World In Progress-ish

Eliot Swift’s fantasy worldbuilding project

[world-in-progressish]

So-called “harpies” sketch dump from work. I’m not sure how they would fit in the world yet.. Perhaps they could be homonculus soldiers artificially created for a mad king’s army, or fey touched by the draconic gods.

[revretch]

Little world-building question: In a fantasy world where giant bugs and other such arthropods (like, the size of things like cows or wolves, not kaiju-sized like Humans-B-Gone's macrovolutes) are a thing, what do you think would be the best kinds for a civilization to try and domesticate, whether for resources or riding?

.....That is waaaaaayyyyyyy too broad a question, lmao. Insects alone are like 75% of *ALL ANIMALS,* period. If you bring in the other arthropods, that brings it up to more like *85%*.

Vertebrates, by contrast, comprise just 5% of all species on Earth. Half of that is fish.

If arthropods were giant, there would not *just* be suitable equivalents for the existing vertebrates we've domesticated (caterpillar leather; cockroach or jumping spider milk; ant hunters, guards, and mousers; wasp versions of homing pigeons and falcons; scarab and dragonfly flying mounts; ants are already excellent shepherds to aphids; and worker ants of many species already lay trophic eggs just for eating). There would be unimaginably vast potential for things we've never domesticated anything for!

Mountains of silk, honey, wax, paper, shellac, etc. etc. etc. are just the beginning. We've got nasute termite glue; we've got durable buildings and furniture constructed by bagworms and caddisfly larvae; we've got ants and termites farming fungi, or possibly trainable to do all of our farming for us; we've got bees for exploring and sniffing out any resources we can think of (we already can train them to detect drugs and cancer)!!! And forget plastic and metal for most uses when we have all this renewable chitin armor.

This is just the tip of iceberg. It would take me a series of novels to even scratch the surface, here!

[humansbgone]

Seems like a relevant topic for this blog, too!

[vintagewildlife]

Pack camel By: Dr. Gualco From: Animals of the World: Camels 1980

[theinternetarchive]

lyre guitar or lirachitara, varnished wood; m. c. mousset, french c. 1800-25.

[wind-tied]

I was recently very unsatisfied with my Tieraltsh, and Gorune designs. So I decided to give them a bit of and update :). Gorune still look mostly similar to their old design, and only have a few changes. Such as their hands, hooves, and head structure. But Tieraltsh are no longer as closely related to them as before! Tieraltsh split off further back in the evolutionary line with Gorune.

Eskab and Jezatim populations of Tieraltsh are isolated to two small islands due to previous wayfarer groups who managed to get themselves stuck. The Simliea population lives on the mainland of Fimba and have a larger pool of biodiversity. These populations are mostly in the north end of the continent because they do not enjoy passing through the massive desert south of them. Some small (often young and considered crazy) groups may migrate around it though. :) Simliea tieraltsh often mingle with Diakar gorune due to their close proximity!

Both species communicate primarily through signing, grunts, and chips. Some groups have fine tuned their chirps to sound like words in order to communicate with traders, and other oisnnuk. Almost every herd has a specially trained individual who interprets and translates. (Eskab and Jezatim do not carry on this tradition due to their isolation.)

I also updated the species to have a bit of sexual dimorphism. Males have thick whiskers above their noses and a musk gland that is active during certain times of the year. Females have beards, a thick beard indicates good health.

[drafthearse]

Botanical leather. Amber Veel. goat hide and douglas fir, oak, sumac, ash, larch, and willow.

[reportsofagrandfuture]

1, 2, 3

[world-in-progressish]

Strider garb ideas..

[angelicdewdrop]

[tenebris-aurea]

misc beetles

[tutta-mia]

wine cellar caves | Pietragalla, Italy

[nock-nock-nock]

The Hill by Por Pathompat. Mù Cang Chải District, Vietnam

[world-in-progressish]

Thinking about anatomy and feathers

[world-in-progressish]

Thinking about Strider babies; since they are flightless and spend a lot of time walking, it makes more sense for them to be precocial in order to keep up with the flock while foraging. They would be able to stand and walk straight out of the egg, like cranes and pheasants. While modern Striders may supervise and coddle their young, keeping them in the nest and within the safe architecture (arbortecture?) of mangrove colonies, their ancestors would have relied on moving frequently between natural cover and fertile foraging grounds.

It will be fun to design some stripey cryptic coloration that will help the young hide among marsh grasses and tree roots. They’ll molt into white adult feathers as they age, maybe with an intermediate adolescent plumage that lasts a year or two like gulls?

Also wondering if their diet of fruit, grains and nuts would have any concentrated pigments to inform display coloration/ pops of color on hidden parts of the white plumage (inner wings, under ear tufts)

[world-in-progressish]

A strange little fluffbottom

[world-in-progressish]

Sometimes it occurs to me that it’s kind of an utterly bananas hobby to create a fictional world with cultures, farming, civilizations, architecture, and entirely new species that require hours of research and frustrating creative iterations to make it feel synergistic and plausible- for fun

[world-in-progressish]

Strider movement/poses ideas

[world-in-progressish]

I've been agonizing over deciding on plumage for these guys, and I'm still not sure if I'm 100% happy with these options. I know I don't want the bright primary colors of Macaws, or for them to be 1:1 representations of real birds (though the American Avocet colors on #4 were a fun exercise). They also shouldn't be overly detailed - I want them to be fun to draw, not a slog. I was also thinking about how extending the arm shows the usually-hidden inner wing and thought it might be fun to have a contrasty, flashy display in there (though the facial skin is the main display of fitness and emotion).

I think I might narrow it down to the last two as common pattern variants, and experiment with alternate color schemes or pigment mutations.

They are a temperate marshland species, so I stuck with mostly browns and greys to make them feel more commonplace and not overly tropical due to their other similarities with parrots. Incidentally some of the color and facial patterns I gravitated to remind me of Killdeer and Plovers, which live in marshy habitats.

As always feel free to reblog and leave your thoughts and comments!

[world-in-progressish]

I think all this time I’ve been imagining them as white like egrets or cockatoos. Which seems boring but I think it just fits best. Maybe flashes of color are revealed in the underwing and when the paired crests extend. And I have to decide if there’s distinct sexual dimorphism or seasonal display feathers.. never mind getting into clothing/textiles/personal ornamentation..