Contributor applications for the zine are now open! The form will close at 11:59pm CST on Dec 10. Here's a quick rundown for anyone looking to apply!
We're more likely to consider applictions which contain at least one piece pertinent to SBK! Either season works, and it can be something you've made specifically to include in your portfolio for this zine. Applications are open for quite a while, so you'll have time to whip something up if you'd like!
As much as we would love to see all the works you're proud of, mods have limited time. We've included both upper and lower limits regarding how many works we'd like to see (2-4 for writers, 3-5 for artists). Unfortunately, because writing portfolios take quite some time to judge, we also have a hard word count limit: all pieces (which may include snippets of longer works) should be no more than 3k words, and at least one piece should be 1k words or more. To respect our time, we will consider your portfolio more strongly if you stick within these guidelines.
Make sure your portfolio will be visible to anyone who opens it!
Because all our moderators are 18 or older, portfolios may contain NSFW, but keep in mind that the zine will be rated T and thus you wll be required to create a SFW piece. Non-canon shipping is also allowed in your portfolio, but your piece for the zine may only contain canon ships and canon-typical flirting/innuendos.
We are looking for approximately 10 page artists, 10 spot or comic artists, 10 writers, 1 cover artist, and as many merch artists as applications allow! Spot artists will be paired with writers to create illustrations to accompany a written piece; comic artists will be paired with writers to script a comic together, which the comic artist will illustrate.
You may apply for multiple positions, but will only be assigned one position to begin. If you finish your first piece and would like to create another in a different medium, speak to the mods and we'll see where we can accomodate you!
If you are willing to be assigned more than one piece when initial assignments are created, you may indicate so in the final free response question!
Hopefully this answers some questions you may have, but don't be afraid to send an ask if you have a question we haven't answered!
hihi!! was bored yesterday, scrolling around tumblr, and i saw @s33r-of-pyr3's post sharing a recreation of the wild life snail model, and i figured– hey, why not make some skyblock kingdom snails?
i'm really happy with how these all turned out!! i've dabbled with editing textures in blockbench before, but this was a nice opportunity to practice some more! it was also interesting trying to figure out how to work in some details with this small a canvas,, mdnkxn– these guys might be a bit more detailed than the ones over on wild life, but. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
also, bonus images of snaailvid_ antics that happened on doovid's stream yesterday,, skxnsksm. despite what people may tell you, snaailvid_ DOES support artists. do not let anyone tell you otherwise. especially if their name starts with d and ends with oovid. anyway please watch skyblock kingdoms.
Viking -- "human." he's unsure how he respawns, and unknowingly this is because it's tied to something/someone that would really prefer to avoid detection.
Fix -- lumian. they just have innate respawn in some universes, wild right? it's fine, don't worry about it.
Fool -- was human at some point, probably, but is a little bit too god-touched to classify as that now. his god is actively trying to keep him alive.
Milkman -- nobody knows, but he's immortal by default of getting himself kicked out of every single afterlife in existence.
Kittrix -- sculky and might be an insect of some type (credit goes to @mallowbees for the latter). whenever she dies, a new Kittrix crawls out of the ground at her spawnpoint like a warden with her memory fully intact.
Trog -- don't ask. as for respawn, though, even if they hadn't done dark magic about that ages ago to make sure they'd never die, they effectively made the Skyblock world.
Ruby -- "human" as well. The Bearer Of The Curse. it's unclear as to if this curse is just immortality or if it's something else as well. some people who've stood near the point where zhe respawns have heard ticking clock noises...
Vintage -- human-adjacent, but a shapeshifter sometimes randomly have pointy ears or a unicorn horn or mantis mandibles or what have you. someone in her recent family history was probably fair folk. whatever afterlife she keeps getting sent to, they're suckers and are easily sweet-talked into letting her come back to life for free.
Leon -- just sort of a general anthro penguin situation (with maybe a little bit of endermite in there too). has too much chorus fruit in his system still and taking damage -- especially void damage -- will cause him to teleport, often several times at once. he usually drops all his stuff when this happens before ending up teleporting back home.
Josh -- a really fun guy. regrows. like a fungits. he's a mushroom.
Avid -- human, then ex-human (and largely made up of corpseplants), then a monkey. his boss won't let him die. whether this is a work benefit or a horrible drawback is entirely unclear.
Doovid -- was legitimately human prior to turning into a monkey. whenever he dies, time freezes, he sees an Instability detected. Player restored and game paused popup message out of the corner of his eyes, and then he resets back to where he woke up that morning with no stuff.
Kale -- pigy (potentially an alien, credit to @moxijunk for that one). has normal respawn, but goes full Gmod ragdoll when he dies before eventually fading and respawning. can't actually take Void deaths as he will loop back to the top of the skybox until he hits something solid, at which point he and his items vaporize on impact.
M1g -- lumian-enderdragon hybrid (credit to @autisticlalna for the former and @moxijunk for the latter). lumians do in fact have respawn in some universes; M1g specifically is here on assignment so he's been given respawn in order to blend in and maintain cover.
Marmalade -- human, still, something she's a little bit grumpy about because she thinks becoming a nonhuman would be pretty cool. whenever she dies the Void picks her up and oh so gently sets her back down at her spawnpoint with a pat on the head.
Teaish -- dryad, or at the very least a plant person. her fortune specifically said she was going to have a nice day and permadying would really ruin that :(
Anathra -- questionably human (he can see through the fourth wall, but also, he seems totally human otherwise). lags out heavily until he eventually restabilizes, erratically teleporting around and resetting his position several times in sort of a combination of Leon and Doovid's respawn styles. drops all his stuff during this process. (credit to @rubycowashere for this one)
Acorn -- tanuki (this seems to be a general consensus, idk who to credit) and also maybe fae (credit to @mallowbees). transforms into a leaf, and then a leaf on top of the Spruce island transforms into her. can't carry her inventory with her when doing this, though. (credit to @rubycowashere for this one as well)
Elffe -- some sort of Netherborn, although his exact species is unknown. regrows when he dies (it's very fleshy and a little bit gross).
Artemis -- human, but slightly to the left. weird portal-based respawn that will often evaporate her items while she's traveling. (credit to @fallow-foot for these)
Not really into a particular mcyt series at the minute so I ended up going back and watching some of the Deceit SMP povs I hadn't seen (and also rewatching mongo's S2 because its really good) \o/ it's what most of the fanart in my sketchbook consists of at the minute so here's some of that :)
It's time for another round of Skyblock Kingdoms Superhero AU builds, but this time I have four whole builds for you! (Round 1 with Ruby and Viking here, round 2 with Avid and Marm here). I would tell you that the space between builds is because I did four this time, but I would be lying.
I actually did all of them. All 20 builds. In a single week, from when I first built Ruby and Viking to when I am posting this now. (I actually finished all the builds yesterday. I was just too tired to make them pretty and write up a post.)
So, anyway, I realized that posting them 2 at a time like I have been, it would have made a lot of sense if I posted them by kingdom, but since I haven't been doing that, you get a mega-update here with Teaish, Doovid, Fixxit, and Vintage to wrap up Mangrove, Jungle, Dark Oak, and Cherry.
Without further ado, we'll start with Tea to establish the Mangrove Witches.
I've titled Tea the "Witch of the Gateway". With two witches here to build, I wanted to do my best to differentiate them, as it would have been way too easy (and boring) to just build them very similarly. Her colors come from the purple of her eyes and the red skin she wore earlier in SBK.
Tea represents a more versatile, skill-based mage when compared to Marm's heavy-hitting arcane vessel. Her defenses are shifted towards avoidance instead of resilience, and her attacks are more accurate but less powerful. She has a great number of spells from her grimoire array, including some effective utility options, and her warded coat is a potent defensive tool. The artificer advantage gives her the ability to craft magical items given time, and her expertise:magic skill is a downright absurd +18 bonus (for context, the maximum skill bonus at Power Level 10 is +20, reserved for those who are absolute masters of their craft).
Between her expertise, the assessment advantage, the well-informed advantage, and access to her headquarters in "The Halls Between", Tea is designed to fill the narrative role of the latest in a long line of mages; she is well-equipped to research and exploit the weaknesses of her opponents. Several of her spells are uniquely suited towards extradimensional opponents, as befits her role of Gatekeeper.
Tea is also different from Marm in that all of her spells have the "Removable" flaw. This flaw allows for a discount on the cost of a power, at a downside: as it implies, the powers are attached to an object that can be taken away from her. Removable does imply some difficulty; objects such as weapons are instead considered "easily removable", which can be disarmed quickly and come with a greater discount.
Next up we have Doovid. Doovid is among those who were a little trickier to make, either because they had less lore, less lore that I understood, or lore that wasn't easy to translate into powers. In the end, I chose to take a couple traits and expand them into the character you see here. Doovid's colors were taken from his jacket.
You will notice that Doovid's powers section is one of the shortest out of all the characters I have made. This is a lie. Doovid's powers are actually some of the most complex; they seem simple because the one power effect "Variable" actually means that the player needs to understand every mechanic in the game. This Doovid is a shapeshifter, as stated by the power; he can spend a specified number of points (here, 50) to take animal forms, each of which has an entirely different stat block, only keeping Doovid's mental abilities and defenses. This also comes with the quirk that regardless of form, Doovid is instantly recognizable; this gives a small discount (exactly 1 point) but a whole lot of flavor. Shapeshifting is also why his defenses are lower than the max; the assumption is that in combat, he'll be in another form with better defenses anyway, so it would be a waste to spend too much on defenses for his main form.
I also made Doovid a monkey, like Avid. I know he isn't one anymore, but I liked it too much to give up, and this time decided to give him the backstory that it was the first shapeshifting he did and he's never quite been able to get out of it. His advantages further emphasize his adaptable nature, and I gave him the connected advantage to represent his position as an important figure in Doovid Transportation, a uniquely accident-prone transportation company.
Fix is another character I didn't have much to go on, though this time it's simply because I've never watched any of his videos other than SBK and I do not know ANY of his lore. His colors were also difficult; his usual skin is just grey and black, so I just did some greys here...
Because I didn't know a whole lot to go off of, I focused on two things:
He's building an ant farm
He used to be small in dominion
So I gave him the ability to shrink and speak to ants. Shrinking is pretty self-explanatory, even though it's extremely complicated from a mechanical standpoint. Importantly, it's the key to all of Fix's combat abilities. As a normally sized guy, he's pretty underwhelming, but one he shrinks he's extremely hard to hit and nigh-impossible to find, with the maximum +20 bonus to his stealth and a couple key advantages to essentially vanish at will.
I also gave him a headquarters, his "Ant Farm" is a hidden base only accessible via shrinking, with all of the requisite benefits of what is essentially a castle inside a shell the size of a small closet. It's also filled with ants.
Vintage's colors are taken from her cherry skin's flannel/shirt and hair. Vintage was challenging for a different reason than some of the others: I had entirely too many ideas for her, and all of them worked but none of them quite seemed to fit. This is actually one of several full builds I made for her, and I have almost a page of notes on ideas. I might have a problem.
For this build, I decided to lean into fae Vintage, and also give her psychic powers, which just felt right for some reason I still can't quite put my finger on. I also felt that it was very important she get fairy wings.
The Trustworthy power represents a sort of low-level psychic field Vintage is constantly (intentionally or not) projecting that makes everyone around her feel like they could trust her with everything. It's also, notably, the only place in any of these builds that I used the attractive advantage; I felt a little weird putting it on most of these characters considering that they're based on actual people that might actually see this on the discord, but I felt like it was appropriate within the context of a psychic field that makes people like you (for the record, I considered also giving it to milkman. Maybe I will explain more when I do the writeup for birch boys). Fairy wings and fae heritage give her some utility and amp up the fae aspect, while the psychic array represents her main combat options.
Her skills reflect this, with a lot of abilities optimized for interaction and some lesser skills in more shadowy affairs. Otherwise, she's a relatively straightforward character, except perhaps for that complication...well. I'm sure that's not important.
Also, this time I realized I have the power to create polls, so go here for a poll to decide which kingdom I do the writeup for next!
