devil's in the details @vanathema-art - Tumblr Blog

Wanting to give Setsu alternate forms like Yuri has, but they are so ironclad about not wanting to be seen as either a man or a woman that it didn't feel right. Instead I guess the three genders are "pan (default)", "leji matsumoto character", and "bounty hunter".

Also ruminating on Yuri's hairstyle

#gnosia #setsu gnosia #yuri gnosia #raqio gnosia #art

Swordtember: "Fossil"

A fossil of a giant salamander was found in Öhningen, Germany. The naturalist who made the discovery believed it to be the spine and pelvis of a diminutive early human, perhaps a child; thus he named them Homo diluvii testis, or "man, witness of the Flood".

What were you witness to? And why did you believe it destroyed you?

#art #original #swordtember2025 #swordtember #salient

Swordtember: "Bell"

CRAVENLY DRAG YOURSELF FROM THE WATERS OF YOUR BIRTH,

YET THE WAVES WILL ALWAYS PULL YOU BACK WHERE YOU BELONG.

PRAY THAT THE FRAGILE ARMOR YOU'VE WOVEN WILL NOT FAIL

AND RING THE BELL OF YOUR OWN DEMISE.

ALTERED HUMAN: DESIS

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(This is the most diverted-from-the-theme yet, but taking the opportunity to do some design for a tokusatsu-insp project i've had sitting around. Explanation: The character was initially based on diving bell spiders, and spiders in the genus Desis have very similar behaviours in terms of living and hunting for prey underwater, and storing air in a silk bubble. While it WOULD be extremely true to the genre (see: ryuki's kamen rider femme) to have a heroine titled "belle", "desis" works better for various reasons that are irrelevant right now.)

(Not really sure if the sword will make it to her final design, I originally envisioned her as a dual-shield user. I definitely don't know if I want to keep the bubble scarf but scarves always add so much free movement...)

#art #original #swordtember #swordtember2025 #salient

Swordtember: "Scale"

In the middle of a dried-out lake (or so it was at the time), there was a statue of a giant. The stone plates balanced on its dual blades were each large enough for a grown person to stand atop them, and back then they were hopelessly crooked. The plinth beneath the giant read: ONLY A TRUE MONARCH MAY BALANCE THE SCALES.

Many people took up the challenge over the years: Good men, arrogant men, both the ambitious and the innocently-curious. None could make the statue budge even an inch. One day a king arrived with his hunting party, and he ordered his retinue to lift him onto one of the plates.

Miraculously, the uneven stone blades began to move. As the king's side began to reach equilibrium, the empty plate on the other side began to fill -- slowly at first, and then with unnatural volume and speed -- with bright red blood.

His followers fled at the sight, leaving the king to fend for himself; he slipped on the wet stone and tumbled gracelessly onto the earth, and still the blood continued to flow.

#art #original #swordtember #swordtember2025 #blood

Swordtember: "Automaton"

The king's paranoia only became worse when the royal children were born. He insisted they learn to defend themselves, but couldn't find a single swordsman he could trust to leave alone with the children -- an armed person! a hostile stranger! perhaps even a spy! Thus he commissioned a machine to act as both teacher and bodyguard. But the king soon mistrusted the new fencing-master as well, and (after a certain incident) ordered that most of its combat protocols be restrained to the point of uselessness, until it was finally dismantled.

I always wondered what the machine thought of that. Personally, I think if I was always doomed to face the chopping block, I'd wish I'd at least done what I was accused of.

#art #original #swordtember #swordtember2025

Swordtember: "Moss"

"The thing is. That thing about blending up moss and beer and sugar and you get "green paint" that grows into "living graffiti" or whatever. Like it's not like a sea sponge. You're just making a garbage smoothie. It's even bigger garbage that my buddy has a working recipe and they won't TELL ME."

#art #original #swordtember2025 #swordtember

Swordtember: "Shell"

In the daytime she would go to the docks and weave nets with the other fishermen's wives, but after sundown, she would assemble sword charms out of cowrie-shells and leftover bits of cord. Almost every sailor who could afford it bought one. When I asked what they wanted them for, she said that they warded off sea-spirits who might capsize their vessel and drag them under the waves; and also, if a sailor were to drown and become lost in the kingdom under the sea, they could use the cowrie-swords to free themselves and return to the air -- whether by barter or by force.

#art #original #swordtember2025 #swordtember

"And you are not you -- you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream -- your dream, creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this, then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the nothingness out of which you made me."

#who's lila?#art #fanart

Swordtember: 3 + 4. Cursed Relic + Divine Relic

"Among my grandfather's belongings, there were two artifacts of note: The Sword of Drowning and the Sword of the Anchor. According to his papers, the Sword of Drowning was forged in the blood of a dying god, and thereafter no amount of mortal blood would be enough to quench its thirst. The Sword of the Anchor was washed in the tears of a grieving god, and can only be wielded by one meant to end the sorrows of the world.

The problem is, for the life of me, I can't figure out which one is which."

(vanathema @ pillowfort)

#art #original #swordtember2024

Swordtember: 2. Floral

If you were to to drink rainwater collected from the footprints of wolves, you would certainly become a wolf yourself. But what if you watered a garden with it instead?

A whole wedding party once found themselves besieged when the floral arrangements awoke to their newly-monstrous nature. With no other recourse, the bride tore a tall stalk of aconite from the ground, and prepared to defend her new family.

(vanathema @ pillowfort)

#art #original #swordtember2024

Swordtember: 1. Wings

In the old days, it is said that for one day of every year, the Great Bird would nest on the cliffs near the village, one of countless stops on its migratory path across the worlds. The morning after its departure, the villagers would carefully gather its massive shed feathers, each one light as air and sharp as the wind. Only the nimblest of fighters could wield them without slicing their own limbs clean off.

But of course all those old stories are nonsense.

(vanathema @ pillowfort)

#art #swordtember2024 #original

Breaking in a new tablet, first time trying a Huion and I'm pretty sold.

(1. Baldur's Gate 1 charname and imoen; 2. Lunacid character portrait; 3 & 4. trying to redo Salient; 5 & 6. Ajar the aasimar)

#art #baldur's gate 1 #lunacid #original #ajar #salient #fanart

In 2009 (a lifetime ago), I drew the wiki image for SCP-085.

#art #scp foundation #scp-085 #fanart

I’m going to draw a children’s book style illustration of a mushroom house, I said, like Beatrix Potter, and then I looked up her mycology illustrations and got intimidated and went, Maybe not quite like that.

(Maybe someday like that.)

#art