Damn I Am Pretty Art Laboratories

Once, long ago, there was a thirteenth star to be found in the constellation of the Mother.  Yellow and bright, it bore many things.  That star, yet, one day left the constellation of the Mother, looking for a new home. She looked for years.  She journeyed through all the other constellations.  She spoke with the Mother of Wolves, and she hid from the darkness that lies between the stars.  But then, one day, she came upon a strange bird at a crossroads. "Hello?"  She asked. The strange bird with black feathers turned to her.  He had five eyes.  She flinched, worried it had to be something of the Void. "Who are you?"  The bird croaked. The star hesitated, clutching her hood tighter.  She pondered using her knife on the Bird.  She could also wait.  The two thoughts warred in her mind.  Instead, she decided to reply. "I am Thena of the Mother.  I am looking for a new home." "Do you have food?"  The bir...

Time for a bit of a ramble.  I love the idea of the sorting hat in Harry Potter, but not in that it chooses which house you belong in.  The amazing facet of Hogwarts, and any setting with its own distinct houses, guilds, factions or whatever, is how those let the audience choose what they want to align with. Legend of the Five Rings seem crafted just for that, same as Game of Thrones.  People love having a faction they feel aligned with.  The audience chooses a faction or group that aligns with their own personality.  They get to personalize the setting a bit more. But here's a dealio: the idea that the Sorting Hat is a choice, and not something up to chance.  No, my headcanon is that everyone who goes to Hogwarts gets to choose. The idea that it's chance seems less interesting.  If the Sorting Hat itself asks each student which house they want to be in, that seems boring.  It picks the two most relevant houses, and the student choose...

It stood about a head taller than a man.  Eight, black eyes focused on the thread, not me.  It's purple carapace seemed to do well in the dark here.  Long, thin limbs flew across threads with skill.  Green energy seemed to glow from the thread as they moved.  The spell light illuminated the spidery being's dark robes, finely woven with minute details and thousands of glittering beads. Mandibles twitched as it continued its work.  They didn't seem to notice me, if at all.  It wove and wove.  Each thread glimmering in the dark. Iktomoyate once dwelled on Kestan Hill.  A quiet, long-lived people, they never grew to large numbers.  Although sometimes referred to as shapeshifters, Iktomoyate themselves only refer to three different shapes they can shift their bodies into, from a human-sized spider to a form that looks almost human. History Today, they dwell underneath Kestan Hill in their own quiet, insular community.  Almost...

Previous CANIS "C'mon!  Get moving, man!" The screaming voice startled me.  I looked up and turned red.  I hurried to the other side of the crosswalk.  I felt blush from my distraction. I had stopped in the middle of the road.  I just stood there, in my imagination, going over the last night's session.  Over and over.  Every single moment of awesome. "You need to pay attention," I admonished myself.  "Someone will run you over if you just get stuck in your head all the time.  Besides it wasn't that good." That was a lie.  My head still strode in the table RPG session, my domain as Game Master.  Storyteller. I had woven a complex game. A harrowing urban adventure.  The players took on the role of occult investigators in a fictional version of Portland.  I'd sprung the big twist on the players.  It took us until midnight to unravel it. "But every moment mattered,"  I told myself as I reached my bus sto...

REDSTAR Marie found the girl in the ruins of a wagon.  She had expected a demon on this hunt.  Not this. She and her mule had crested the prairie hill.  Marie had smelled the smoke.  Her hand rested on her satchel. "I'm not using you yet." The item inside the satchel seemed to ache at her.  Irritated she ignored those whispers.  She guided the mule down the hill toward the smoking wagon.  It must've been on fire earlier in the day.  Marie didn't hurry. Her hunt for demons had taught her to be careful.  She didn't hurry.  Her mother's people knew to keep an eye on the shadows, to not give demons the chance sneak up upon her with them.  Her father's ways, though, knew the names of the White Demons and how to turn their cunning against them. Something had struck the wagon down.  The wood had been shattered in places.  Marie could see marks where something had charged into the wagon, breaking the wheels.  Cha...

The eerie continent of Vault appeared after the Night of Fire.  Its sudden appearance is just one of its mysteries.  That the Vault floats in midair, roughly eighty handspans from the surface of the Ocean is another mystery.  For millennia, the Prince had cloaked it from all vision.  Prior to 1786 AO, most of the world had been unawares of the Floating Frontier. The Old Prince had restricted access to Vault so tightly that no one had suspicions of it.  The adamantine and other mysterious ores the Prince smuggled into Crux were thought to be just another part of the greater mysteries that surrounded him.  His successor has taken no interest in Vault.   He gave up most claims to it, save for the massive Castle on Vault that over looks the Secret Sound.  The new Tinkerer has announced plans to construct a bridge linking Vault to the mainland of Crux.  Once completed, Crux will no longer connect just two continents, but three. Vault is un...

There once was a girl who kept her heart in a box.  A wooden box with glass inlaid in it.  It glowed along with her heart's beat. That's where she kept it.  In a box. And never once did she want to put it back in her chest. She would open the lid and listen to her heart sing its song.  The heart song would keep her dry in rain and cool in summer heat. In dead of winter, her heart's song would make plants grow and move as if painted with brushstrokes. She never wanted anything wicked to happen to her heart, so the box was always clean. But she would never put it in her chest.  Never.  Ever. Worse would be those who suggested she give it away.  How could she be without its song to keep her? Without her heart, where would she be? Besides, she would say, no one could keep her heart like she. The girl who kept her heart in a box, kept it hidden from all others.  Sometimes handsome boys and wonderful girls would ask ...

More on the Ainong  tribe of humans in Crux.   Crux, City of Curses , is a dark fantasy setting of intrigues, early industry and more than a little horror.  Sacred Crop Each Starcircle is also defined by a signature crop.  For Northern Ainong Starcircles, they are known for honoring Phast as holy. In the south, Starcircles seem to worship the rice they harvest.  In between, corn and other crops become sacred objects, central to their own starcircle. Villages within a starcircle take special pride in their signature crop.  They often claim that their variety of the crop is the best in the world.  Each village has dozens of specialized varieties of that crop.  A few unique varieties are so rare that they fetch high prices in foreign markets. Phast Phast vines grow into the bark of trees.  It's hairy beards, much like lichen, can be harvested for use much like grain or rice. Phast can be dried and ground up for flour or fermented...

#Crux, City of Curses , is a dark fantasy setting of intrigues, early industry and more than a little horror.  The Ainong's oldest saying is one most of them remember: there are no Kings among the Ainong.  There are no lords.  No Ainong wears a crown.  They are born with only dirt below and the stars above. The human tribe of the Ainong always see themselves as the last.  According to Ainong legend, their people were the last children of a Dragon and a Tree, the elder children becoming the kings of the Tomasi, Salaro and Rosac.  They are often the last human tribe named in tales.  In the recorded annals of the Machine, even the Ocridese and the Soramese come before them. The Ursyklon conquest moved around them, as the Ainong never had cities to fall or treasures to take.  Salaro Sea Lords raided them.  The Tomasi Empire conquered them, only to forget them as it fell into ruin.  Vampyres and monsters would harass t...

#Crux, City of Curses , is a dark fantasy setting of intrigues, early industry and more than a little horror. Here's some random thoughts on a human tribe with associations with dragons and fezes, the Salaro... Dragonblut Among the Salaro , there are many tales of liaisons with Dragons.  Centuries of Salaro Dragon cults and associations with draconic entities led to the term Dragonblut, the idea that a few Salaro were descended from dragons.  Salaro have a number of fables and tales on Dragonblut.  But the most common are to explain exclusively Salaro physical traits. A few Salaro are born with strange mutations.  Skin of a unnatural pigment- blue or crimson or bright gold.  Scales on a one's hand.  Heterochromia- two eyes of differing colors, one of which being a color not often seen in humans like purple. Dragonblut are not Tieflings, but Salaro Tieflings can also be of Dragonblut.  The two are often mistaken for one or the other. The o...

Another week, another batch of art. St. Patrick's Day and the like.  Oh.  And Spring.  Spring is here too.  Let's throw art at then. On  twitter  and  instagram  I post these sorts of images every day.  If you are looking for some place to follow and get these in your feed, check those out. Also, if you want to support images like this, the stories on this blog and more, check out my  patreon .  It isn't necessary for this stuff, but it'd help with expanding some of my projects a bit.  I also take commissions, so don't be afraid to message me about that. A bit of Crux this time.  And a cat.  And some experiments, both flawed and not.  Well, let's see what I got done. A cyberwood image of a home.  A decapitated robot head seemed like a good choice. More color experimentation.  I think the red works.  Watching a bunch of home DIY videos on youtube might've infected my br...

Here's a Crux bit of setting.  Been working on collecting a bunch of notes and also been creating some new material.  Harpies are their own interesting mythological hole.  Here's how they are in Crux, the City of Curses.  Crux is a Magical Western Fantasy I've been fiddling with for awhile now- it is a city founded atop the skull of a forgotten dead god, filled with intrigues and arcane industrial wonders of a new age, while old enemies scheme in dark places. Harpies, or the Gharudya: Children of the Witching Wind Harpies dislike the word Harpy.  But unlike the Ursyklon , they do not use violence to discourage the slur.  Instead, the Gharudya tend to remember those who wronged them.  And on the day they might die, evildoers can hear their wings from a distance. Harpies make for interesting art too. They are cousins of the Tengu .  Gharudya believe that they must contain evil souls.  This prevents such evil souls to reincarn...

Haven't posted something since mid-February.  Ugh. Alright.  Rather than bombard this with past weeks of art, here is this past week's load of art.  Last week I did a personal challenge of seven colors in seven days.  This week saw the end of that.  Also, a bunch of robots.  A Lamia.  A motley collection, but my motley collection of art. (ja, a bit of stretch on some of the dates, but whatever.  Gotta share the arts with you.) What is this? On  twitter  and  instagram  I post these sorts of images every day.  If you are looking for some place to follow  and get these in your feed, check those out.  Also, if you want to support images like this, the stories on this blog and more, check out my  patreon .  It isn't necessary for this stuff, but it'd help with expanding some of my projects a bit.  I also take commissions, so don't be afraid to message me about that. Purple .  A tower...

Six.  I present six pieces of artness for you this week, the week of the Bloody Heart. Why Bloody Heart?  Well, Valentines Day always makes me think of a Bloody Heart.  Bloody Heart Day came and went.  And the weather picked up a bit, being less snowy and depressing.  So let's see if my art reflected that.  On  twitter  and  instagram  I post these sorts of images every day.  If you are looking for some place to follow and get these in your feed, check those out. Also, if you want to support images like this, the stories on this blog and more, check out my  patreon .  It isn't necessary for this stuff, but it'd help with expanding some of my projects a bit.  I also take commissions, so don't be afraid to message me about that. More Cyberwood stuff.  And some experimentation too.  Only one piece really felt really good this week to me.  But the experimentation came across kinda neat. ...

I'm late on this again.  Le sigh. Heres the past week's arts.  Not much commentary this time. On  twitter  and  instagram  I post these sorts of images every day.  If you are looking for some place to follow and get these in your feed, check those out. Also, if you want to support images like this, the stories on this blog and more, check out my  patreon .  It isn't necessary for this stuff, but it'd help with expanding some of my projects a bit.  I also take commissions, so don't be afraid to message me about that.

End of January and starting February, got another six pieces done.  My personal policy of "I can take a single day off" makes this a six art week instead of seven. Oh well. On  twitter  and  instagram  I post these sorts of images every day.  If you are looking for some place to follow and get these in your feed, check those out. Also, if you want to support images like this, the stories on this blog and more, check out my  patreon .  It isn't necessary for this stuff, but it'd help with expanding some of my projects a bit.  I also take commissions, so don't be afraid to message me about that. Year of the Rooster.  Go figure. Expression practice on a character, Malena of Roses.  I got joy done correctly. Another political piece.  Explained here. Bookhole , a home in the Cyberwood. Some Indian Paintbrush in the Cyberwood.  Felt like fun to draw some. More wolves and shiro and the like....