spectralstitions

[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]

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!!!!!

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AUGUUGHGHGHG i'm so brainrotted about my ocs but I don't want to keep barraging my friends with my randomass ideas but I'm too scrambled to think of an actual post to make on this blog and and and. OUUUGHHHH MY LIFE IS SOOOOOOOAUR HARD.

[spectralstitions]

How equal can a society be if some fundamentals are unusable by a third of the population? You can learn a lot about a world by looking at the little details, especially in furry settings!

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oc thoughts and goals for 2025

Posting this here because it feels like the most informal place to dump some thoughts.

First of all I thought I'd mention that I change stuff about my ocs so often and post so infrequently that maybe like 95% of what is on this blog is outdated. So. That's great.... I'm truly using this blog to its fullest potential....

Second of all...... 2024 was a fantastic year for me in terms of unraveling my artistic mental blocks, but the problems I have with my ocs remain more or less unchanged. These blocks are difficult to describe, but they stress me to the point of being unable to draw my little guys or develop them much at all. Nor have I been able to make new ocs, as I feel a need to "complete" the pre-existing ones, as if they are each individual projects. As a result I've felt frozen; I'm not able to do much with them, and I can't so much as talk specifics about them with my friends because it stresses me out so much. The blocks exist not for a lack of trying to unmake them, and overall, you could probably say I made some progress this year as a byproduct of working through my art issues. But like with those, my oc problems are enigmatic and figuring out the root of them will be just as difficult as solving them. It took me over a year to identify and rewire the mentalities that rendered me unable to draw much, so I figure the timeline for my ocs will look similar.

The extent to which I get worked up over my fictional people is very silly and I'm well aware of this, especially because it's completely invisible to everyone else. And I wish I could get it through to myself that It's really not that serious, they're just ocs, they're supposed to be fun, because it works for the few characters I have that AREN'T story related. But when I was a kid I placed so much importance on having clearly defined characters with a structured, set-in-stone story to the extent that it felt like the only point of my life. And now I realize, I don't have much capacity for creating stories or characters in that specific way, but the pressure remains -- because honestly, what else do I do? I love drawing characters, but I only get emotional fulfillment from drawing the same ones over and over again. Which is a way to do it if you can create stories and/or find ways to invest other people in them, but that's always been a weak point of mine, and my motivation to work on it is very low because I'm not even really interested in doing that anymore. I keep revamping and changing things about my characters because I'm trying to come up with a structure that singlehandedly fixes what's happening in my mind and lets me fully engage with my characters again, which I realize now is never going to happen. Even if my structure is to have no structure, that's still an expectation of something that I put on myself that doesn't much affect my thought process or workflow. And although I can recognize this, I can not emphasize enough how difficult it is for me to break out of a system-setting or structure-making mentality like this. It's just completely unnatural to my character. It took at least a full year of trying nearly every day to rewire myself for my art, and this problem is far more relevant to my ocs than it was to art.

So.... what do I do then? Well, that's kinda what I want to figure out in 2025. OCs used to bring me more joy than anything else and I miss that. Like I mentioned before, there are little things that have improved this year, even if only marginally. I've been able to draw a few characters consistently, giving me something of a reference point to study. Those characters being -- my human AU of Jesper and Lily and, primarily, my sona. In both cases, allowing for vagueness and exploration of ideas to the point of lore/story contradictions has been extremely helpful. My sona in particular is a good example of the type of character I think I need to start making more of; they actually have a good amount of lore to them, but I sort of just pick and choose what pieces I care about for any given drawing so that I'm not stressed about depicting them "perfectly" -- because there is no perfect version of them, there's practically like 5 different versions of them. But I think of them as just 1 character, because their core concept, personality, and design motifs remain. Importantly though, and what makes this mindset very hard to follow for pre-existing ocs, is that I cannot LITERALLY pick and choose what lore to follow for a given work, or else the problems happen. It has to be unintentionally thoughtless, which is incredibly difficult for me, especially when I've already artificially placed so much importance on "making something" with my ocs. How can I treat them thoughtlessly when they're supposed to be so important?? Well, somehow I need to walk back a lifetime's worth of conditioning, so that I can realize, or rather, so that my body can realize, they're not actually so important.

I think my favorite way to have characters is to base them around a concept or topic that I have fun exploring many facets of very deeply (whether exploring an unconventional relationship type, untapped potential for particular symbolism, or something else) and to give them a core personality and set of design motifs. And then doing whateverthefuck with everything else. These allow me to fulfill a touch of my desire for structure, give me the means to express myself, and the means to form the emotional bond I need in order to get the dopamine hit that I need in order to draw anything in the first place (this is a whole nother problem and why I rarely make non-character art, though hypothetically I'd love to; it's just mentally hellish). And because of the vagueness, I get the dress-up doll aspects that keep me motivated to do things with them and have fun exploring things in new ways. But it's not without drawbacks, the main one being that communicating the point of my ocs or their deal to other people becomes very confusing and not super possible, and I can never make any consistent functional story with them, which is somehow both incredibly freeing and also really hard for me to grapple with for previously mentioned reasons and makes me feel bad about myself and my life.

It's almost pointless to include any ideas for solutions I have right now, because more than likely I'll drop them after a week when I realize they don't hit right, but... I'll talk about my newest one, since if I go through with it, it'd be more of a tangible example. Going into '25, I'm considering letting go of the idea of a strict world setting / species categories / specific lore etc. entirely and instead create a sort of vague, implied world through isolated artworks of characters and scenes. This way, any implied setting or lore is just the result of what was in my heart the day I drew the thing, causing development to happen more naturally and allowing me to retract, reinterpret, or reorganize things very easily. Not to mention this would coincide very nicely with my 2025 art resolution and inherently get me to draw more, because the art itself would be the "world", and everything would only exist so long as I drew it. It would also be easier to tie into my identity, which is a big motivator for me when it comes to making art and characters. My characters and lore would essentially just become part of my art style, whereas they currently feel separate in my mind. And It's a possible way to trick myself into doing non-character illustration, since I will have an emotional bond to the world, where I can draw things that aren't just the same characters. Is this making any sense to anybody?? It'd be the caspar cinematic (artistic?) universe. Straight from my soul. Imagine it... Reading this back, this is probably just how most illustrators naturally work actually, which should tell you how bad my brain has gotten....

As for what any of this means for the blog, I don't really know? I'm so anxious when it comes to putting any of my character's information on here because I know it'll just change and then the 2 people who read it will have the wrong idea of my characters and I hate that.... this is why I don't use it much. But now that I'm thinking of it, maybe making myself do it anyways, even though I do not want to, could be part of the solution. Getting myself used to posting stuff even knowing it probably won't remain true for very long, and not putting disclaimers on everything apologizing for it... could maybe help rewire my mindset a bit. I need to revert to my middle school days of making ocs to random songs and throwing them all into a universe with no rhyme or reason. I used to have the time of my life sharing them with other people.

In conclusion i need an audhd diagnosis.

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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

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someone gifted me art of them dressed as each other for halloween and i thought it was the cutest thing in the entire world so i doodled a little fanart of it el oh el

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something about silas being based on an animal or at the very least having horns isnt hitting quite right for me anymore guh some exploring may be in order

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Oof, I've had these mounting feelings for a long time, but I think now I have a slightly better grasp of them. I think my characters are making me feel sorta pigeonholed. Last few years their existence has increasingly stressed me out. I haven't even really drawn them much or done much of anything with them in forever (both because of and resulting in more stress over them lol) but they feel like such important pieces of me that the thought of letting them go and doing something else doesn't even feel possible. So I've kinda just, not been able to do much of anything. I dunno it's hard to explain. I spent this year working through a lot of my artistic mental blocks but all the character related ones have remained enigmatic and frustrating as ever. Maybe it's because I take them too seriously, but unlike with art in general I feel like I don't really know how to unlearn that for this particular thing. I mean I don't even know what to draw if not for them. So I feel kinda stuck I guess. That's where I've been at lol

[spectralstitions]

A new viewpoint on antlers reveals the evolutionary history of deer (Cervidae, Mammalia)

fullview recommended!

something i've wanted to do for a while now. i've scoured the internet for something like this and can't find anything that compares all the different types of antlers together. except one recent study on their evolution, which is also very interesting on its own! i simplified it to provide a visual reference, while still trying to be scientifically accurate. some things differ between this and trophy scoring terminology like where the beam is and whatnot, so if something looks weird that's why.

small additional note, this study and others provide a lot of evidence that eld's deer should be in their own genus as it doesn't appear similar enough to barasingha and schomburgk's deer. however this doesn't seem to be adapted anywhere yet, so they're still in Rucervus for this guide.

🔴 KO-FI

⚫ COMMISSION INFO

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ppl are always writing characters doing dumb shit like roasting a fresh-caught rabbit over an open flame instead of making a stew with that thing. great now you’re letting all the fat drip down into the fire as it cooks, wasting calories and flavor as well as causing the flame to flare up = inconsistent heat source,… when you could be maximizing the nutritional value of small game by making a soup or stew. Come on

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iolnus sings a little song to himself

Basically a voice claim thingy for iolnus but with extra effort on my end. He sings to himself as he wanders about the woods. often to his dogs (but i really didn't want to draw 3 dogs moving as well :,) )

(and yes his father is dead and he wouldn't tell you how)

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Jerboa By: Karl Soffel From: Lebensbilder aus der Tierwelt 1908

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really love dynamics that are like 'it honestly doesn't matter if you view them as romantic or platonic, the point is that they love each other. the type of love is inconsequential, all that matters is that it's there'. gotta be one of my favorite genders.

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Nonhuman expressions of affection are great. Purring. Exposing weak points as a show of trust. Head bonks. Preening and chewing. Nuzzling. Biting. Intertwining tails. Feeding each other. Little chuffs, chatters, beeps and squeaks. Fluffing up of feathers, fur or other things. Dancing to impress. Cleaning their fur, scales, feathers or skin. Sharing body heat. Ears pointing toward those you care about to show your full attention is on them. Slow blinking.

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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.

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Every time i try to make art focused on my ocs' expressions I go "well come on i GOTTA draw the hands expressing too" and then before you know it im drawing the wholeass character