#and specific to centaur character design

[ganondoodle]

okay now this is a different kind of way to ask for suggestions but .... i really do love drawing horses/centaur like creatures but theres isnt much space for them in my projects (my OC stuff doesnt involve centaurs except possibly a few demons that have some of those features since they are very diverse in appearances but its hard to make them fit to the rest of the characters- and i dont want to make up characters for projects im not gonna use them in, like the totk rewrite doesnt require much of those designs for example)

so would anyone be interested in letting me design a centaur/lynel for them? especially when theres specific animal inspirations for build and color?

[ane-doodles]

My dear people of the internet, I have some genuine questions for you regarding mythological creatures:

1) I've come to the conclusion that fauns and satyrs are basically the same creature, with slight differences in terms of their animal-human ratio, as well as their mythological origins. That said, my question is... is there a specific name for the female of the species?

2) Regarding centaurs: As far as I know, the "centaur" is the name given to a creature that is half-man and half-horse. However, I've seen variations where the animal species varies, for example, lions, deer, dogs, etc. Most of the time, I see that the suffix "taur" is simply added after the animal species to refer to this creature... is this correct? I mean, is this how they are described? Or is there a general name to refer to these types of creatures?

3) This is similar to the first one and is a comparison between sphinxes and manticores... at a detailed level I know they are different but in general terms... are they the same but with different genders? I have seen many sphinx arts and despite the fact that they are different, most are female, while in the case of manticores there is variety between the animal species involved in the design and in the same way they are almost always male, equally between both (sphinxes and manticores) there are similarities. So my question is, are they technically the same? or not?

If you know anything about the subject and can share it with me here, I'd be so grateful. I'm tired of trying to draw characters and wondering what they really are or how to find references, so any help is appreciated.

[If I mentioned or mentioned any fatal errors, I apologize profusely. My interest in creatures is just resurfacing after years of burying it under the bed... that's why I'm here to learn a little more :'3]

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Alright, I'm going to only focus on reblogs and answering questions for a while, rather than making new posts. My inbox is clear at the moment, I caught up on the backlog.

I want to dedicate some time to planning out that book. Not sure what to title it just yet.

Goal of the book:

To provide advice similar to what I post on this blog, but broader and more polished. It will be a book about fantasy design, but not the same way you usually see that term used. Most of the time, discussions about character and creature design are focused on making your designs work for comics/animation/video game concept art, where the important part is creating a design that stands out from a background and has an appealing silhouette and can easily be replicated by a team of artists. Marketability is a key factor as well.

This book will be about character and creature design from the view of a worldbuilder. I'm more interested in talking about functional anatomy and how to make unrealistic creatures look grounded and believable while still giving them that fantastical whimsy.

Part 1:

Obviously I'll open the book on some broader advice about how to get started with designing creatures, though the assumption is that my audience already knows how to draw. This is not a how-to-draw book. I will go over some basic terminology and provide examples of the artistic study process, but I assume anyone using this book is already an artist in some capacity.

The getting started chapter will discuss things like asking yourself the right questions to get your ideas flowing, how to use references effectively, and where to find good references.

That's all I have planned so far. Figuring out what needs to be said at the start of the book is pretty easy. Always open on the basics. And I think the last chapter will be about how to worldbuild effectively, taking your designs and applying them to your fictional world.

But trying to figure out the order of what to put between those chapters is the tricky part. I don't want to spend too much time on really specific and niche topics. I answer rather specific questions on this blog all the time, which is fine because I'm answering those questions for specific people and just making sure my answers can be helpful to other people who might have had similar questions.

I just don't think I can spend pages and pages of this book going over a dozen different fantasy people designs, or covering every possible animal combination for fantasy creatures, or going into detail on a whole fantasy fashion line for as many specific clothing obstacles as i can think of lol. That won't be productive or helpful for a broad audience. So I need to come up with some good categories to cover and then cover them in a way that hopefully leads people into their own more specific ideas.

And I need to figure out the best order to arrange all of those topics, so they line up well between the discussion of basic ideas and reference processes and the final chapter on worldbuilding.

I should also come up with some fresh design ideas I can use as examples throughout the book, since I plan to make a different book compiling all the worldbuilding I'm doing for my novels. Things like my posts on centaurs and quetzalin will go in that book, not this design advice book.

This is a big project and I'm excited to work on it! The most annoying part, I think, will be finding a publisher. I don't have the means to self publish it. I'll let you all know when it's available for pre-order and you can help spread the word lol.

[cripplecharacters]

hi, I saw one of ur posts talking Abt things that shouldn't be done for vitiligo rep, and one thing u mentioned was the like connect to animals that r black and white. I was wondering about kinda like, the reverse of that? The reason is I have a character I was designing who's kind of similarish to a mermaid, and I wanted to base some of his design off an orca. I was considering doing the black/white coloration, but I was wondering if that would be too similar to vitiligo. Personally his design is very early with regard to animal motif stuff, so I can put the orca elements into his design in other ways, but I also wanted to ask what you feel might be preferable handling with similar cases (like zebra centaurs, panda or cow humans and other animals who naturally have black/white coloring or similar contrasting colors)-

The main question is if u think the characters actually bringing up that they don't have vitiligo, but rather have common patterns, like saying "most of us have skin/hair/etc color variation bc it's just how our pigment works by default, but ppl with vitiligo have it bc of autoimmune reasons + (giving details on it and maybe mentioning a diff character in story w vitiligo)"

having the variation only affect specific things, for example black/white hair (like an orca mermaid having white eyebrows that mimic orca eyespots) without the skin pigmentation being affected (potentially also bringing up vitiligo to make it specific they aren't connected)

Or just trying to avoid having any animal based color choices that evoke the image of vitiligo, which is totally understandable if u feel the prev examples are still linking vitiligo to animals in a way that's ultimately harmful ppl w vitiligo.

Mostly I wonder if explicitly stating it's a different thing would actually help to combat the idea, or if it's just one of those things that is better to completely avoid doing

Hello!

I think it depends on how far it goes is the determining factor. A zebra centaur who has the zebra coloration on their horse part isn't a problem and doesn't evoke a vitiligo connection, the same way that a gray horse part wouldn't evoke argyria. I would say that the same goes for hair coloration, in media the hair color is kinda "anything goes" anyway.

But if you want to make a mermaid who has an orca bottom half, and vitiligo on the upper half, that is an issue. The problem is that readers, and people in general, just don't see the nuance and end up linking animal coloration with vitiligo anyway - I mean, it's not like cows in real life have it, but people still get compared to them. The visual is enough, even if there are in-universe explanations, in my opinion. Vitiligo is still dramatically misunderstood, and it's very much a case of "if it looks like vitiligo, it is vitiligo" when it comes to design choices like this.

In short; animal part with black/white coloration: cool, hair/eyebrows/etc: cool, skin: not cool. It just hits too close to the real life condition.

With that said, I don't think there's an issue having a character with vitiligo who's part animal if you're not trying to link the two. A catfish mermaid with vitiligo on her human part would be cool.

And for other ideas when it comes to mermaids and disability - a lot of people with limb differences that I know would enjoy a clownfish mermaid with an upper limb difference, the term "lucky fin" exists for a reason.

I hope this helps,

mod Sasza

[fairmerthefarmer]

More character designs except this time they’re fantasy dwarves and whenever I draw fantasy dwarves they legally all need to have facial hair regardless of gender cause I think that’s cool.

Also these guys are all secretly Narnian and are also on the crew of the Dawn Treader cause I’m forever building out the crew in my mind, and it’s practicing doing my own designs. Here is some more of the crew.

The slightest amount of lore for them is down here if you care, along with general Narnia headcanons and waffling.

——————————————————————————

The dwarf on the far left is a river dwarf I’ve decided. I don’t know fully that is other than I think it’d be cool if there was a tribe of dwarves that were close to the water nymphs, and generally have great knowledge and skills that are an asset on a sailing crew.

The river dwarves are one of the reasons telmarines were scared of the water (along with the niads, however the bridge of beruna imprisoned the river god, who otherwise was also responsible for many folk tales told to young telmarine children. Their fear of water is ironic to me cause I believe there’s evidence of them coming from the Caribbean as pirates? I imagine the humans on caspians crew are like, either rediscovering their roots or the few who held on to that seafaring background. Mostly younger telmarines in the same generation as caspian, they questioned the leadership and were very happy when old narnia overthrew Miraz.)

the river dwarves are generally peaceful and most lived in hiding during telmars reign. They’re temperament is very stable and they do well under pressure. River dwarves are incredibly stealthy and only attack in necessity as self defense. In terms of stealth think like lotr hobbits, and this is a great contrast to most other dwarves in Narnia (strong strength and combat, low stealth) A lot of them abstained from fighting against telmar alltogether due to their peaceful values. They are disconnected from some other dwarf cultures which can cause some tension.

The two in the middle come from a tribe of dwarves that are blacksmiths, and also they’re siblings. The brother in particular is a toy maker by trade specifically, and loves kids. His wife (far right) has a background in carpentry. Him and his wife don’t have any but virtually adopt any child they see. The sister is always having a good time, and seafaring comes more naturally to her than smithywork ever did.

The carpentry/forest dwarves generally have a history of closeness with dryads similarly to how the river dwarves are with the water spirits. Some of that connection has been severed due to how deeply the dryads retreated and were removed when Caspian the Conqueror (not our caspian) and his descendants over-deforested. It takes time to restore that connection.

The two on the left may or may not have a situationship and the two on the right have been married for years.

Regardless of trade they’re all on the ship because they’re loyal as fuck to Caspian, the married couple kind of see themselves in a parental role to him but it’s debatable on how that actually plays out.

Also no one has a name cause I’m so bad at coming up with names.

————————

My thinking in general is that Narnian dwarves make up a lot of the trades, other races do contribute as well, (I’d imagine some marshwiggles work in stuff related to ships/seafaring but perhaps not travelling themselves) most fauns are more into the arts/spirituality, but some do take up trades (a couple of my designs from this post are tradespeople, one of them is a bard.)

I haven’t done many centaur designs, but my vague thoughts is that there are those who are more spiritual and practice prophecy, stargazing, advising, and those who are more into combat, and are protectors, or messengers.

—————

Gender and the ideas around sexuality I’d also imagine would be a lot more fluid and most Narnians are a lot more open than some of the more human civilizations. (Like it’s a country made of sentient trees, talking animals and mythical beings, and the human countries kind of canonically are like “what the heck is going on over there???” Or they’re afraid of them and try to colonize them, like the telmarines)

These are all half baked ideas but I’ve been fixated on Narnia since I was five and it’s lowkey the reason I spent so much time and passion into drawing and now have a career in graphic design and illustration, so. This is mostly all for me, so don’t mind how long this post has gotten. 🤠

[lil-tachyon]

what are you biggest inspirations in terms of character design?

Number one has to be clothing. I have pontificated at length about my love of drawing garments. I will often base an entire character on an outfit or an article of clothing that stuck with me. I use reference the most liberally when designing costumes. Save the stuff that interests you! You'll always end up coming back to it.

I think the video games I played as a kid (Capcom Zeldas, Pokemon, Sonic) generally pushed me towards making very dramatic, brightly-colored characters. Shining Force specifically has some of my favorite designs from any video game. No other game has let me play as a bazooka-wielding centaur.

A lot of cartoons I watched as a kid still stick with me. I've always been drawn to characters that appear in backgrounds or a limited number of episodes- they're usually allowed to get weirder. Big shows for me growing up were ATLA, Samurai Jack, Genndy's Clone Wars- to this day I still think they have great character design.

OG Scooby-Doo is a masterclass and you probably have no idea how much I love this show unless you know me in real life:

Anyway, those are some inspirations off the top of my head. My favorite artists tend to influence my character designs as well but I don't want to repeat myself too much. See previous answers if you're interested in that: 1 2 3

Thanks for the great question!!

[kymooreart]

Take this Au I’ve been cooking up for 2 weeks.

I’ve been obsessed with centaurs recently, and I’ve been hyper fixated on Supernatural for like 2 months now.

There is no rhyme or reason to my madness. I’ve tried to have a little bit of reasoning for why certain characters are different breeds, but I lost that somewhere along the way and don’t know enough about certain characters to accurately portray them as a specific horse breeds.

I’m cooking up some more designs for other characters that should be out soon.

Reasoning behind these two I suppose:

Shires are big horses who are very strong (Dean and same are both extremely tall people) and I figured because they hunt monsters and stuff, they would need a strong breed to be part of their cross. Thoroughbred was because they are both fairly fast, and my brain decided that this cross made them better at hunting in this universe.

I didn’t make a lot of the horses crossbreeds, because I wanted a larger diversity of horse breeds to be present, especially within the angel section (they would be more like adopted children of Chuck, cause I didn’t want to have to make tons of crosses and because we don’t know the angels mothers. I just figured Chuck would make them to his image or something lmao.

I was a bit concerned with my designs being seen as not accurate to horses (which they aren’t) and I wanted to warn people because I just mixed traits from the two breeds, so if this wouldn’t work in the real world, I can chalk it up to fantasy and me being able to do whatever I want.

I will add more characters as I watch the show and am able to understand some characters better. I would like to add more characters to my list, but I haven’t met all the characters yet, and I already have so many planned that I’ll be creating them as I watch.

Anyways, I hope you all like this silly little AU I made :3

(Sorry for the block of text)

[idleglowingpixels]

I was rewatching Monster High: The Movie (2022) cause the sequel's coming out next week and upon rewatch, the fucking signs that Komos was actually Hyde's son not from the writing but from the COSTUME DESIGN for him was so striking to me that I'm pissed I didn't realize sooner.

Not only does he have the glasses, sideswept bangs and general human appearance of Jackson (minus the horns, I think in this universe Komos's mom was like a centaur or something, would explain why he's still so human-looking besides the horns), but there's nods to Jackson and Holt specifically all throughout his outfits in the movie.

(Also for the sake of ease I'm referring to the teacher as Komos cause typing Hyde Jr. or something constantly is gonna drive me nuts)

First, there's his main outfit which we see across the film as well as in promotional images, and YOU CANNOT FUCKING TELL ME the posing for his promo pic wasn't an intentional nod to Jackson LIKE LOOK AT THIS SHIT!!

The main thing that strikes me is the inversion of the yellow/gold and blue with Komos's tie and shirt, also the fact the colors are significantly desaturated in comparison to Jackson's flashy yellow and blue. My interpretation of this is that it's representative of the bad-guy/villainous interpretation Komos represents, in comparison to Jackson/Holt which seem to be a rare good-guy/positive interpretation of Jekyll and Hyde. It's like, yes this is the Jekyll/Hyde guy of this gen, his outfits are nods to G1 but is otherwise an entirely different character than Jackson/Holt. Which I mean, I do respect the writers for not having Komos be this gen's Holt Hyde and just as "Hyde's son," I feel like separating the two (three??) characters is and was the best decision. Just two different interpretations of the "descendant of Jekyll and Hyde" thing.

Another part of the decision to go with Jackson's more traditionally nerdy or professional type of fashion style is interesting to me. Komos does not want to be perceived as his Jekyll half, he wants to just be Hyde, hence why he refers to himself as Hyde's son not Jekyll and Hyde's son. And yet, it's like he can't deny his human Jekyll side. To be honest Jekyll's only referenced a few times in the movie (which okay, Hyde's the monster half, I get that, but you'd think he'd be a little more important yeah??) so it makes sense they're focusing on Hyde more but I did find it an interesting decision.

Next there's THIS OUTFIT which on rewatch made me audibly point like that soyjak meme like "THAT'S A REFERENCE TO JACKSON AND HOLT CAUSE OF THE YIN YANG DUAL COLOR SHIT"

Red and blue are mainly Holt's colors, but Holt's signature outfit's shirt is also dual-toned, split through the middle.

It's just with Komos, there's less of an emphasis on the yin-yang thing Jackson & Holt had in their interpretation of Jekyll & Hyde -- he's unbalanced in comparison to them -- hence it's not a black and white cardigan. Also, THE BOWTIE! Can't get more obvious with the Jackson nods than that.

There's also this outfit I wanted to mention, the one he wears during the Founders' dinner toward the end of the movie. Notice It's fully red-toned, where his initial outfit was mainly blue-toned, and the cardigan showed the transition between. It's like at first, he's studious and mellow-natured with a bit of flare but nothing too crazy -- Jekyll. Then when he's wearing the cardigan, he asks Clawdeen about her research, almost insisting she provide him the information she's gathered because of his desperation to lose the duality going on with him. And finally, at the end, he takes the potion his father made, fully embracing Hyde and abandoning Jekyll once and for all.

---

That's pretty much all I wanted to mention regarding the outfits, but I remember when I first watched the movie, I was severely disappointed that Jackson/Holt were basically confirmed to not be making a return in this generation (or at least in the live-action films but I imagine it'd be pretty confusing to have two characters represent the same specific monster character in the same gen). They were a really underutilized character concept outside of Ghouls Rule, and I feel like especially with Clawdeen being half human in this version that they could've been friends or something!

Maybe Jackson/Holt could've served as the antagonist of the film in Komos's position, but not out of malice, moreso misguidance. Holt was kinda hinted at in his diaries to have depressive symptoms, it would've been interesting to explore that with how he might have low self-esteem because of his half-human-ness. Also, apparently Deuce in G1/G2 was half human too? Why did they get rid of that this gen??? I don't know why they keep shifting representation around at times.

Questionable decision making aside, I actually did enjoy this movie a lot. From an objective standpoint it's a DCOM-quality movie with average writing (except Frankie bro they were funny as hell in this movie), slightly more fashionable outfits than DCOMs, and a basic self-acceptance plot. There's several movies, including one or two in G1, with similar but better-executed writing and storytelling and similar themes. But DAMMIT I can't get enough of this movie when I see it. It's a comfort movie. :'D

I could go ON about the Jackson/Holt erasure all throughout this movie, especially with the rumors it was based off an abandoned movie concept for the two back in G1, but this post is too long already and I've distracted myself from my work enough. :'D If anyone on this side of Tumblr wants to hear that ramble, I shall ramble about it another day.

Also, HAPPY SPOOKY MONTH!!! My Monster High AU is beginning this month with the main 5 ghouls' designs as well as a one-shot I've written. Maybe stick around for that if you want to idk! :D

[canonkiller]

Loving your D&D stuff.

thank you! however you are going to get a long answer because you have opened an opportunity for me to list things, which is my favorite

very few of the campaigns I'm in / have latched on to that my friends play are actually in D&D any more, for various reasons (primarily 1. WOTC sucks, 2. the system is not really designed for the kind of thing we like the most, which is "impactful character choices," and 3. "why play skyrim as a farming sim"). The games I've been a full player in are, aside from 5e:

Eberron / An Airship Is A Horse That Loves You is in Pathfinder 2e! We started in D&D 5e, which is why there are some semi-homebrewed imports, but it's a very similar system to 5e in gameplay PLUS Pathbuilder is a desktop and app program that will automatically put together character sheets for you, which is arguably the worst part of 5e. It's great, and I highly recommend considering it as an alternative to 5e if you're wanting something that still has the combat rolls and everything but also has more innate design for doing shit as a character. ALSO also there's a ton of included assistive devices, which range from normal stuff like wheelchairs and hearing aids to specifically magical stuff like my favorite: a wheelchair that has legs and can kill. Derien is my PC in this one, fresh out of the oven.

The only other actually active PC status I have had in this group was in an Eyes On The Prize oneshot! EOTP is a fake-marriage game (made by @iraprince !) with flexible setting / character guidelines that's played with a deck of cards, and I highly recommend it for shenanigans. My character was Moonlight Saidluck, a bug centaur fae who accidentally let a human into the fairy world and was pretending this newcomer was their partner and definitely not a human who had accidentally entered the fairy world. I played the one shot with two other couples, which did make it run overtime, but it was a delight. We also had very little trouble playing remotely, with one person in charge of cards and points tracking on an online draw-party style page.

The other games I'm more a spectator in, and then occasionally contribute ideas like fucked up boats or extended debates about magical darkness and the water cycle. That big list of alternative systems is ~

Persona: The Tabletop RPG (PersonaBS)

Quest (Luxknights)

Kids on Bikes (Streams of Consciousness)

Lancer

Beam Saber (AFI, but we haven't been calling it that)

Girl by Moonlight (MMM / Magical Girls)

Cyberpunk TTRPG

Numenera

Monster of the Week

aaand probably more that I'm forgetting because we're. Quite prolific about our play pretend time (and I've got a few concepts brewing that I still really want to nail down - Tanglethorn, the unnamed one about the sinkhole and Bad Hand may grace this list someday if I really buckle down to iron out the wrinkles)

I'm glad you're enjoying my little guys though! I just love a chance to get people into other TTRPG systems, especially when most of them are easier to learn and play than D&D and there's such a wide range of options.

Here's a little Moonlight png, as a reward for reading

[leo-regulus]

To keep the ocs exchange, who do your ocs serve, and describe them in two-three lines .

Aaaaight let's go through the LIST. I may still miss a few because rip my life. I'm actually gonna do this below a readmore because if I don't I think someone will kill me.

I have for this decided to exclude the pre-classic era Gold Saints, aka the moms of the classic golds we all love, because my fiance is the one with most of the info on them and I don't have it on hand and if I get anything wrong, the trout population will be affected.

I have also excluded the canon characters whose storylines got mega changed, you'll have to ask about them specifically because it's so plotty I don't think I could tl;dr it in a couple sentences. But there's. There is a LOT.

Please also note that I have details on literally all of them. At least picrew'd for visual designs (but many notes), their division / ranking and stats (height/age/ethnicity/birthday/etc), and a full writeup of their armour and abilities. You would be afraid of my spreadsheets. I have so much on all of them.

Team Khronos

The pitch of their plot is "a few accidental friends in 1986 Greece accidentally end up in Sanctuary in 1746, accidentally change the whole Holy War through the power of friendship and 'I can fix him' to varying degrees of success." My fiance is the one who made and writes them, but we co-write everything ever so not mentioning them would make everything nonsensical.

Khronos Ivy: Local Victorian girl becomes Khronos five seconds before she dies. Causes every problem, but we love her. Her big brothers are Libra Dohko and Mandragora Fyodor, and she forgives no one for taking Bennu Kagaho and Fenghuang Sui away from her. She'll have them back, or every god involved is going to die.

Samara Lancott: Sheltered Greek-American, runs away from her overbearing parents to crash on Ivy's couch. Ends up accidentally becoming Sagittarius Sisyphus' wife about it, and saves his life from Aiacos… by getting Ivy to throw them back to her original time, on the eve of the next Holy War, completely by accident.

Fracture Jesse: Local university prof with five PhDs, two in necrobotany, discovers they're immune to the Pisces poison when they crash-land in Albafica's garden and he has to keep them from dying from multiple injuries. Finally gets to understand their situationship with their not-girlfriend-from-240-years-in-the-future, becomes a Spectre about it.

Kimberley Vance: Sometimes a warrior from a scifi-high-fantasy realm in perpetual warfare ends up with a godly weapon buried for seven hundred years crashes on your couch, and then when you throw yourself back in time, she ends up in a different realm and almost shoots the Gemini Spectre in the face with an actual gun. Hijinks ensue.

Vivian Greylaw: He's been running from his family for so long he put twenty worlds between himself and his past. He knows several centuries' worth of gambling tactics that he taught Manigoldo basically immediately. When Manigoldo wakes up two hundred years later with a Spectre at his side and no memory of how he's alive, it's time to take a roadtrip through twenty worlds and then some tracking down the man whose fault it probably is.

Spectres

Amphiptere Asha: Not much on her, she's Rhadamanthys' daughter twice over and she's trying her best.

Bean Sidhe Rioghnach: Albafica, Regulus, and Pefko's sister. Because Ivy, ended up growing up in Classic era instead of TLC. Bartends for Dionysus Elisha in her free time.

Centaur Viermer: You know him already.

Cerastes James: Lugonis-era Spectre, Garuda, sold his sister to the fae for power. Kinda a dick.

Changeling Asterion: Classic-era child of the Wyvern harem, one of my first OCs for StS, unsure what their storyline should be.

Eidolon / Pyxis Muireall: Aiacos and Shion's daughter that they rescued from Marinas by accident. Garuda, pretty chill, extremely Scottish. Also a Silver Saint.

Fracture Jesse: Had a situationship with a mad Griffon Minos just prior to Classic. This is because they're her dead spouse and because Ivy, it hadn't happened to them yet. Literally everything to me.

Garuda Madeleine: Aiacos' mom in TLC. Was once the Northern Crown Saintia in Sage-era, defected to Hades because he'd throw her a wedding.

Ghost Janice: World's most tired Garuda, roughly Alone's age. Beats up Tenma for fun and for Alone's honour. Should be given TNT.

Griffon Victoire: Minos' stepfather and Madeleine's brother, keeps getting himself in situations where he goes MIA for centuries and people think he's dead. Decent judge, terrible father.

Ker Julia: James' sister, and Wyvern Rose's wife. Head torturer in her time, hates everyone except /maybe/ their two sons, Ilias and Rhadamanthys.

Kitsune Theodoros: Lune, Aries Gateguard, and Sagittarius Aiolos' son. Classic-era, very prim and proper, currently in high school. Probably like Koga's age idk you do the math.

Nix Macrantha: Luco's best friend, a Griffon, and fellow healer of the Meikai. Generally known for his motorcycle, intensely German accent, and ability to drown anyone who annoys him.

Ophiuchus Tiresias: Hades Sebastian and Persephone Liadan's son, classic-era. Spent most of his early life in a living painting, is a bit messed up about it.

Pisces / Loch Ness Theophania: Pisces of Sage's era, Madeleine's wife. Sage didn't quite kill her, but locking someone in the form of a fish for two hundred years means they never come back to you. Was a force to be reckoned with, though.

Reaper Eleanor: Griffon, the actual psychopomp who reaps souls. Classic-era, pretty chill, does not fight in the Holy Wars.

Skoll Leona: Mandragora Fyodor's wife, loyal Garuda, dies alongside Kagaho trying to fight off Scorpio Kardia. Vicious golden retriever in semi-human form, cares not for humanity very much, is the Most Dog.

Tarantula Vanessa: You know her.

Wyvern Rose: Rhadamanthys' daughter in Sage-era, his mother in TLC-era, because she lived that long. Severe and snarly and very draconic, enjoys fancy things and is loyal to no one but her family and the health of the Meikai.

Godvessels

Hypnos Matt: You actually meet him in the first two episodes of TLC, before he fully goes Hypnos. Very chill, very cunning, four hundred years old, knows he's the personal favourite of Hypnos and is way too smug about it.

Thanatos Mick: Matt's twin brother. Snarlier, and more fragile, takes his role as Thanatos' favourite human extremely seriously, takes everything else generally in stride. Has very little cosmos of his own.

Persephone Liadan: Once Pictor Liadan, younger sister of Deathmask's mother Cancer Morrighan. A chance meeting with Hades Sebastian helped her to awaken. Sanctuary really hates her. She also hates them. Bffs with Aiacos of all people.

Hades Sebastian: Shun's direct predecessor, was supposed to be the vessel for Classic-era and then Aphrodite poisoned him straight into a coma. He woke up later with the help of a god from another world, and is the current post-classic vessel of Hades. English major, everyone loves him.

Dionysus Elisha: From the same world Vivian is from, but on the other side of the war. Talks like a stoner, owns a bar, generally very chill but doesn't play ball with Athena specifically. Generally you don't know they're Dionysus until it's too late.

Saints

Pisces Raitis: Luco and Lugonis' dad. His one true love is the Pisces Cloth, and only ever wanted the best for his kids. Did not know he was coparenting them with Garuda Madeleine.

Northern Crown Natalisse: Vanessa's arch enemy, and a close companion to Sasha. Died to Regulus because he causes every problem.

Sagittarius Darren: Sisyphus' and Ilias' father. Horrible human being, very good Saint. Held very high standards for Ilias, then got murdered by him because Ilias didn't want to subject his at-the-time-only son Albafica to his grandfather. Murdered both Ilias' mother and Sisyphus' mother.

Gemini Tobias: Aspros and Defteros' dad. Lost his ability to walk to the Berserkers, tried very hard to protect them from Sage.

Gemini Thalassa: Tobias' twin sister, Aspros' and Defteros' mom. Was not actually the Gemini Saint, because Sage, but did her best by them anyway and they loved her dearly.

Aries Tenzin: Mu and Aldebaran's daughter. Shares the Aries cloth with Kiki, bouncing it back and forth like a hot potato because neither want to follow Pope Kanon's orders 24/7.

Pisces Hayliel: Vivian's daughter, who he doesn't know survived. Aphrodite's successor. Was in charge of keeping Liadan imprisoned until Albafica showed up. She has Issues. Also her one true love is the Pisces Cloth.

Sagittarius Eudoxia: Sisyphus and Samara's daughter, born Classic-era. Wants to prove herself so badly. You can imagine how Sisyphus feels about this. (She later succeeds Kanon as Grand Master.)

The Others Who Aren't Quite Related

We have a ton of fanchildren who don't get involved in the Holy Wars. We established that Spectre children are shapeshifters, combining their parents' surplices into new monsters and shapeshift between that and human. They generally don't stick around for Holy Wars, so whenever we need a new shapeshifter anywhere in our writing, we usually pull the Vólta-Paidiá out.

This includes Shigeru + Xinghua + Maiteng (Dohko and Kagaho's triplets), Story (Fyodor and Leona's daughter), Rhadamanthys' and his harem's frankly ridiculous amount of dragons, Sundara (Shaka's mentor), Lucille + Lucius + Viola + Rugonis (Minos', Albafica's, and Jesse's four kids), Iselinn (Lune and Gateguard's daughter), and a ton of others. I can never keep track of them but that's okay because neither can the damn Spectres.

We have established godvessels for all of the Olympians and then some. The ones not mentioned here have barely anything on them at the moment: we know Apollo Spiros has a whole plotline with his archers, but not exactly what. We'll circle back to it eventually.

In case it's not obvious by now, there is a LOT of worldbuilding I'm skimming and not mentioning. I'm not kidding about that "twenty worlds between Vivian and the rest of the cast" thing. Those worlds have names and cultures and conlangs. This 'verse is an ocean of writing, and we have two thimbles to try and move it out of our heads to where you can read it.

We also developed the personalities of both the Gold Cloths and the Gold Surplices, as well as their history and lore. They are full people and you bet they make that known.

I haven't even gotten into the fact we decided to change things so that Hades wins the classic era Holy War. That meant giving the Bronzes new Surplices, which has been so much fun.

There's. There's so much lore. It's all coherent. This is my true life's work and I am so happy to be doing it.

[cy-cyborg]

Hey im trying to write a centaur type character… the character has fibromyalgia and i want to represent them well by giving them some kind of mobility aid. But because of their being a centaur and the way their bodies are so different from humans’, i don’t know what kind would work best yet, and i’m afraid of designing something that won’t support their weight or will just look silly

Hm, that’s tricky. I’m not super knowledgeable about fibromyalgia, I know a few people with it and I know it causes things like pain, difficulty breathing and fatigue but that’s about it so definitely run these suggestions by someone else before you use them. I do know a decent amount about horses though.

So for mobility aids that would be primarily used by the human half, so long as you make them tall enough they should be fine. Things like crutches, canes etc, though admittedly, I’m not sure if they’d actually be helpful unless they’re only needing support for their front legs, since it probably wouldn’t relieve any pressure from the back ones. A rotator might be slightly better depending on how it’s structured, but it too wouldn’t help much with the back limbs

The centaur equivalent of a wheelchair or similar device would be much more complicated though.

Horses… don’t take well to mobility aids as a general rule of thumb, so anything for the horse half specifically is going to have issues. most quadruped animals who need a wheelchair can use a little cart or buggy like this:

[ID: A picture of a golden retriever in a mobility cart that's supporting their back legs. /End ID]

But horses really, really struggle with them. A lot of it’s behavioural, they’re prey animals and having something strapped to them like these “wheelchair carts” freaks them out and causes a lot of stress - especially if it gets stuck on something (like a rock, or crack in the ground). with training, they can learn to be relatively ok-ish with it, like how other horses are trained to be ok pulling carriages, but those carriages aren’t attached to them 24/7, these carts are.

This isn’t necessarily something that would apply to your centaur unless they’re very horse-like in behaviour, but I thought it worth a mention just in case. The bigger issue though is physical, and would 100% be a problem for centaurs. Horses are big creatures and are very heavy. It’s not good for them to lie down for too long, as all their weight can put pressure on their organs and do damage. It also makes it harder for them to breathe (that’s why, when horses are sedated for surgery, they try to keep them standing upright where possible). Likewise, a cart has to take at least part of the creature’s weight, and so long-term use puts a lot of pressure on the soft underside of their belly and chest, and causes many of the same issues.

One thing you could potentially do is give them something that mimics the ways horses “naturally” try to alleviate pain and fatigue. My mum has a very, very elderly pony (he turns 29 this year) and his knees have been giving him trouble lately, which means standing is hard, but if he lays down he might get stuck. Instead, he goes and finds trees or fence posts or the side of his stable and just leans against them (mum has padded the side of the stable he usually leans on). As a mobility aid for your centaur, this might look like the front end being supported by crutches or a cane, and the back half being supported by something tied to their back leg. I image the hind-leg crutch would stick out at a slight angle so it’s not constantly dragging along the ground, and when they need a breather or break, they could lean their body and shift their weight onto it. Something like this

[ID: A poorly drawn image of a centaur. Its human half is holding a stick-figure drawing of a crutch. Another similar crutch is tied to one of their back legs. The image shows them from the front and side, with the front showing that the rear crutch sticks out slightly. /End ID]

(I’m a professional artist lmao)

It’s not a perfect solution (and probably wouldn’t be great for their back tbh) but I’m not sure what else you could do, this at least gives them a way rest if they need it without depending on straps that could cause pressure sores/injuries to their abdomen and (horse) chest

Of course, centaurs in and of themselves are very unrealistic and their anatomy doesn’t really work either, so you can always take liberties with the realism of the horse-end mobility aid stuff. If you don’t want something on the more realistic end, I would say a cart wheelchair for the back end + crutches/canes/rotators for the front would be fine. It depends on the tone for the setting!

[stripedtabbycat]

my takes on various popular gravity falls fandom aus, as someone who was around for pretty much all of them:

monster falls: i was always fond of this one because it did indeed produce a lot of cool art, and the idea of aus where characters are all various supernatural creatures instead of humans just always had a certain appeal to my younger self because i was always into fantasy settings with a wide variety of sapient species, and it was just fun to imagine how things would work if that extended to the ordinary townspeople of gravity falls along with all their existing supernatural creatures. however when i tried looking into this au a bit more i was admittedly a little disappointed by what the established "canon" of the setting was, which is why i think a lot of people preferred it as more of a genre of fanart than a specific setting with rules and lore and stuff. i wasn't that interested in a story where everyone in gravity falls turns into creatures one day because of a magic spring or whatever it was, but i liked the version of the background for this one that i came up with in my own head more. i was imagining an au where gravity falls is a town inhabited by various sapient supernatural creatures as part of its natural weirdness, and the pines family has some kind of hereditary curse or something where they turn into creatures at some point in their lives, like maybe around their 12th or 13th birthday, and dipper and mabel have just had it happen to them, which is why they're going to stay with the last person in their family who went through it for the summer at least. (it skips generations; their parents and grandpa shermie might have thought they'd broken it, but no.) this would be a very different version of the canon setting in a lot of ways and you could do some fun stuff with it. i also remember the au almost always having dipper as a deer-centaur and mabel as a mermaid, but by now i prefer the versions where she's a unicorn-centaur, because they match while not being exactly the same, and it fits mabel's canon love of unicorns. i could write my own fic about this someday, i really enjoyed imagining in that space.

reverse falls: this was everywhere in the earlier days of the show and fandom but it had definitely run its course by the time we were into season 2. you can tell most stuff for this au was made during season 1 because of gideon and pacifica being thought of as the main villains, and bill being portrayed as maybe a bit more plausibly sad and downtrodden. (we must remember he was only in one episode of season 1 and it wasn't even the finale, although it did lead directly into that, so he seemed maybe not that powerful yet.) you can also tell a lot of this was made by younger fans because of the charming brand of edginess it tends to display. (the designs for the twins in this au also seem like they're intended to be a few years older...while i do feel like a lot of their characterization was established by fans who were closer to those characters' ages at the time.) sometimes it didn't really feel like that much thought was put into the characters or story in this verse beyond "what if good characters evil and evil characters good? and most importantly what if good characters evil in a cool and sexy [to 12-year-olds. i hope] way?? and what if evil characters good in a sympathetic woobified angsty way??" i definitely get why a lot of people kind of hated this one especially if they were around when it was inescapable in fanart. it does make me want to start drawing out what my ideal "reverse" au would look like based on everything we have in canon now, because i think the idea of a dipper and mabel / gideon and pacifica roleswap is actually a lot of fun and has potential that most creators in its heyday weren't really considering. (basic concept ideas: stan makes a deal with bill after ford is lost to the portal for success and wealth and getting his brother back in exchange for fixing the portal, the mystery shack becomes the most successful business in town and more famous than in canon, at some point the northwests' fraudulence about being the town founders is exposed and they fall from grace while maybe mcgucket moves into their former manor after regaining his memory earlier, by the time dipper and mabel come to town they're the beloved heirs of mr. mystery while gideon and pacifica are just normal kids living in town, they find the second journal at the beginning of summer and things proceed from there, also bill is just hanging around the shack with his own mysterious motives and willing to cut a deal with anyone who needs it...)

transcendence: i did try to get into this one because i followed a number of people who wrote for it but as hana hyperfixates said in their video on the subject (of aus), there is a lot and it can be intimidating. i think the concept behind it is really solid though and i'm impressed by how much it feels like a deliberate alternate ending for the canon series finale despite first being conceptualized way before that (before ford was introduced, even!) gf fans do like drawing and writing about characters as demons and the idea of gravity falls' weirdness spreading to the rest of the world (again, pretty much the canon intended outcome of weirdmageddon!) is a great concept for an au that travels far into time and space like this one does. i like that most content i've seen for it treats this event less like an apocalypse and more just like - magic and fantastical creatures are now known to everybody, the world is different now, how do we proceed? at least that's the version i like. i didn't know that most of the works for this au focused specifically on the reincarnation aspects so that's an interesting dimension, but i don't know if that's what i would find the most compelling part of the setting if i was writing for it. also i do love how dipper and mabel's demon names, alcor and mizar, were basically handed to fandom on a silver platter. they're literally twin stars that already exist, in the big dipper constellation, and their names even sound kind of like plausible archaic demon names [they're actually both from arabic though], and one of them starts with m. it's perfect.

relativity falls: this one might be my favorite. it's a very simple roleswap concept but it has produced some of the most delightful fanworks i've seen in the fandom. we were 100% right to latch on hard to the idea of grauntie mabel and i love that everyone knew exactly what kind of cool old lady she would be. oddly enough though you don't see nearly enough fanart of grunkle dipper and i wonder if that's because people figured he'd kind of just be canon ford, without much else changing about his role in the story. or it could be that this was also largely conceptualized before ford was properly introduced or we knew what his dynamic with the other characters would be so you'll see a lot of stuff where the stans' names are unintentionally switched. but i don't think that's true for this one because i'm pretty sure it really took off after "a tale of two stans" aired. most works for it seem to be set in the same general timeline as the show just with the characters' ages changed, but i did see a great concept for it taking place in the stans' canonical 60s childhood with dipper and mabel growing up in the 1910s, which i loved. all the various takes on how the events of the show would play out in this au are also great. i love it. no notes

mystery trio: well, this one kind of retroactively gained obligatory au status after canon completely jettisoned any possibility of it having happened...but it was a fun time seeing the stories and art people would create for that specific dynamic, even if a lot of it now has a confusing name problem when it comes to the stans. (and if by necessity most of ford's - or "stanley"'s - characterization had to be invented, but i think they got him pretty accurately.) and with all the aus people are still creating, and the existence of a canon multiverse, we can still find ways to make it happen. we wanted fiddleford to have interacted with stan at any point. please. it could have happened. (i can spin something out of what i noticed last rewatch, in that stan, along with the twins, is one of the few people not laughing at mcgucket when he first runs in yelling about the gobblewonker in episode 2...)

then there are all the aus where different characters go through the portal or go back in time and various roles are shuffled around and there are a dozen different variations on one au that kind of started out as a fanfic concept, many of which i'm less familiar with. but i do want to read some more classic fanfics now. because there are some great ideas with things like the various timestuck aus, blind faith, drifting stars, grifting stars, the various portal swaps...i feel like in recent years there's been a surge of au ideas focused on the stans in different configurations and they're all super interesting. this fandom is endlessly creative and it will never die.

[tookishcombeferre]

For some reason, Tumblr and AO3 links are still not getting along.

Below is the link to my fic offering for Cedric Week's Prompts Day 1 (Birthday) and Day 2 (School Days).

This One's For the Herbs

I know I'm several days behind. Please forgive me. Every time I sit down to write my toddler screams even when they're supposed to be sleeping.

A few quick notes: This is a chapter I quilted out from a longer work, but it can stand on its own. I've been trying to work on a fic that will encompass the sum total of Cedric's years at Hexley from 7-22.

This is a snippet I crafted out of some bullet points from that.

This fic is sponsored by my auditory processing disorder. I was not reading the subtitles because I was coloring with my child while watching the Hexley Hall episode the first time I watched it. I misheard Wormwood's "assigned" as "gifted" while at Hexley Hall - the Wiki did not have the ability to correct me because the summary was not that detailed. So ... Wormwood is now one of Cedric's birthday presents. Whoops.

The only character prominently featured in this story who makes absolutely no sense without having read the rest of the fic to this point is the narrator of the story: Master Fionn Ó Hícidhe (HEE-key - per Behind the Name, though there's some disagreement, some sources say it's closer to "Hickey" in pronunciation). - I'm so creative that this name literally means "descendant of the healer" ... and he's a Master Restoration sorcerer ... it's very on the nose.

Fionn is the Sorcerer's Secret flashback guy. I have made an entire country out of where he comes from based on the fact that his sprite design was reused for Irish-speaking centaurs at Tilly's wedding. I've built this entire fictional country out of what I know from my own family history, the mythology I studied while I was in Ireland, and just genuinely a whole lot of love.

That said, part of the reason the sum total of this fic is taking so darn long, is that I'm trying to do the above level of world building for several different places/ minor Kingdoms. That takes *time.* I love research and mythology, specifically, is one of my special interests. I hope this fic intrigues people enough to like stay interested as I world-build. But, I am but human, and creating this is my labor of love. I have nearly 50+ pages of quilting, character, and world building done right now.

But, I digress.

Also, last thing, at this stage, teen-Cedric's bangs have not yet gone full white like in the design from "My Evil Dreams." Something happens that causes that to occur later a couple months after this one-shot is set. So, right now, he still has bangs that are curled but look like kid Cedric's, and they are described as such intentionally.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy. This was fun to write. One of these years I'll get to writing the whole thing.

[beeshoesometimesdraws]

It is I, Soup.

For the centaur au, have any fun little tidbits or facts about Sun and Moon?

Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think you have any major stuff about them on your blog yet, and I’m a little curious about them.

If you don’t have anything to tell yet, go ahead and ramble about some other random character, I’ll enjoy it either way✨✨✨

(Sorry if these aren’t the kinds of question you wanted lol)

*gasp* it is the great Soup! :0

You’re all good! I love all the questions lol

Yeaaaah I’ve kinda neglected sharing stuff about them since most of the focus has been on the others though I’ll be happy to share what I have about them! :D

Sun ☀️

Sun is based off a palomino tennessee walking horse

Sun’s main job on the farm is planting and taking care of and harvesting the crops and also taking care of the smaller animals like the chickens and goats and pigs

Sun is also the one in charge of actually going out and selling whatever goods they have (fruits, vegetables, cheese and jams, eggs, wool, etc) as he does better with socializing and has more patience and energy than Moon does

Despite not working in a daycare in this au (that being Earth’s job), Sun is still very good with kids and, if they’re not busy, will sometimes stop by the daycare and help Earth with the kiddos

Sun likes to cook and bake and make jams using the strawberries and blueberries they collect and they often bake with Earth and Lunar when they have the time—their favorite things to bake are pies, specifically apple pie (they know how to do all the cool design stuff with the dough and make it look really neat and pretty)

Sun will often times let her cats ride along on her back as she does the chores (though they aren’t allowed in the chicken coop for obvious reasons)

Sun is still really big on cleanliness in this au and can spend hours cleaning the house and the barn and whatever else they’re able to get to to clean—Sun is also big on keeping themself clean as well as has one of the sleekest and shiniest coats of all the celestial fam

Sun is taller than Moon, if only by a few inches

Moon 🌙

Moon is based off a black and white paint

Moon’s main job on the farm is working with the sheep, with the help of Solar, and Sun when he’s available (raising them, moving and herding them between pastures, sheering and collecting their wool, etc)

Moon is also the main handyman on the farm alongside Solar

Moon is a big coffee drinker and will even eat the beans straight if he’s in a rush, he’s the “I can’t function until I’ve had my coffee” sort of guy

Moon is less concerned about cleanliness than Sun and has gotten himself chewed out by Sun a couple times for coming back to the house covered in mud and tracking it everywhere

Moon cannot cook or bake to save his life and is not allowed in the kitchen when the others are cooking or baking

Moon, sometimes with Sun or one of the others, goes to visit KC when he can (they are working things out and getting better though they still aren’t on the best of terms)

While he is calmer in this au than in canon, Moon can still get very angry if triggered and can be pretty damn scary when he is; the coyotes and wild cats who have tried to mess with his sheep and other animals have been on the receiving end of this, and so has Eclipse-

That’s all the little tidbits I have to share rn! I’ll start working on the designs for these two soon since I finally have some ideas on what I wanna do >:)

[firebirds-flaming-art-blog]

Commission Sheet 2024

Ranging from $25-$50+ I can gladly work within your budget if you have a larger project you want done.

Reblogs are also always super helpful!

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First, just Contact me about what you would like with references. I’ll draw a sketch and calculate the price based on what you want. Once a draft sketch is given and approved I’ll make and send an invoice.

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Send me a note/message/email and ask and see if I can do it. I’m always eager to try things out and maybe add it to my commission menu.

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[bluegekk0]

Your potential Herrah design already looks so cool! Did you take any inspiration from real life spiders, or you just made her spider-like?

Thank you! My aim was to mostly just make her spider-like, and I always wanted to go for a more centaur like look to still fit with the other, more anthropomorphic designs of the AU. Though I did use some photos of tarantulas as inspiration for the legs and feet. That said, she's not meant to be any specific kind of real life spider, just a spider-like character.