this was just gonna be a doodle but I got carried away with the new procreate brushes so LOOK AT MY GIRL THING
also BOO full reference jumpscare bc I don’t think I ever posted it to tumblr
main character of my someday webcomic and embodiment of my anxiety and rejection sensitive dysphoria
imagine you have social anxiety and are convinced everyone is uncomfortable/annoyed/generally unpleased by your presence
now combine that with every time you get over-excited or anxious there was a chance chaos magic would explode out of your body and hurt the people closest to you
and that compounds with your social anxiety plus the fact your anxiety is physically manifested by that erratic chaos magic and it kinda freaks people out when you suddenly start sparking and glitching in the middle of a conversation and you know they know you’re freaking out but you’ve gotta pull it together and calm down because who the fuck has a breakdown like this in a normal conversation and nope it’s worse and it keeps getting worse I think we just need to leave as soon as we can before we burst here and now
there’s a bit more to Fell than just that but that’s the gist of where she’s at when the story takes place
this was just going to be expression practice with a few of my characters, but something possessed me and it turned into a whole lighting study
so have some unreasonably dramatic renders of my blorbos looking sleepy and soggy (except haldyr. I think elves don’t have to sleep as much as other races but haldyr in particular is always inexplicably well-put together)
I keep shooting myself in the foot when it comes to sharing worldbuilding stuff, I have so many thoughts and characters and places and lore bits I CAN talk about, and SHOULD be throwing out into the world, but I get paralyzed because I never know which direction to go in
do I talk about my city with the largest library and school in the known history of the world?? and how it teaches any skill and any subject to anyone who comes seeking?
do I talk about how magic in this world comes from the decomposing forms of monolithic entities that embody primal chaos, tempered over time by the perfection of order and structure provided by incomprehensible entities beyond the astral plane?? and how the existence of world is a never ending cycle between these forces of chaos and order??
do I talk about my zodiac calendar and how the constellations themselves, older than the gods, are the final line of overseers before the entities beyond the astral plane??
or my tribe of elves that previously worshipped said constellations that have now been turned into a cult that is unknowingly in the process of reviving a dead god??
or my other tribe of elves who, after failing to bring this now-dead god into the mortal plane eons ago, disappeared underneath the earth to search for his scattered remnants??
do I talk about how all the people in this world are born intersex??
or about my old-women hate-yuri??
idk. I’m too indecisive. look at some of my blorbos
trying to be better about sharing art I’ve made instead of making it and hiding it in my files forever >:(
u can look at more art and references and little blurbs I’ve made for them over on my unvale page, which I’ll also be adding to my pinned post links bc why not
Have you ever heard of a whale fall?
Imagine- you’re a creatur
sketch practice ft. Fell and Avis from our comic @zahkol
also ft. the incredibly poor lighting from the single lamp in our room
wings would be understandably large and unwieldy fully extended on the ground- and might be interpreted as threatening or aggressive behavior amongst other featherfolk. so, while not flying, they keep their arms/wings neearly tucked in close to their chest- I want to make them look "cloaked" when their wings are closed
fell’s design is rlly cool! what kind of story do u see urself telling w her?
It’ll be a fantasy adventure and mystery series!
I tried to give as much context as I could for the story without this getting too terribly long (I failed) but I sprinkled in some sketches to make reading the post a little more enjoyable lol
it’s all based on a homebrew pathfinder game that me wife @astrmastr ran for our group of buddies. She’s been HUGE in helping me develop the story, so it’s her baby too.
It’s set in ZahKol- a world where the remains of large, powerful beings known as titans make up the landscape. The magic in the world comes from their once immeasurable forms deteriorating in the earth for eons.
The plants, animals, and people that live off the land above a titan are usually imbued with remnants of its magic over time (<- explanation for where all the magical races come from- think dwarves, orcs, bugbears, all the flavors of elves/tieflings, anything we want to make up, whatever)
Felise “Fell” Feiffer is a college student at the largest school and library in the known world- Aton’s Academy for the Advancement of Adventuring Arts (or, AAAAA. You don’t have to scream the abbreviation necessarily- not if you don’t want to. But Arbiter Archibald highly encourages it. He does it, anyways. Every single time. To everyone’s reluctant, but accepting anticipation).
The Academy includes The Mages College- an institution dedicated to the study, research, and practice of the arcane arts.
At the time the main story takes place, Fell has become a certified mage (think, high school graduate- “congratulations, we think you’re competent enough to take care of yourself out there” certification), and is working on achieving her first higher rank at the college.
Typically, you achieve ranks in the college through noteworthy accomplishments- like making a significant contribution of research to the school, leading a beneficial community service project, etc.
Fell has spent all her time researching primal magic- a theoretical source of magic derived from pure titan essence.
More than anything, she wants to prove that a theory her father had ten years ago was correct- that The Winged Isles, an ancient civilization of bird-people known as the featherfolk, really still could exist out there.
and just maybe… using this, she could solve her father’s mysterious disappearance from ten years ago…
Does she dare hope that if she can find the isles...
...she can find her father?
congratulations!! you got to the end of my wordy story summary!! your reward is: yuri!
(Avis is the Windheart- Fell grew up listening to her father talk about his theories on featherfolk society, so Avis is kinda the equivalent of Fell meeting the princess from her childhood fairytales)
I was all over the place with this, so thanks for bearing with me! If anything was too vague, or any specific details intrigue you, I can… yknow 😏 go further in depth 😏 if u leave me a reply or send me an ask 😏😏
a look at some in-progress character design experiments with a few elves from my story. I’m looking forward to the challenge of having my elves be visually distinct while still sharing similar traits
I’ve decided I like the elves in this world having big, droopy ears and long flat noses. I want them to look almost sheep or deer-like
does that mean they could have little tails under those fancy robes?? maybe, maybe…
also trying to be less shy about sharing my art while it’s in the early stages, I even included the first drafts I made- you can see how yucky and messy everything starts out lol
