANYWAYS!! I doodled a lil Finlay........... Just use your imagination to pretend that the colors are saturated...

I think I finally figured out how to shape language his hood when it's down so yay for that! I also tried fluffing his ears because a few people drew him like that on Art Fight and I think it's cute. Though I will probably stick with the little wisps in the future :] Also, I decided I wanted to stray from spec evo territory and instead go deeper into fantasy for the wings :] Now they're magic and the feathers "sprout" along his arms to form wings. I figure that some birdkin can still have big arms/wings passively so functionally all this does is let me diversify the shapes some more :] I'll probably continue to mess with Finlay's but he's a scrawny dude so the end result will reflect that one way or another lol

Also fun fact, the big feather poof in his hair is meant to allude to a paintbrush tip. And also kind of a fountain pen tip from a certain angle.

[spectralstitions]

THERE'S A MAP FINALLY LOL (EXPLODES)

Hey, it's Cas! In my last post about mapmaking, I wrote that the next time I posted about it, I hoped it'd be because my map was finished. Well, guess what? I FINISHED IT! It only took me, like... uh... half a year to get around to it. Well, here it is! Two versions: one plain, one labeled.

It's such a relief to have this finished. Finally, after a thousand years of just thinking about it, I have something resembling a visual resource! Yay! That said, it's not perfect, and definitely more of an approximation than anything. There are touch-ups to be made, many touch-ups, but I might just save that for an end-of-year progress check. For now, it's good enough!

The lack of labels has nothing to do with minimalism and everything to do with the fact that I really hate naming things. V-shaped icons point to major settlements. Dot icons mark settlements that are smaller, but subject to show up often for whatever reason. Those ones in particular I'm sure will get edited or shifted around over time.

Now, to meticulously explore each and every region!

I'll work from top to bottom!

Surprise, I'm starting with the name! I find myself drawn to names that sound simple but have lots of interesting connotations. In this case, I'd been searching for a name that captured the feeling of a far off, enigmatic place, something vast and always just beyond reach. Then, while I was searching, and in a manner not unlike that one Overwatch meme, the word "Hinterlands" played in the Lord Huron song I was listening to and I had my HOLY SHIT moment. There's no way a name this whimsical hasn't already been snagged by some cartoon or something, but I can live with that.

As an aside, if I were to pick just one piece of media that encapsulated what I'm going for with this project, it'd be the album Strange Trails by Lord Huron. Of all my many inspirations, it's the one that's had the most profound impact. So the name also works as a homage!

Starting off spooky with our first region, the Old Waythrough. It's a place most people don't like to talk or even think about, but it's always there, looming just under the surface. It has remarkably little presence even in local folklore, and what little there is has been cut into pieces and scattered about through generations of oral storytelling. That said, there are a couple surviving records of Parthans attempting flyovers, eager to prove their courage. None of them get very far, but interestingly, even across the centuries, their recounts have all been similar, describing endless, desolate lands that are empty save for random objects and footprints in the snow.

One famous story, and the tale behind the region's common name, recounts the miraculous journey of the first partha who made contact with the mainland using the Waythrough as a guide. If true, this partha is the only known creature to have crossed the Waythrough in its entirety—and in doing so, gave the fasa who saw them quite a scare!

Our next region is Parthesa, or the parthan homelands! Yeah, get ready for some confusing naming conventions. I'll try to break it down:

The species itself, singular and plural, is known as "partha". Its descriptive form is "parthan".

Partha born on Parthesa, as well as any outsider accepted into their flocks, are known as "Parthans" with a capital P.

All partha born on Parthesa are also called skyborn, while their mainland cousins are called wildborn.

It's a bit much, but I promise, so are they. Parthesa itself is frequently described as a paradise, mostly for the fact that there seems to be a strange lack of spirit activity on the islands themselves. Is that the full story, though? Who knows — Parthans aren't exactly scrambling to brag about how UNbetter-than-everyone-else they and their homeland are. On that note, did Parthans name themselves after their homeland, or did they name their homelands after themselves? Mysteries upon mysteries...

Famously, the islands are beautiful — flower fields, waterfalls, seaside cliffs, mountains and valleys to dip and dive through, and that wonderful ocean breeze! Plus, as long as you've got parthan feather insulation and love storms, the weather's great! Infamously, getting to Parthesa is incredibly dangerous without a Parthan guide, something that's hard to come by. Without one, travelers don't have a great track record of being seen again.

On the opposite side of the Waythrough, we've got the fasan homelands! This dashing, idyllic little landscape is defined by mountains, rivers, lakes, colorful flower fields, and forests of towering boreal trees. Also, ignore that green mountain I forgot to recolor.

Fasa like to incorporate waterways into their architecture in interesting ways, building settlements that trace the length of rivers. Despite their homeland's cutesy appearance, their deep forests harbor all sorts of dangers. Uniquely, this danger doesn't just concern spirits, but entire swathes of dangerous, predatory animals. Still, as long as you take the proper safety precautions, it's a lovely place to live. Their main city can be found by following the paths of the rivers into the mountains. Their harbor town is much newer but has quickly become prosperous!

Okay, you see this gigantic piece of land with almost zero markers in it? This one's my sandbox. Why does nobody seem to want to live here? Well, they tried. They really tried, judging by all the bizarre artifacts poking out of the ground everywhere. The place is a mass graveyard, with evidence of ancient raswa, fasa, and who knows what else engaged in constant territory spats going back centuries. However, these battles seemed to have stopped very suddenly. It's assumed that the appearance of spirits was the last straw that pushed people back into their homelands, finally convincing them the place was just not worth it, something that countless deaths couldn't accomplish. But it's been thousands of years, and people are making tentative attempts to settle again, this time in unity—and hey, so far so good! The few settlements that exist here are characterized by the diversity of their people.

If you follow the trails, you're sure to come across fellow travelers, traders, and the like, but the vast majority of the land is void of people. You could walk for weeks or longer and not come across a single soul! There's a lot to discover, but it's a bit lonely...

Down south, you'll find the Underbelly! The Underbelly is the common name given to this region of wetland and swamp. It's one of the deadliest—and in many people's opinions, the grossest—places in the Hinterlands. Miraculously, there are a hardy people who've managed to make a living in the deep swamp, their treehouse cities literal lights in the darkness. They trade with and have close relations to raswa!

Nearly done! Now we've come to the raswan homelands. Not to be an edgelord, but this region is one defined by utter darkness. Well, okay, it's supposed to be a little edgy, but that part of it comes second. On the left half sleeps an incredibly dense roofed forest, such that light rarely grazes the forest floor. Mushrooms spawn like wildfire, and only those with the grace of raswa are going to have much luck navigating it. On the other side of the mountains lies the raswan desert, a place where sandblood raswans lead nomadic lifestyles. It's also a place many go to get in touch with their spirituality. Sandblood raswa wander the depths of the desert, traveling by night, when sand in the air lights up like stars. With their unique skin colors and plain dark clothes, raswa disguise themselves as part of the night sky to avoid deadly desert spirits. The spirits are a pain in the forests, too—raswa have devised safe pathways for travelers, but all they can really do is hand you a charm and beg you not to stray. Due to the regions' conditions, the settlements here remain mostly raswa, save for their newer harbor town.

We're onto the last area! This island is in a weird spot, and it's kind of just weird in general, so I saved it for last. It's even weird in the formatting of this blog post! What is wrong with you, fae homelands? This island was created very recently by one of the gods, although they are all credited for it. "Homelands" is a strange word for fae to use, though, because most fae do not come from this land at all. In fact, there are barely any trees here! In any case, This island is what connects all people, encouraging unity in times of despair. From edge to edge, the place is a gigantic market space, full to bursting with different kinds of people, vivid colors, and overwhelming sounds and smells.

And that's that! I'll be real, I had way more fun just writing all that than I did even making the map, so I hope that even 1 person skimmed it and got something out of it. But if not, this'll be a good resource for me, too, so, I guess it's win-win.

I'm not really sure what's next for me! I kinda want to work on more visual development for the fauna, spirits, and gods, but the other, realer, and more boring side of me thinks I should probably figure out the extremely basic information like fasan & raswan government styles first. Cause, you know, the fundamental structure of their society is kind of important...

I've made progress in other areas as well, so I may make a separate post for that! But for now I need a short break. Hope you enjoyed. Yay!

[spectralstitions]

Part 2 of my Silas design ramble post! This one gets more into the relationship Silas has with how he looks & his relationship with another important character...

That's right bitches it's CHILD SILAS!!!!!!! Oughghhu he is so little and soft I just want to pet his big ol ears and THROW HIM AROUND. These are drawn in order of toddler -> kid -> preteen -> mid-teens. I have SOOOO many different possible ideas floating around for Silas's upbringing so I'm going to TRY to be a little vague for the sake of not writing a massive amount. But I DO know that the name of Silas' caretaker is Faustus Rose, or Faust for short. So VAGUELY what I'm thinking is that Faust wants a kid so very desperately and Silas is like an answer to his prayers. But he ends up feeling very guilty about Silas for the rest of his life, thinking the fact he wanted this kid so bad makes him to blame for how hard his life ends up being. Yeah as you will soon see, Faust has all the constitution of a wet noodle and he's kinda just pathetic about everything.

The name "Silas" means "of the forest", and I think it's a name Faust would have chosen very intentionally. Like a prayer of some kind to have him turn out like any normal commonfolk kid. And although Faust is smitten with Silas and doesn't care that he's more or less raising an imp, A LOT OF OTHER PEOPLE CARE. THEY CARE A LOT. The rest of his community has a very "what the actual hell is that burn it with fire now" attitude towards Silas. Well, once they find out about him, anyways. Faust is very secretive about him, but it becomes increasingly more difficult to hide an entire person as that person gets bigger and more curious about the world.

I dressed little baby in Silas in white because 1. my fauns historically lived in very deep dark woods with very little sunlight and dressing in dark colors meant camouflage from bad scary things. and 2. fauns love upholding traditions. So combining those two lore bits means fauns still wear all blacks and dark colors to this day and are basically not so subtly an entire civilization of goths. White and brighter colors in general are more associated with being easier to spot by dangerous things, so if I went with my idea of Silas being abandoned by his bio mother, it'd make sense that she'd have wrapped him in white to attract something to eat him.

In childhood, Silas' tail grows longer, but the appearance of his buttons makes Faust hopeful that Silas will at least grow antlers and that maybe he'll grow up to resemble fauns well enough to fit in with his peers mostly okay. It's a small bit of relief for him. Silas also comes into his very cheery, sweet, and curious nature, and so they have a couple of fun and hopeful years together. Silas does start to hear a few fucked up things firsthand, though it causes confusion more than anything as he's not quite self-aware enough to understand that he looks different from the people around him. And OOUUGHH I think when Silas first notices his buttons he gets SOOO excited and is always yapping about how excited he is to grow antlers just like Faust.

Eventually though Silas stars interacting with non-Faustus fauns out in the real world (He probably sneaks out to be real) and oh it does not go so well. By kids his own age, he's relentlessly and violently bullied, with a particular incident where his tail nearly gets cut off. And by adults he's treated like an actual freak and always assumed the worst of (picturing him trying to give someone a thing they dropped and they immediately assume he's a thief). It starts fucking him up real fast. Faust really pushes to have Silas stay indoors as much as possible and homeschools him as a part of this, but once the cat is let out of the bag so to speak they can't really fully go back to how things were.

Silas becomes uber-shy to the point of selective mutism for a few years and is pretty much guaranteed to be constantly scared and miserable unless he's with Faust which I'm sure does not establish any sort of alarming pattern of behavior at all. Faust's solution to Silas' problems is never to move away (he can't do that! he can't give up his position! *shoots him*) and it isn't to build up his self confidence. Instead he tries to help Silas find "solutions" to hide everything he doesn't like about himself and what he gets bullied for. That's most clearly seen in the fourth drawing, with the gloves and fake antler accessories (and his developing eye marks are covered by makeup). Oouughhh Like. Silas starting to freak out that some of his teeth are growing into fangs and becoming utterly hysterical over it, and Faust's response is "Oh no my sweet darling innocent baby angel this is so horrible and awful Oh this is so unfair. Don't worry my love I will teach you how to smile and talk without showing your teeth. Maybe we can even shave them down!" and OUUGHHHH THE ANGST OF "Is this happening to me because I'm a bad kid" and Faust getting speared through the heart LOL.

Silas also starts to prefer darker clothes and cloaks, partially because of the safety he feels in hiding and partially because it's more in line with typical faun fashion.

Once Silas starts noticing how different he looks from the people around him and how other people regard him, every single new development just completely shatters him and he considers the way he looks to be moral failing on his part. He's terrified of his own body -- Especially considering he has no reference point for what he's going to end up looking like. Eventually he just avoids looking at himself entirely. And Faust although very loving is also so soft and useless that he spends all those years kinda just reinforcing all of Silas's insecurities and feeling guilty without actually doing anything to help him.

Finlay coming into his life, not giving a second thought as to how he looks and describing to him a gigantic world out there full of people who look ten times weirder than he does, is the little thing that in the long run ends up turning his life around lol. Finlay is the first person he talks to outside of his own bubble and he quickly becomes obsessed with the notion of going on adventures around the world with people who are kind to him and maybe even finding other people who look like him. The reality of it ends up not being so black and white, but his belief that it IS is the only thing that keeps him going and gives him hope for the future. Even though it causes a lot more trouble down the line....

WELL. HOPE YOU ENJOYED MY SILAS RAMBLE. Writing this made me realize I have like ten thousand ideas for what his childhood could look like and I think I need to spend some time pouring over a google doc and dumping every last thought I have about him.

[spectralstitions]

A couple of Finlay expressions! :]

Over-explaining every single drawing because of course:

1 - A focused Finlay. I imagine he subconsciously pulls all sorts of silly expressions when he's drawing. Silas gets a kick out of watching his face

2 - One of many flustered Finlay faces. His Cool Guy persona is extremely fragile and all it takes to rip him out of it is a genuine compliment. In which case he might start sobbing after being flustered... so be warned

3 - An amused / playful Finlay. He engages in a lot of playful teasing and flirting so this is the expression he wears the most when he's around other people.

4 - A guilty Finlay. Here we have another classic Finlayism. This is the face he pulls when he gets caught breaking things, or "borrowing" things, or trespassing... things... or engaging in a myriad of other mischievous acts...

5 - A depressed and/or lonesome Finlay. Aka: his face whenever he's not around people. He is a tad bit clinically sad perhaps...

6 - Originally this was an ashamed Finlay, but looking at it now, I think worried... or perhaps... guiltily secretive? are better descriptors. A truly ashamed Finlay would likely be crying... he does that a lot.

[spectralstitions]

lil oc animatic :]

Okay, okay, so if you follow my private Twitter account I know I said I wasn't going to share this publicly BUT I remembered I have an oc blog and you know what, I figure the only people who are going to see this are the people who can handle my cringe anyways, so I made it an unlisted youtube video. I made this in 2 days and It's set to the tune of Harpy Hare by Yaelokre because sometimes I get to be a basic bitch, as a treat.

I planned some of the animatic visually in my head before I started but 99% of the frames ended up being stream of consciousness, just whatever I came up with in the moment. Including the designs for three characters! I knew that if i tried to plan literally anything I would have ended up not finishing or maybe not even starting this. I did still try my best to make it cohesive and I wanted it to be mostly understandable, but at the same time I know nobody knows my ocs the way I do so it's very possible this is just a mess to everyone who isn't me lol. But that's why i'm here to ramble on and on and on and on....... So first point of discussion! The two mystery characters in the beginning! I tried to make it clear in other parts of the animatic but those are Silas' and Finlay's parental figures, respectively.

The first character who appears is Faust. That was supposed to be a placeholder name but I can't get it out of my head so they are Faust now. They are Silas' caretaker and the person Silas' parents trusted to take care of him when they gave him up. Faust took Silas out of the desert (despite his many protests...) and raised him among mostly deerkin. Culture in the Southern Havens is very concerned with manners, fitting into norms, and being knowledgable about highly specific superstitions, among other things. So despite Silas' best efforts, he is literally fucking Blue, has horns, and is also neurodivergent, so he never stops feeling like an outcast. Plus, the forest roof is so thick that it's really hard to see the stars at night, which depresses him because in the desert the entire world looks like a night sky! Secretly Faust would like for Silas to think of them as a parental figure, but Silas never really does; he views them more like a permanent babysitter than anything. Faust is also perhaps overly gentle on Silas and though he will express that he wishes he got out more he can't bring himself to actually push him to do anything that makes him uncomfortable, partially out of affection for him and partially because he feels so guilty about bringing him to the forest in the first place.

The second character is Finlay's dad, who is... a character! You will notice that he is absent from 99% of the animatic, just like how he was absent from 99% of Finlay's life!

In many of the frames I was very intentional about the use of lighter and darker tones and there's no way I can talk about every instance in this post so, I guess pay attention to all that for symbolism! The one thing I will mention are Silas' eyes! Which become dark but gain brightness again when Finlay gives him hope for the future, and they stay bright even when he loses that dream because in place of romanticism he gains clarity.

Last couple of things to note before I move on!! For the parts with Faust and Finlay's dad, I designed the side decorations after the types of patterns that each culture that they're associated with (Southern Havens & the Farlands, respectively) tends towards! And, I also indicated time passing using both Silas' horns and Finlay's hood (it gains stitches as he gets older). Finlay's hood also symbolizes when he's hiding his true self vs when he's not >:) And actually I think we are now at the last point I wanna discuss so!! THIS GUY!!! THIS FELLA!!!!!!!! I'M REALLY REALLY HAPPY I MADE SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY GIVES ME AN EXCUSE TO TALK ABOUT THEM!!!!! So get ready for a lore dump on this guy...

This is why animatics / comics are great for me because it forces me to actually design the characters I need to design LOL

OKAY! SO! In terms of direct relevance to the animatic, all that's important to know is that this is the spirit that haunts Finlay! Or at least, the one he believes is haunting him... he's not really sure anymore....

So let me explain the character's deal! Firstly, and this goes for pretty much any spirit, pronouns don't really matter, so anything is fine. I also haven't given them a name yet (rip), I need to figure out those naming conventions first. For now they're just Finlay's Spirit. This spirit's shtick is that they seek out those who have been (or feel as though they have been) "left behind" and offer them belonging and love in the form of.... weaving their souls into little stuffed dolls for their oh so beloved collection. According to the stories, their grounds are littered with shallow, hastily dug graves wherein they dump any remains of the body they deem disposable. When they pull their hood over their face, it disguises them as kinfolk, usually taking a form that represents whatever type of belonging the victim yearns for (for example, for Finlay it was a parental figure). When they approach someone they frame it as "come with me i'll give you a home :]" or possibly "let's make a deal :]" but if the person refuses they will drop the act and take their soul (or whatever it is that they want) by FORCE if ya know what I mean!!! (Which is actually not very common, even for evil spirits. They can usually respect no as an answer specifically because they make it so hard to do. Guess this guy REALLY likes their doll collection. There's only one real way to get away from them and it doesn't look like Finlay is gonna figure it out anytime soon...)

Design-wise! Their true body is obscured and amorphous. They cover themselves in stitched-together fabric scraps with only their face and seeming hundreds of arms/hands ever peeking out of the ensemble. Their fingers are sewing needles and they move very stiffly, almost as if they are moving at a lower frame rate than everything around them. (This remains as a subtle tell when they're disguised!) Their teeth are thin and pointy and stick out in such a way that their mouth almost appears sewn shut when closed.

Like just about any evil spirit they simply get pure joy out of tormenting poor kinfolk. So oftentimes, they will torment a victim for a very long time until the person has finally lost their hope and can be willingly taken. And then they get to remain as a sentient functionless doll and the spirit gets to revel in all their misery for the rest of eternity yayyyyy!!!!!! :]

Finlay has only had one verifiably real encounter with this spirit when he was a child wherein he refused it and it took after him as if to kill him. But it disappeared suddenly and Finlay has been terrified of it ever since because he knows it could be anywhere and anyone. I do want to make it clear that even though this character does physically exist and is a part of the narrative, they're also... kind of a symbol in themselves? Like, in a META sense, Finlay's trauma does not LITERALLY come from this spirit, but from what the spirit represents. Does that make any sense!!! In writing him it's a really careful balance for me to strike because I want everything to be grounded in reality but I also want that reality to be exaggerated for fantastical and storytelling purposes... ya know!!

Okay well!! That's everything I can think to talk about for now, but please feel free to ask if you have any questions about anything!!!! Because that would be fun!!!!! Until next time! :]

[spectralstitions]

There must be a blue moon gracing the sky tonight, because would you LOOK AT THAT. IT'S MEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! Oh I know you're just bursting with excitement to read this right now. In 2024, I got a firm grasp on the direction I wanted to take my art style, including what aesthetics call to me the most and what vibes I wanted my artwork to capture. But some of those conclusions felt slightly at odds with my characters as they were, so for the past couple months I've mostly been drawing my sona and letting Tristan Vik take over my life. But as a result of letting my oc thoughts drift around backstage, I came to realize that ALL ALONG, SILAS ROSE WAS THE PERFECT CHANNEL FOR ALL THE SPARKLY DARK FANTASY VIBES I'VE BEEN CRAVING. Part of me feels reluctant to let go of how grounded these characters have always been, but deep in my soul I know I've just gotta let go and FOLLOW MY HEART. And if that means imbuing my characters and world with sparkly dark fantasy goth cheese then that's what I'm gonna do, god-dammit. (I think I also might change this project name from Dear Drifter to something more sparkly sounding, but we'll see...)

ANYHOW WOW I JUST WANTED TO GIVE SOME CONTEXT TO WHAT WE'RE ABOUT TO WITNESS HERE BUT WE'RE NOT EVEN TO THE POINT OF THIS POST YET. UH. ALAKAZAM POW

I HAVE SILAS ART TO USE AS A SPRINGBOARD FOR YAPPAGE. SO LET THE YAPPAGE BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!! This post will get into the NITTY-GRITTY of my Silas design thoughts! Silas is half faun, or, well, my own twist on fauns that I'm using as a commonfolk species alongside elves (since humans aren't a thing), and half.... well.... half something else that I'm STUCK ON CURRENTLY. I'm leaning on half daemon because the connotation makes more sense on first read, but oh I love the word faerie so much and I like that it creates an implication that faeries are fucked up little guys. Open to input on anything in this post, by the by.... EITHER WAY, THE IMPORTANT THING IS THAT HE'S HALF SOMETHING INHUMAN WITH NEGATIVE CONNOTATIONS. Whatever miracle hybrid Silas is, it's comparable to something like an imp, especially in the eyes of the superstitious fauns he grew up around. He's also considered THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS!!! Just in case you needed an understanding of the vibes we're gonna start kicking up around here. The prince title likely comes from his inhuman side, though the exact implications of it are still being workshopped and OUUUGHHHH THERE'S SO MANY POSSIBILITIES IT'S OVERWHELMING HOW DO PEOPLE MAKE NEW WORLDS AND OCS CONSTANTLY. IN ANY CASE... I'm not really here to discuss broader worldbuilding musings ANYWAYS. I just wanted to give some CONTEXT FOR THE DESIGN!!!

This drawing of him is meant as an idea for how he looked during the Finlay Era of his life aka late teens through his young adulthood. It's the age I draw him at the most, so it was the first one I wanted to explore his shape language for, this time with an emphasis on giving him traits that'd make him stand out from commonfolk. Relative to Finlay, I wanted Silas to be fuller and made up of soft boxes, but in an elegant and dainty way, hence his sleekness and the way nearly every piece of him trails off into a delicate point. Along the way, I imbued him with anime-star and swirl shape language, which wasn't planned, but it ended up feeling pretty natural. I incorporated the star shape or elements of it into his face and body patterns, tail, hair, and claws, and the swirl shape is likewise repeated in a few different areas of his body. In terms of the significance of those shapes, I've long used stars as a layered symbol of yearning for Silas, kind of like light he can never reach (since his domain is more like the space between the stars rather than the stars themselves. Prince of darkness and all...) so blacked-out star shapes are a nifty way to represent that. As for the swirls, I've related those to the concept of swirling, dancing shadows! I want Silas to look so very much like he was meant to Play and Dance with whimsical friends in the woods. Gosh if I ever make another shadow-based character they are definitely going to be a dancer. Anyways.

I wanted as much of him as possible to look like it was being slowly swallowed by shadows (like his fingertips) or dripping with shadows (like his hair). His overall color palette is very monochrome in order to give him the appearance of a shadow for both aesthetic and symbolic reasons, such as how he carries himself and how he forms relationships with people etc. etc.

Design cohesion is something that's SUPER important to me and for the longest time Silas' horns messed me UP but I think I finally found a solution by meshing them with the curve of his nose bridge. Long tails are also very tricky to naturally integrate into humanoid designs in general, but I think I found something I liked here by having the tail stick out a ways before becoming more wiry and flexible. Initially, I was going to give him a classical devil style tail, but it looked a little disjointed. So I messed around and ended up with a crescent shape, which, hey! He's got star motifs on him already! So that kinda fits! It's really subtle, but I tried to match the points to the shapes of the tips of his hair and his claws to help with cohesion even more... The curvature might also work with the curve of the horns, WHICH ALSO MIRROR THE EAR SHAPE, BY THE WAY! Oh can you tell I'm obsessed with shapes.

I also realize that it kiiiinda sorta looks like he has top scars. But he does NOT! Those patterns are merely a product of self-indulgence in that I'm obsessed aesthetically with tracing certain shapes on the body and flat chests are one of those things. BITE ME!!!!!!!! And? The star nipples and bellybutton? Well I added those to make the undereye stars feel less out of place. And then I realized, it makes sense anyways to just have patterns in those spots because he probably was not conceived/born in a normal way. Therefore he would not have developed those specific bits ANYWAYS! Slash half silly. It can just be up to interpretation I think LOL. This is why I love cartoon styles soooo very much.

To touch on the stars under his eyes, the reason those are even there in the first place is for SYMBOLISM! Why else.... They're the precursor to the pattern he develops later in life during his villain arc where he romantically-sad maxxes. They're meant to evoke permanent tears, as if he's crying stars! Or I guess normal tears that are sparkling a lot.

I was going to tack on another Silas infodump about how his appearance changes through his life and his relationship to how he looks -- but this is getting long so I think i'm just going to make a SEPARATE POST! SO.... SEE YA THERE MY FELLAS!!!!!

[spectralstitions]

ocs are happening my fellas

Oh gosh I feel like I already went on a gigantic infodump on instagram about this but I need to procrastinate from entering painting hell so HERE I AM!!!

Anyways as per one of my recent blog posts I've been feeling kinda pigeonholed with my ocs lately and I haven't been having a lot of fun with them. So I've decided to just LET MY IDEAS FLOW BABY!!! And do what feels right. AS SUCH! SOME CHANGES ARE TAKING PLACE! Including the introduction of the littlest guy of all time. BIRDLAY!!!!! Finlay's got a magic cloak that lets him turn into a ittle bird. This solves multiple problems for me, including: i see him with a cape but how could he fly while wearing one? and, how could he wear those fruity little shoes if he has bird feet all the time? That is correct dear reader Finlay has reverted to elf boy form. Just when you thought I was over giving all my characters elf ears THEY'RE BACK BITCHES!!!!!

As for Silas, I've decided to FOLLOW MY HEART!!!! Which is very on theme for him. And make him a prince again lol. Not in a super duper literal way but more like how bambi uses the prince of the forest title. I'm still working out the kinks (or rather, procrastinating from working out the kinks) but he's probably part spirit. Him being a runaway prince opens up so many more plot / conflict possibilities so that's helpful for me. His working title is the prince of darkness because that's so fairytale-edgy in the way I love. A more fitting title would probably be the prince of stars. Too bad it doesn't feel as right!!!!! I've also consistently used lantern prince / prince of lanterns on him even when he wasn't a prince... which could be something I suppose. I dunno, I need more music to think of Silas lore to, but in the meantime I've had fun figuring out his design! I wanted something kind of imp-like. And I'm keeping with his visual motif of looking like a shadow.

I'm still thinking about making Silas autistic, or at least keeping it open, but it is tricky because he is inherently a very naive type of character and I don't want to chance anyone having the takeaway that his naivety is because of autism. I want to work with it as more of an additional reason he feels alienated from his peers and why he connects with Finlay (an adhder) so much better. Regardless I do love giving him raptor hands and other weird body language quirks of mine lol. And I figured out the shorthand for that hand pose finally, so expect more art showcasing that pfft.

Re that little comic at the end, I made that off the cuff because I wanted to draw Silas and Bird Finlay together after giving them those updated designs. They're just my little sillies........... I will keep this blog posted with any future ideas I feel good about. I have a few neat concepts brewing but I don't want to jinx myself lol

[spectralstitions]

I offer a silly Finlay....