#end of the year sketch dumps

[buboplague]

dumb shippy rp doodles

[5oh4]

so much white alastor art out there ..... *shudders*

im sorry but idgaf abt his demon form or whatever vivzie said abt that one design this man wouldn't have pin straight 1a hair nuh uh

[bear-ylee-stable]

So I’m thinking of doing a massive doodle dump or two as a recap of this year. I have lots of turtles that I just never got around to posting and some spider-sons stuff. So 🤞🏽I’ll get some of those up before year’s end.

[black-cat-babe]

Art vs artist to end off 2023!

[mikeystrawberry]

Today is Dungeons & Daddies’s 5th Anniversary!

I haven’t been listening for nearly that long but the podcast and all its characters means a lot to me. Happy Anniversary!!!

Throwing the cropped sections under the cut because there’s a lot of stuff going on and I know Tumblr likes to throw half the pixel quality out the window. And also so I can ramble a bit about this piece!!!

This piece has been months in the making, possibly an entire year. And by that I mean I’ve had a sketch of the comp scribbled on my whiteboard for ages because I wanted to save this specifically for 5th anni art. Now onto design stuff!

(First off a random thought: I really love how the garlic knot came out, I kind of want it as an enamel pin.)

I knew I wanted to make this a stained glass piece since the beginning, but I was also going to add flowers at one point but quickly dropped the idea. It felt like too much and I also didn’t want to fuss over flower language assignments for everyone. I was also going to add Doodler tentacles, but also dropped that idea pretty early. Kind of on accident, right at the end, I figured out how to make it even more stained glass-like but taking a duplicated lineart underneath the regular layer and turning the brightness all the way down, then setting it to overlay and adding a guassian blur. It’s very subtle but it adds that tiny bit of depth that makes it look more real. As for shading on the lineart/gold, I tried adding more highlight on the characters who died but once I evened everything out it wasn’t as noticeable anymore so I’m throwing that thought here so the attempt at least known lol.

The order of characters only changed a little bit from my original comp, I flipped the Wilsons and the Oaks so the rainbow could work. As for the anchors, specifically in season 2, I lined them up to the teens since the season 1 anchors lined up with each dad:

Tony —> Scary: his death was the beginning of Scary’s betrayal arc and also Willy killed him.

Guitar Pick —> Taylor: it’s not really aligned with Taylor at all, but the anchor was with Glenn so I put it next to his blunt.

Scroll —> Normal: was only because it was the last left to give him, but there’s the whole scene of him and Hermie in the Green Room so it still works!

Garlic Knot —> Link: one of two that he broke, but the more significant of the two with him telling Grant he never wants to see him again.

Small notes on the season 1 anchors: I put the layer of mold in the overnight oats but you can’t really tell with the overlay. And to make the supper bowl more interesting I added the fantasy sodas mix they dumped into it. The lure of actually drawn before so I just traced my own art lol.

As for the other smaller triangles, it took me a bit to figure out what I wanted to put there. I didn’t even think of adding the vehicles until two days ago but I’m so glad I did. I don’t really have my own take on the mascot version of the Doodler (yet?) so I borrowed the design from one of the stickers in their merch shop. Teeny was terrifying as just a front facing head so I made him cute again.

In the outer circles, I put what I felt was the most significant quotes for each family. I really wanted to use “It’s okay to be angry, it’s not okay to be cruel” but it was just a little too long.

That’s all I can think of! If you read all the way through, thank you for indulging me in my excitement to gush over this piece.

[naomifranq]

Marmalade (2024): making art for set dressing

Two years ago, I got an email from Kiwi Smith (the writer of the comic series, MISFIT CITY, that I illustrated for BOOM!). She introduced me to the actor, writer, and director Keir O'Donnell who was in need of some sketches for an upcoming film of his. The request? Sketchbook pages from the hand of Otis (Aldis Hodge) as he sketches and takes notes on the mysterious Marmalade, the bank-robber and love interest of his prison cell-mate Baron (Joe Keery).

I'd never done something like this before, but his prop master was pretty straight-forward with what they needed. Ultimately, I only had to draw two pages of new sketches specifically of Marmalade-specific content. The rest of it consists of old sketches I'd already worked up over time (some of which you may recognize from past sketch dumps).

The goal was to make them look like real pen, ink, and pencil so I had to get creative in Clip Studio. I gave them the sketches mostly separated so they could cut, paste, and arrange them in the prop as they needed. They merged some, omitted others, and the end result looks amazing to me. Never thought I'd get to see Joe Keery tenderly brushing his fingers against my art, but here we are.

What's funnier is how many of the extra sketches I included were sketches of my OCs and D&D characters. Since Aldis Hodge had to pretend to be the one drawing these, I hope he liked the material!

Either way, it was so fun watching this movie with my friends and cheering like it was a contact sport whenever my art showed up LOL. Always grateful to have pals who are excited to gas me up.

For more sketches, check out my Patreon where I've shared these and more for free, open access!

[colleendoran]

How Do I Do Stuff

The question was phrased a little strangely, and I don't want to embarrass the person by posting exactly what was said, but I'll answer it and hope this clears everything up.

I do almost all of my drawing by hand. No, I don't trace in Photoshop. Not a judgment on those who do, but I come from a generation of artists who did not use Poser programs or other digital tools. We learned to draw using a technique called the Sight Size method. I know a lot of people assume everyone - including the old masters - traced everything using optical tools, but while it is true some people did, it is just as true that most didn't, and you can draw with great accuracy if you learned how to draw the old fashioned way.

Sight Size breaks everything down into its barest components of geometric shapes and you build from there. Once you learn it, you never forget, and it applies to everything you will ever draw.

I learned it using a set of Famous Artist Course books my mom had since she was a kid, and they are still the gold standard. They're often on ebay. If I were you, I'd buy them.

I actually find using figure reference really annoying because I like exaggerations and modifications from reality in my final work.

This page from Neil Gaiman's Chivalry was drawn and painted without figure reference of any kind.

I don't know why people assume I trace all the time. If you were to try to use photographs to replicate these figures, you would find they are slightly off. There is no tracing here.

This is not to say I never use reference. This page, for example, was referenced from a photo of my mother. Isn't she pretty.

But this page of Sir Galaad was drawn and painted without reference.

He's pretty, too.

If he were real, I'm sure a lot of people would be very happy about it. But he's not. And had I reference, the art would have gone a lot faster. I had a time trying to nail this face that is very alive in my head but doesn't really exist.

Back in the ancient days, all cartoonists had to learn to draw and paint extemporaneously because reference was limited and digital tools didn't exist. While some high end artists had photography studios and professional models with costume and sets on hand, small fry like me were limited to what was in the house or available at my small local library, which was no bigger than a few rooms of my current house.

Artists kept extensive "morgue files" or "swipe files" which were collected from magazine clippings and photographs so we would have as much of what we might need on hand for quick reference. These ephemera collections could get unwieldy. I have thousands of photographs I've simply never sorted. I finally dumped most of my files this past year.

Have I ever traced anything? Of course, especially if I have to re-use a shot or setting over and over. Making extra work for myself is just silly. It's my job to make pictures, not to perform magical feats, like copying one shot after another over and over without making a mistake.

However, for almost 15 years of my career, I refused to copy or trace anything, and did not even own a lightbox. On the one hand, that forced me to learn to carefully examine what I saw. On the other hand, it was a stupid hill on which many deadlines died.

Only after I realized many professional artists had lightboxes and overhead projectors did I finally break down and get one.

The one thing I use my lightbox for more than anything is for tracing my thumbnail sketches to the final drawing paper. Instead of trying to capture the liveliness of the original sketch by copying what I see - only bigger - I blow the thumbnail up to the size I want the final art to be, then I trace over the thumbnail using a lightbox onto the final drawing paper.

Here's a look at thumbnails from the graphic novel Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples.

I enlarged these on my computer to fit onto 11"x14" paper, and traced the thumbs before finishing the art which was drawn in pen and ink and colored in Photoshop.

While I obviously made some changes, the essence of the thumbs is there in the final work. Tracing my thumbs retains some of the looseness of the original sketches, which is often lost otherwise.

So, there is a valid purpose to tracing at times, though in my opinion, too much tracing can weaken drawing ability, substitute for developing skills, and make the work kind of stiff.

If you want to, I'm not your judge. But it's weird to me that people think I must be faking my skills in some way.

Ironically, the word cartoon comes from the Italian word cartone, which is a large heavy sheet of paper - also, the origin of the word carton.

Preparatory sketches were made on this paper which was then transferred to the final work surface via either tracing or by stamping little holes in the paper through which dust was sprinkled, recreating the contours of the drawing for the artist to follow.

So the origin of the word cartoon comes from a process often used...for tracing.

[the-real-couchrat]

Post ending / rescue AU / recovering Curly is everything to me, so I’m making a list of other people’s posts that feature him. (The links will connect to a reblog of them in case anything ever happens to the original post)

If anyone ever see’s posts like these ones, PLEASE tag me in a reblog!! All posts are welcome, not just art!

Please note that I don’t decide what to add to this list based on shipping, opinions on the metaphors in the game, the accuracy of burn scars, the morality of Curly, or anything else that causes discourse in the fandom. I just add any posts that I come across that include Curly recovering from his injuries in any way. Prosthetics, wheelchair, wig, crutches, It just needs to have him in better shape than when he first got injured.

No NSFW

(Also this post is edited to add new ones when I find them)

Rehabilitated Curly

Party with no Jimmy

Stand around in medbay party (Idk if this counts, but he has prosthetics so I'm saying it does)

Happy abortion!

Post-ending speculation (text)

20 years later (I AM NOT WORTHY TO LOOK UPON THIS WITH MY MERE MORTAL EYES)

ANYA’S GRADUATION DAY

Post ending

Rescue/Recovery AU

My own post! (text)

Aftermath Curly

Good ending

Best way to approach captain’s disability?

A little sketch

They care

“I wouldn’t want to frighten her”

Anya doesn’t quite overdose

They’re safe

Guys rate my fanart

WWI face prosthetics

Less fucked up Curly AU

Fix-it type AU

Silly recovering time

Curly got some gifts for his b-day

Imagine Curly survived (twitter)

Curly with a service dog

I’m not a dog and you’re not a mare

Drawing the dentalcare crew (does this count?)

The quality will not be questioned

Fix-it AU

Want to make Curly some cool new mechanical hands so he can strangle Jimmy

One can dream

He’s got a wig now

Happy ending where they all survive (devianart)

It hurt my heart (twitter)

God forbid I get sick (translated?)

This might be controversial but… (text)

Let’s get you out of the house!

Cyberpunk AU

Cartoons with breakfast

Old-school surgeries (text)

Post-ending fic prompt (text)

Post-rescue AU curlyana

Post-rescue curlyana part two

Why is this goddamn white boy so hard to draw?

Captain stop infodumping the baby

Maybe never forgive

Draw Captain Curly having a prosthetic limb

Curly from Mouthwashing (good ending)

This is how I imagine Curly post OP

whats the worse fate, whatd be better for the tulpar crew

Wip

🐈

Mouthwashing AU (Reddit)

Curly if he survives (Reddit)

My own art

I’ll give him smoochies, prosthetics, and skin grafts

Art dump time✨

Hoppin on da trendin train

The crew built curly a mechanical hand

How to give Captain Curly a voice (idk if this technically counts, but it’s a disability aid so I will)

Doodle of the Tulpar crew post-rescue!

New hyperfixation just dropped

Hi Tumblr. Funny seeing you here

Another rehabilitated Curly

Who up washing they mouth rn

Don’t use the dog buttons (text)

Haunted part one and two

Prosthetics

AU were someone saves them

Mouthwashing doodles

A New Ladder-Reader x Curly (I’ll add the original art videos when I can) (also I didnt read it. if someone did read it, please let me know if it’s SFW)

I know he always have his headphones on

More rehabilitated Curly✨

You guys like this right

Anya, what’s it like working as a medic on a spaceship?

This is how we can still get the good ending

“I’m sorry Anya”

More cringe mouthwashing art be upon thee

Curly’s happy (and recovering) ending

Writing an AU of mouthwashing where the crew survives

Most people seem to be giving him prosthetics…

Doing a bit of study

2

[mtkay13]

Sketch dump thread for the end of the year! Loooootsssss of them LOL

LOL THAT WAS A BUNCH hope you enjoyed

[meggahamicide]

Why did Draxum name Leo vermin also I saw the little sketch dump he loves Mikey please tell me how that came to be I love portal duo

Draxum never actually named Vermin.

Whether that's because he didn't want to get attached or he just never felt the need to name an experiment, he never bothered to give his creation an actual name. Over the years, Draxum had come to call the mutant many things: turtle, red one, child, pest, whatever was most convenient at the time and verbalized his mood. The most common title was Vermin, so ultimately, that's what ended up being adopted by the slider when he chose to leave Draxum.

As for Mikey, he was the only one Vermin didn't find a threat when he ended up in the lair. He wasn't really comfortable with anyone at first, Donnie because of his claimed title of scientist and Raph because he just looks intimidating, but Mikey was someone he could accept being around even if he doesn't trust him. (of course, this is before he learns that Mikey is a powerhouse who can literally throw buildings, but by then, Vermin has learned to let his guard down around the family a little more). It helps that Mikey looks squishy and smiley and bribes Vermin with food.

I like to compare their relationship to Mikey's arc with Draxum in the show. Mikey sees Vermin as a sort of feral animal that has only experienced harsh reality. As soon as he meets Vermin, Mikey takes him under his wing and teaches him that kindness isn't circumstantial or earned, that not everyone has ulterior motives by being nice. That kindness makes Vermin wary and protective because he thinks that Mikey's naivety was going to get him hurt and as such vows to protect him from the evils of the world.

I'm not being very eloquent today, but I hope this answered your question!

[kozachenko]

Here's a digital sketch dump of some pose/anatomy practices and some 2hu doodles, I think from now on if I don't have any big final piece to post, I'll just post sketches I liked that I did digitally (might also reblog some drawings of mine that I want more people to see, maybe idk).

Artist's Notes:

Ok so after the recent Hifuu fanart I did, I've been hoping to experiment more with how I draw faces, how I render, as well as how I stylize things. In some of the earlier sketches I did, I had an idea for a pose that I wanted to try drawing, so I took a ref pic of myself doing said pose (the leaning one btw) and then did a sketch over top of it just to get an idea for the shapes, negative space, and silhouette. After that, I wanted to do some simpler breakdowns of the shapes so I can get better at simplifying the body (these ended up being the bottom right sketches in the post). I also did some experimenting with how to push certain parts of said sketches to create a different body type (via liquify and then a more refined version based on that sketch), as well as figuring out what makes a pose feel natural and not stiff. This was also a bit of a foreshortening practice just so I can get more confident with it, and I ended up using the arms from the liquified version for the coloured Zanmu sketch I did since I liked them so much (dw I'll get to that).

The next thing I wanted to try and draw was Hisami, mainly because.... I am very bad at drawing her in my style. Last time I drew her I made her look really creepy and spindly, and it is my headcanon now that she can switch between a more human, and more creepy look whenever she wants. I'm liking where the face is going a lot, might have to refine a few things about it in the future, but it's cute (I also made the blush purple which I think is what I'm gonna do with her face from now on). I also like how her hair in the sketch turned out a lot, but the outfit..... not as much... Ever since I started changing my style to something less cartoony, I've had a hard time drawing her outfit in my style. Especially the flower veil thing she has on, which, I did try to find a way to draw, but I ended up deleting that sketch because I didn't like it. I'm also not a fan of using the colour purple, like, pure purple, magentas are fine, indigos are fine, but not strict purple. I also have a hard time with drawing all the little pattern details on her dress. I also need to find a way to draw the flower veil in a way that looks good because everytime I try it ends up just looking off (very similar to whenever I try to draw Zanmu's blue spears). I think the only solution to this problem is to do what I normally do and make my own version of the outfit, but with adjustments to suit my style while still trying to keep core elements from the original design intact (like I do with Zanmu and Keiki, and yes I am going to get to that Zanmu drawing just gimme a minute).

Ok next up is Keiki, my favourite Touhou character who I haven't drawn since the beginning of the year. Since my style has changed a lot, I wanted to just do a face sketch of her to get a hang of drawing her again, and I..... really really like how it turned out! When I drew her eyes, I realized that a good way of keeping faces too same facey can be via varying the sizes of their pupils, so that's an idea I'm gonna keep in mind from now on. I had a lot of fun with her hair, I initially was gonna do it like how it is in the official art, but I ended up not liking it, so now I'm gonna draw Keiki with wavy heir like this because it's fun and it looks nice. I also included my base sketch for Keiki's face since I was initially struggling with drawing her bandanna, and in the coloured sketch I added some more detail into her hair.

Now to finally talk about the sketches for Zanmu. Good lord was I having a tough time with her face. I also did this sketch before I figured out how I wanted to draw hair, so that's why the rendering on her hair is different (I did this soon after the Hisami sketch actually). Since I changed my art style a lot, I had to find a way to translate her face from my more cartoony style to my more detailed style, so while the face shape, nose shape and mouth was fine, I was really struggling with the eyes. I did get somewhere eventually though, and I am super happy with how it turned out. I wanted to lean more towards the androgynous side of the gender presentation spectrum, mainly because I think that makes sense for her character. Also made sure to include the silver hairs and some wrinkles just to bring some signs of her aging into her face because those are just staple features of how I draw Zanmu at this point lol. You will also notice that I gave her some scars on the right side of her face, and that's because I am a Zanmu-with-scars truther, I fucking love it whenever I see someone give Zanmu visible scars like that it just adds so much omg (I also tried to put a wolf bite mark on her arm in the full body drawing but idk if it reads well). While you can argue that her not having scars sells the idea of her being this "powerful, untouchable mastermind who is impossible to defeat," I'd say that instead of those scars representing times she got injured, they represent everyone who has failed to defeat her.

As I was drawing Zanmu's face, I referenced my sketch of to help with contrasting their features since I made Keiki's face more traditionally feminine. I also didn't mention this in my commentary on Keiki's face because I wanted to save it for here, but giving Zanmu scars also plays into the fact that she used to be human, wheras Keiki doesn't have any scars because she's a god who doesn't follow the rules of normal human biology. Plus I'm thinking about the two of them interacting again (return of Zan/Keik??? (I'm a multishipper btw) maybe???) so drawing their faces together will definitely help me in the future if I wanna draw them together (again, maybe as a ship? I've kinda been ironing out the kinks in their potential interactions (romantic and non-romantic) for a while now so idk maybe expect that in the future lol).

And now for the full body drawing, when I was doing the face sketch I did this little snippet of an outfit, had a vision, and the made it into a reality. I'll admit, part of me was worried that it would end up looking too much like Yuugi's outfits in the spinoffs and mangas, but I feel like I made enough changes to differentiate them. I tried to keep a few of the major details in Zanmu's design (i.e. the red tassles and yellow lining on her shirt) while putting a new spin on it. I also dialed up the scars to 11 since without them the whole thing kinda looked incomplete. Also, while I could say that the leaves on her kimono are "a nod to the fact that technically she should be a tengu because back then people belived that corrupt monks would turn into tengu but no Zanmu is an oni and they're maple leaves because...tengu...ahahahaha" what really ended up happening was that I looked up clothing patterns from Sengoku era Japan, liked the leaves the most because the red picked up on the red from the rest of her design and just ran with it. I also always had the idea to put Zanmu in men's clothing from Sengoku era Japan and while the accurate thing to do would be to put her in a Buddhist's clothes from that era.... from a character standpoint, I don't think Zanmu is pious enough to strictly wear the proper monk uniform, and also since she's basically the king of Hell, she would probably dress herself like royalty from that era. TBH, I probably could've been a bit more historically accurate, but again, this was mainly for conceptual purposes because I had a vision and I needed to see it through.

If I were to draw her in this sort of outfit again, I should probably try and use more references, although now that I look at it, if she were to wear it properly this would maybe, probably look a bit closer to a Kyūtai sugata (a very huge stretch, but it just kinda reminds me of that) just without the layers under and over the main piece of clothing (In the website that I searched up to try and compare the outfit in my sketch to, they name the outfit pieces but don't label them on the image, so I don't know 100% what everything is called) so I will definitely have to use that style of clothing as a reference going forward.

Also, I was kind of inspired by the ToTK design for Ganondorf since I have finished the game a while ago and I absolutely love what they did with his design (it's just so fucking cool omg) and I thought that sort of look would look good on Zanmu, so yeah got some inspo from that.

And those were all the notes for each of the sketches, I'm motivated to draw rn but kinda art blocked, so doing these little coloured sketches helps a lot.

[buboplague]

lowest quality rp stuff

[miru667]

End of year art dump, part 2!! Everything from January to yesterday. xP All of this is Let It Flow AU stuff, read more for descriptions, context and credits!

1-2) Audrey Grace and the friends she made during her first recon mission to Vileville! From left to right: the Cashtea-ler ( @ampreh ), Théodore Wijins, La Rouquine ( @nalak-bel ), and Wesley the glowing boy ( @ampreh ). The last three are Cashtie’s henchmen who all want him dead. 💀

3-4) Cashtea-ler vs deoncelerized Cashtie (aka Cashtiel)

5) Audrey’s outfit for her 2nd recon mission to Vileville. >:D I really wanted to draw her in black just so she could be a little more stealth and a little more goth. Black Lady from Sailor Moon was my inspo!

6) A sketch page of OCs belonging to people from an rp server I’m in. From left to right, top to bottom, they are: Hugo (@butterscorner), Norma ( @crazypotatofan ), Nathan ( @nalak-bel ), Bean ( @lemonine ), Émilien ( @blackcatangel ), Wesley ( @ampreh​ ), Audrey (mine lol), Bét ( @bethanygabrielleart​ ), Théodore (belongs to my friend Alink, no tumblr)

7) RP art from a scene with @rafatello​ ‘s OC, Joan!! xD He pickpocketed the wrong tourist 🔪 (I love Joan he’s great kshfgjk)

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Backstory

Backstory - the history of the character.

It addresses the following:

Who the character is

Why the character is the way he or she is

It’s an origin story, pure and simple.

The most comprehensive backstories start from the very beginning of the character's life and ends the moment that your novel begins.

It’s generally in chronological order, but not necessarily written in narrative form.

It can be a collection of data, such as keystone events, names and dates.

The backstory doesn’t always need to be shared

Most backstories are just for your eyes only.

You can create a complex, rich, hauntingly beautiful backstory for your characters, but that doesn’t mean it should be in your novel.

Far too often, authors try to insert a compelling backstory into their novel. The result? It weighs down the story and slows pacing to a grinding halt.

Resist the urge to add your backstory to your novel unless it’s something that the reader truly needs to know.

You reader probably doesn’t need to know the names of your character’s parents, or other mundane details— but you do. You need to know everything that the character knows. This is how you can write from the character’s point of view effectively. 

Otherwise, you’re phoning it in and writing from sketch, not from portrait.

Depending on the scope of your novel, it may be a good idea to inject some of your backstory into the main story. You’re never going to give everything you know to the reader.

If you dump all of those facts without the benefit of context, it will overwhelm the reader and make it difficult for them to see the story.

As the writer, you take all of the facts you know, carve them into a beautiful work of art, and make the moral of your story obvious.

That’s what makes you the artist, and the editor an essential partner in the process.

Start with a present day character sketch

Even before you start writing, you already have a vague idea of who your character is currently.

Maybe he’s a crusty, old curmudgeon. Maybe she’s a optimistic, but naive, teenager.

No matter who your character is, start with what you know already and go back from there.

Ask and answer the following questions to start crafting a solid backstory:

What is this character’s biggest flaw? What’s the origin of this flaw?

Where is the character from?

Where are the character’s parents from? How did they come to have a child and under what circumstances? Was it a happy union or a chance encounter?

What is the character afraid of? Trace the answer back to the character’s childhood and explain why.

What makes the character happy? Trace the answer back to the character’s childhood and explain why.

What does your character believe about himself and how did he come to this conclusion?

What are his goals? Why does he have these goals?

Pinpoint a life changing moment

Everyone, your characters included, have select moments in their lives that completely alter their choices.

These times are rarely announced with fanfare.

Example: It’s not the wedding day that changes your character’s life, it’s the moment five years earlier when your character meets her spouse-to-be in the line at Burger King.

Thanks to the 20/20 vision of hindsight, you can see how the character’s present day life was shaped by seemingly random encounters and events that took place years ago. Remember that all of her previous choices take place in, and are a reaction to, her backstory.

Those choices made her into the person your reader meets in your novel. How did her life’s experiences shape her into the current character?

Explore the gray

No character is completely good or completely bad.

Resist the urge to paint any character as all evil or all angelic.

Even a villain is the hero of his own story.

Remove your black and white filters and look at the character as someone who exists in shades of gray. If he has experienced kindness along with pain, then your backstory should reflect that.

Use it as motivation

The backstory should always motivate the character - positively or negatively.

The character either stands on what he knows and has experienced, or he’s running away from what he knows and has experienced. Either way, it can make a compelling plot for your novel.

Creating a backstory takes time and thought, but you’ll find that the quality of your writing will improve. Knowing your characters inside and out will make them more real to you and, as a result, more real to your readers.

Source ⚜ Writing Worksheet: Character Backstory Writing References: Worldbuilding ⚜ Plot ⚜ Character

[alllgator-blood]

We have had big shows of narinder, shamura, and kallamar angst. Heket hasn't been fully outright said but certainly implied and noticeable. What about the baby of the family

I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED ACTUALLY- I have a few comics that get into my idea for what Leshy Angst would be. They moreso tie into heket and shamura's angst as well but he's the first focus of this one specific comic I unfortunately never finished the sketches for...

I posted a few panels from this in a sketch dump a while ago, so here's the continuation of the comic I posted where leshy is flexing his incredible art skills (with a page taken out):

[this is the part where the page is taken out, and also where I'm putting a cut cause this post is super long]

This dialogue/art is all subject to change but this is the base idea! This comic takes place on the one-year anniversary of the red crown schism, and is supposed to explore all of the bishops' relations to the stages of grief. Heket is denial, Leshy is anger, Kallamar is bargaining, Shamura is depression and Narinder is acceptance (lol). Leshy is actually the only one I got the sketches done for which is why I'm happy to hear you ask about him specifically! So in short, my leshy angst is basically him running around in circles screaming WHY WON'T ANYONE TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON!! WHY ARE YOU ALL ACTING LIKE IT'S OKAY THAT MY FACE IS GONE??? because everyone still sees him as you worded it in your ask, the baby of the family. They don't want to freak him out by saying he's never gonna get his eyes back, shamura as the sibs knew them is pretty much gone, and narinder will never stop hunting them down.

I have a heket angst comic that was supposed to be my first big project, but it got put on the backburner cause I was having trouble writing for it. It's pretty much entirely about her and shamura coming to terms with the fact they're gonna die soon, and making sure the brothers don't ever find out. Leshy and heket's angst directly ties into each other, because one of them is desperate to protect the other and the one being protected does NOT want that.

This is close to the end but there's still more after this part, I have....SO MUCH to say about these comics but I probably shouldn't infodump about my ideas all at one or I'll run out of shit to talk about

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Quetzalin

my bird folk! I do love info dumping about my own creations. Took a while to make all the art and figure out the best way to present the info!

(image description: under the title "quetzalin worldbuilding", there are two bird-like humanoids flying together. One has blue and black feathers, the other has blue, green, and yellow feathers.)

The quetzalin are a tropical people, found exclusively in one rainforest. Almost all of the quetzalin live in the same central location, in a particular stand of trees that are exceptionally large and sturdy.

They are a peculiar people, having traits of both avians and mammals, and they are the only known species of their kind, though there are known cases of quetzalin producing offspring with elves on rare occasions. These mixed offspring are always infertile and typically take after their quetzalin parent in terms of coloration, and might be mistaken for full quetzalin by those who have never met one, but they have distinct differences in the structure of their bodies that make them stand out from full quetzalin.

(image description: sketch of three bipedal humanoids. from left to right; an elf with monkey-like features and a long tail, a half-elf quetzalin who looks quite bird-like and barely resembles the elf, and a full quetzalin who is distinctly more bird-like and even stands with a different posture and foot position compared to the other two. the main differences between the full quetzalin and the half-elf one are that the half-elf one is a little taller, has a smaller beak and more drooping tail, and stands straighter with flat feet. end description.)

One reason that half-elf quetzalin are so uncommon is just that quetzalin are born from eggs, so any quetzalin with an elf parent, especially a mother, may not develop correctly and is more likely to be miscarried or born prematurely. They're meant to develop within the egg, not a whole womb. The shells of their eggs are quite soft and semi translucent, making them fragile things that require round the clock care. Adult quetzalin communally care for unhatched eggs, so they can be incubated properly and have the best chance of hatching. New hatchlings are helpless, naked, and blind, only able to make a loud peeping sound to beg for food, and they are fed via regurgitation, which can be done by any adult.

They grow downy feathers and open their eyes within their first month, but even as they learn to crawl and walk and speak, they remain quite small until they hit a growth spurt in the early years of puberty, between the ages of 10 and 13. Their flight feathers come in through a series of childhood molts and they can fly proficiently by their teenage years, when they begin to experience the courting season hormone shift and start to grow courting plumage or produce eggs.

(image description: two pages of sketches depicting baby bird people. the first page shows the development from egg to hatchling, as well as two sketches of an adult caring for an egg and an adult feeding a hatchling via regurgitation. the second page shows sketches of a hatchling growing into a fledgling. the initial hatchling looks very scrungly and squinty, the second step is a fluffy baby covered in downy feathers with their eyes open, third is a toddler standing up with stubby wings, and finally is a child crouching as if to leap into the air, with their flight feathers grown in. end description.)

Not all eggs hatch, of course. The majority of eggs laid each courting season are completely unfertilized, especially those produced by young quetzalin still going through puberty. These unfertilized eggs are discarded in a variety of ways. Some are offered up at the temple of their deity, and subsequently made into fertilizer for the trees they all live in. Some are used as a form of emergency food for anyone who is suffering a nutrient deficiency. Many are used to feed the local drake population; a species of flying lizard that spits burning acid and raids nests. The quetzalin have sort of been domesticating them, finding them adorable and feeding them freely.

(image description: a colored drawing of a flying lizard with a crested head. its wings bear resemblance to those of a pterodactyl and its tail also has a wide membrane around it. it is green with stripes and spots of pale yellow and dark orange. next to it is the title "crested drake". below the colored drawing is a sketch of a quetzalin handing an egg to a gleeful looking drake with a wide open mouth. end description.)

Quetzalin are a sexually dimorphic species, but the difference is only clear during their courting season. Half the year, all the male quetzalin grow fancy courting plumage. Some females experiencing menopause also grow similar plumage. Individually, all quetzalin have their own unique coloration, and those who grow courting plumage also have their own unique styles. but for the sake of comparison, I've depicted two quetzalin that look exactly alike so I can show how the courting plumage works.

(image description: two images of matching bird folk with blue and yellow plumage. in the second image, one of them is now sporting many curled orange feathers on their head, wings, and tail, while some of their yellow feathers have also been replaced with orange ones. end description.)

Though they do have a binary form of biological sex, the quetzalin do not identify themselves by their sex. instead, they use genderless pronouns, differing between children and adults, and add a prefix to the adult pronoun to denote their preferred courting role each year.

There are three standard courting roles. Those who Dance, Those who Watch, and Those who Mix. I haven't developed their conlang yet, but these roles will have their own titles. It is most common for Dancers to be males with their courting plumage, while females are most commonly the Watchers. But this is not always the case. Many quetzalin males prefer to watch, many females prefer to dance, and quetzalin of all sorts will take the mixed role, never settling fully on dance or observation.

(image description: digital painting of several bird folks. two in the foreground are perched on large branches, watching three others fly around in the background. they all have colorful and unique plumage. A few of them have flashy courting feathers on display, while others are using flashy props like streamers instead of natural courting feathers. end description.)

(this post got so very long, putting a readmore here)

The role of a Dancer is to show off and be flashy, performing aerial tricks to catch the attention of potential mates. Dancers who don't have natural courting plumage make up for it with flashy props and extra accessories. Dancers avoid each other in the air, as collisions are a common cause of injury to both parties and a detriment to their performances. But they will compete with each other by having dance offs, and many dancers actually flirt with each through paired dances.

(image description: colored drawing of a quetzalin with red and yellow feathers, as well as some darker blue striping. they have a few showy courting feathers on their head and the edges of their wings. they are wearing colored paint on their face and limbs, and wearing a lot of jewelry. end description.)

The role of a Watcher is to perch around the dance arenas and observe the dancers, while also trying to catch the attention of the best and prettiest dancers. They might heckle the dancers, use props or courting plumage to catch the eye of a favored dancer, and compete with each other to gain the best perches and keep their competition away to have a better chance of gaining attention. They may even flirt with each other, bantering playfully.

(image description: colored drawing of a quetzalin with brown and white feathers, striped on the lighter underside of their wings and torso. they are wearing simple dark red accessories and a patterned red and cream skirt, as well as red and cream face paint. they're sitting casually and making a beckoning gesture with one hand, which has a bell tied to the forefinger. end description.)

The mixed role is versatile. It may be someone hiding amongst the watchers, suddenly turning their perch into a dance stage and drawing attention away from the arena. It may be a dancer swooping close to the audience and finding someone to banter with as they hover in place, blocking the view of the arena. They are clever, and flexible, using any means available to them to gain the attention they desire.

(image description: colored drawing of a quetzalin with blue and grey feathers, with their back turned to the viewer. they are wearing purple and white clothing and accessories, including streamers tied to their legs. end description.)

Casual hookups are the most common result of all the courtship performances. Quetzalin find a mate in the arenas and fly off together to have their own private fun. There are also indoor arenas where adult quetzalin hook up in less private ways, performing more explicitly sexual dances and enjoying the voyeurism.

Younger quetzalin going through puberty and experiencing the courting instincts for the first time are kept out of these venues, encouraged to perform only in the public arenas while they are carefully instructed in standard courting etiquette and informed of all the health risks that come with casual hookups.

Young egg layers in particular are at risk as their hormones might spike from sexual interaction and cause problems like excessive egg production, which drains a lot of nutrients and energy from the body. They may also produce malformed eggs, some of which could get stuck. Fully grown quetzalin are less likely to have these problems.

Most long term relationships are built outside of the courting season, established through emotional bonding and platonic intimacy all through the year. Quetzalin who bond in this way may choose to become permanent partners and seal their bond through a ceremony performed in the temple of their deity. Bonded partners often get matching forearm tattoos, depicting intertwined tree branches. They believe these deeper relationships are blessed by their deity, and that they help keep the community strong in the same way that the tangled branches of their sacred trees strengthen their home territory and keep it safe.

Communal preening is one very important form of social bonding, done between friends, family members, and lovers alike. Every quetzalin home has a preening space, and public preening spas are everywhere in their territory. They do have special rules for who can preen which body parts. Young children are preened fully by their caretakers. Casual strangers and acquaintances may preen each other's wings. Close friends and family can preen the feathers of the head. But only lovers and bonded partners can preen each other's whole torso, back, and tail.

(image description: sketches of quetzalin engaging in preening behaviors with each other. on the top, one quetzalin runs their beak gently through the feather on their partner's head, next to the caption "preening with beak = very close relationship. below, one quetzalin uses their hands to preen the feathers of another person's wings, next to the caption "preening with hands = standard politeness". end description.)

For the most part, the quetzalin are an isolated people. In recent generations, they have begun to venture into the world, using their own molted feathers as a major export, but locally they only interact with two groups: elves and centaurs. The elves are their main trade partners, exchanging goods and offering services to each other. The quetzalin mainly consume fish, insects, and other small creatures, though they can eat fruit and nuts as well. Their home trees grow more food than they need for themselves, and they are masterful fishers, so they often trade away food in exchange for things like elf-made cloth and jewelry. They also deal with the drakes that elves consider pests, because they like to raid the coops of domestic birds.

The centaurs are an interesting case. This is a population of centaurs who fled southward when the conflict between their people and the orcish ancestors escalated to war. They are quite at home in the rainforest, being very large herbivores who consume a mixture of leaves and fruit. They have developed a special bond with the quetzalin, allowing the small bird folk to harvest any external parasite or biting insect that find centaur blood to be a tasty meal. The quetzalin appreciate the centaurs' ability to deter predator animals and aid in the care of their home trees. Quetzalin eggs have also become a useful protein source for the centaurs, who do require some level of non-plant food to sustain themselves. This may be the only known case of centaurs openly bonding with a whole population of other people, even crossing the line into a potential symbiotic relationship. It is a very unique situation. For now.

(image description: sketches of a sloth-like ogre, an orc, and a centaur standing together. Both images have a connected caption that reads "bird folk will see megafauna folk and ask 'is anyone gonna perch on that?' and not even wait for an answer." and in the second image, all three of the larger people now have quetzalin perched on their shoulders or backs. end description.)

The quetzalin people believe in just one deity, Ithia. They are a parental deity, depicted as a living tree which crafted the quetzalin out of wood and feathers, beginning only with pairs of solid singular colors. As time went on, of course, the children of each one-color pair mated with each other and gradually mixed their colors more and more with each generation, creating the unique varieties of color and patterns in modern quetzalin. Ithia is believed to have gone dormant after creating the quetzalin, sleeping beneath the earth and giving them their home trees which are sturdy enough to protect them from the region's seasonal storms. In thanks to Ithia and to help maintain the sacred trees, quetzalin offer up their excess eggs for fertilizer and burn molted feathers as well. Every home has a private shrine for Itihia where offerings of food, incense, and trinkets are left in the hopes that Ithia will answer their prayers and grant them aid. More important prayers are given at the temple of Ithia, where various ceremonies are also performed. This includes the bonding ceremony for committed partners, a coming of age ceremony where young quetzalin offer their first eggs or courting feathers, and community prayers pleading for safety whenever the storms come through or other major troubles strike their community.

The quetzalin also have a culture of secret, sacred names. When a quetzalin comes of age, they are to think of their own secret name; a private title for themself which embodies their soul. They perform a private ceremony to give their name to Ithia and the priests, and if they choose to have a bonded partner (or multiple bonded partners) then their secret name may also be used in the bonding ceremony.

"Quetzalin" is itself a public name, while the people actually have another secret name only known to themselves. They learn it when they come of age. No outsiders are told the true name of the quetzalin people. Ithia is also said to have another name, only known to the priests. The quetzalin believe that having a secret name protects their souls. If they die without this name, their soul may be lost and disappear. But with this name, they believe they can make it to the afterlife properly and rest.

The names given to hatchlings are not secret, but they also have a spiritual intention. It is believed that any egg named too early will not hatch, and so they are only named when it is certain that they will survive. As a result, they're usually given names on the day they hatch, to be extra safe. Unhatched eggs are a common occurence, and they are also offered up to Ithia, who will take the lifeless embryos into the earth and give their undeveloped souls another chance.

And now for the truth behind all of these details:

Ithia is no myth. It's just a mispronunciation. The quetzalin cannot pronounce bilabial sounds without great effort, such as M, B, P, F, and V. Ithia's true name is Vivian. Vivian was once a mortal human, and could by modern standards be considered afrolatina. She lived at the peak right before humanity began to fall and go extinct. She studied genetics and evolution and mutations. She was granted the role of an immortal Life entity, one of the last humans to gain this position, one of the only humans to take it while being a highly educated scientist. Vivian was ambitious. She saw the fall of humanity, and she wanted to preserve her people. She aided in tweaking the genetics of the only other hominid species, the dwarves, to ensure that humans could leave some legacy behind through mixed offspring. Then took things a step further and tweaked the genetics of the elves for the same purpose, which was more difficult because elves are primates but not hominids. It worked, though, and this success fueled Vivian's ambitions.

(image description: digital painting of a humanoid woman with brown skin. She has gained extra eyes and has four skeletal arms instead of two living ones. Her hair has been replaced by leaves and flowers. Instead of legs, she only has a skirt of leaves. There are wrinkles on her face, showing her age. Between one pair of hands, she is holding a depiction of the DNA helix. end description.)

She met Death. They were stricken by her passion and they became lovers for a time, though their personalities clashed and they often fought. It was a turbulent relationship. Vivian took advantage of the connection to learn how the afterlife worked, discovering that it was also the source of new souls. When dead souls dissipate, the essence of the creature they once were is sent through the flow of ambient natural magic and latches onto new life as it forms in the womb, creating a soul that matches the creature. Life entities can capture and manipulate this essence a little, influencing the path of evolution. The essence of extinct species is archived in the afterlife, but cannot form a new soul of its type while the species remains extinct.

Vivian decided to extend human kind by crafting a new type of human with their soul essence. Her concept was a little over the top. Humans with wings. But she was determined to go beyond the logical and more reasonable route of making the arms into membranous wings. No, she wanted something more. She wanted to create a people that were truly unique, only possible by the use of her powers now that she was an immortal being. Something mortal science could never have achieved. So she crafted the quetzalin.

(image description: a series of sketches showing the development of the quetzalin as humanoid bird folk. it begins with a more typically human figure that has a pair of feathered wings attached to the back. next, a similar figure but now with a larger wing shoulder making them hunch over and a short tail at the base of their spine. the second image shows the addition of elf genetics followed by a shrinking of the body size and the addition of more bird like features, all of which makes the tail longer and the feet more grabby. the final image shows the quetzalin as they are, with longer tails held more parallel to the ground, raised heels to give them a bent leg posture, a smaller body plan, and much more bird like visual traits. end description.)

It took many attempts. Much to her frustration, Vivian found that she could not make humans with feathered wings that were fully capable of flight without greatly altering their DNA and body shape. She was too ambitious to give up, cobbling together bits and pieces from other creatures. Elf genetics, dinosaur traits, more bird biology, on and on until at last she had the quetzalin. She recycled the souls of her creations by her own power, bypassing the afterlife and disrupting the natural order of things.

(image description: sketches comparing the body shapes of a velociraptor, human, and quetzalin, with the quetzalin in the middle. end description.)

This caused the biggest and final clash between her and Death, and they never spoke again. But Vivian had achieved her goal, even if the end result was much different than her original plan. She rested, going dormant beneath the trees and gradually letting go of the last remnants of her energy to strengthen them and keep her creation safe.

Life entities are not eternal. They cannot be killed or die of natural causes, but they are not eternal. They eventually run out of the power given to them, and their souls dissipate into the ambient magic of the world. Vivian is gone now, though the quetzalin still worship the idea of her. Their knowledge of her has been lost little by little, changing a bit with each generation. This is the origin of most deities in the world. Some grain of truth, some memory of a real Life entity that favored a particular species but eventually faded away, leaving them in the hands of a successor or leaving them on their own.

Death mourned the day they felt Vivian's soul vanish.

And as for the secret name of the quetzalin, it too is a mispronunciation. They know themselves as the Onaxelu. But the name Vivian gave them, the name that embodied their true origin and purpose, was Homo Angelus.