bigironhip

[bigironhip]

today is a very important holiday

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when you tirelessly work to make the commonwealth safe for settlers and basically rebuilt the minutemen from scratch after being backstabbed by them and the entire fanbase reduces you to settlement jokes

[bigironhip]

[ Promotional image courtesy of the talented @drovenna! ]

Sketchy Secret Santa is still open!

Haven’t read the latest Publick issue? Check our FAQ!

Howdy, wastelanders! We’re a bit over halfway through December, and our Secret Santa team is still open for requests!

A reminder that this is a Fallout community event, and as such, it’s open to ALL! From Megaton to Girdershade, Paradise Falls to the Republic of Dave, we welcome any- and everyone to submit a gift request!

That being said, the holiday shenanigans must end at some point...

Our requests will close December 25th, 2021, at 11:59 PM!

Just when will we pop out of stealth? At the beginning of January! All finished requests will be posted as anonymous gifts for the stated recipient!

Someone come to mind? Need a last-minute gift idea? Pop on over to the Prompt Post and submit a request! We can’t wait to help you spread some good ol’ wasteland holiday cheer!

[bigironhip]

Musing While Making Breakfast

Rad-sheep.

Like okay we already have that a bit with the Bighorners in Fallout New Vegas [rams, but, y’know], but I’m talking specifically wooly-ass and, lemme stress, extremely domesticated sheep that evolved with the newly irradiated world of Fallout.

If y’all have seen my post about mushrooms, and the fact that radiotrophic mushrooms in the real world are enabled to be radiotrophic by way of producing melanin, and thus are pitch black instead of glowing green, I would like you to consider the following; the domestic sheep evolving into a black-wooled variant that uses melanin in the wool to protect the sheep from radiation [and possibly use their wool AS an energy collector, lowering their food requirements and making them an even bigger game-changer for communities because they don’t cost a lot of resources to breed in large numbers.]

Bonus points; the wool from these sheep retaining their ability to soak up rads like a sponge after being sheered off of the animal, creating warm clothes for colder-region communities that also protect the wearer’s vital organs from ambient rads. Even more bonus points, someone figuring out that the wool basically acts like a radiation battery and figuring out how to turn that shit back into usable and renewable energy. 

Like imagine a community of survivors in rural wherever that still does a lot of shepherding, like maybe back in the day the wool was less factory farm and more making tourist trap wool coats for some historical town gig, but like other parts of the wasteland they adopted the culture of the fake little town and picked up the shepherding hardcore when one of their sheep got that mutation. Player character walks in and we go ‘oh lol they’re basically like historical re-enactors who won’t break character and went ultra hardcore with it as their new culture! So cute and quirky! Classic Fallout!’ And then you find out they’ve basically discovered an amazing organic source of renewable energy that doesn’t even produce nuclear waste.

Ultra bonus points: whomever discovered this tech is a pre-war ghoul with a thick as hell rural/redneck [or maybe like… hardcore Scottish. The flavor you can’t understand without the subtitles?] accent that makes you assume they’re dumb as a bag of rocks, but they’re actually a fucking genius with a stupid-high intelligence score. And of course they’re a companion. Of course they are. 

[bigironhip]

AAA I wanted to post these before I wasn’t proud of them anymore;;; Human/Synth versons of the Securitrons in New Vegas!

in order: Yes Man, Jane and Marilyn, Victor, Muggy, and Mark I securitrons

I was going to draw the Mark II securitrons too but I lost a lot of steam towards the end, I might finish that design later

[bigironhip]

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What, you don't make an entire hecking OC based on a friend's random Ghoul settler NPC in their game? Just me?

After endless months of limbo... he's finally all fleshed out and ready to see the world!

Name: Dominic "Rom" Jones Nicknames: One-Eye, Smartypants, Prince (Oswald specifically) Age: 255 Gender: Male Sexuality: Closeted Demi-Gay Significant Other: Oswald Oppenheimer Karma: Gray Stranger (Neutral)

Note: Rom is in Nuka-World and a former raider; however, he is NOT an Overboss character!

Occupation: Pre-War: Lead IT tech at Nuka-World's Bottling Plant Post-War: Ex-Operators Raider, Mercenary for hire Personality: INTJ-A--Architect. Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging; thoughtful tactician; applies creativity and rationality to everything; inner world is a private, complex one.

Strength: 4 – Lightweight Perception: 10 – Eagle with Telescope Endurance: 6 – Hardy Charisma: 4 – Peevish Librarian Intelligence: 10 – Omniscient Agility: 8 – Knife Catcher Luck: 4 – Spilled Salt

Main Perks: Demolition Expert, Hacker, Adamantium Skeleton, Scrounger Tagged Skills: Science, Explosives, Sneak, Lockpick Secondary Skills: Repair, Small Guns, Energy Weapons

Weapons: Fragmentation grenades, Dynamite, Plasma pistol

[bigironhip]

Paying all my bills plus a couple gifts for my friends has left me pretty dry for the rest of the month. So!

If you like my work here in this blog, or over at @artistsoftheapocalypse, please consider dropping some caps in my KO-FI!

There are some cool Fallout designs available on my REDBUBBLE - they are paying me on the 15th, so if you buy something today I'll receive the money this month still! :)

And

I have some digital goodies available over my GUMROAD for symbolic prices ($1).

THANK YOU for all your support this year and Happy Holidays!

[bigironhip]

some outfits for my courier

[bigironhip]

I saw this image, and I just thought BUTCH! Not just for the jacket and the hair, but his strong face, that personality and attitude given off in this picture just SCREAMED Butch for me. I had to draw that jacket too <3 OMG!

It took a while, but I feel like it was worth it, I love this c: I tried to incorporate snakes into the jacket with the studs and with the belt, but you can only find it there, the other part just mehh. But I’m overrall happy with this image, I really like drawing Butch if you can’t tell.. I’ll try drawing other FO characters too lol

[bigironhip]

i think its up to us, as a society, to take those OC question prompts that you always see and fill them out ourselves like in the halcyon livejournal days rather than demurely waiting for our followers to send us a handful of numbers

like dont be coy, we all want to fill out the full thing. be the change you want to see in the world.

[bigironhip]

Mutant Hounds but instead it's Mutant Clydesdales.

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honestly i don't get the complaining about how nate/nora is too railroady. just... write a different backstory for your sosu. who cares if it isnt 100% canon compliant?

[bigironhip]

Okay but I have a mighty need to talk about fungus. 

Because it plays a key role in the way nutrients are recycled. Various types of fungus and mushrooms are key in the decomposing process of turning dead things into nutrients, which various kinds of herbivores turn around and eat as high-mineral bonuses in the undergrowth. But that’s not the only thing fungus recycles. Like all living things, fungus will find a niche and get all the energy they can out of it– and I’m not just talking edible mushrooms. I’m talking slime molds, toxic mushrooms that pick up impurities in the soil and cycle it out or evolve to use that toxic thing as part of their defense mechanism or energy source. Evolution is an arms race, both in flora and fauna, to use everything in the environment as efficiently as possible, avoid dying before reproduction can occur, and to reproduce as broadly as possible. 

Now let’s talk about radiotrophic fungus. Literally, mushrooms that eat radiation.

Sounds like fiction? Guess what, it’s fact, and it’s living near the elephant's foot of the Chernobyl disaster.  

So while yes ‘lol glowing mushrooms’ in radioactive caves is a thing in the Fallout universe [though here in the real world, the thing that appears to be letting this fungus convert radiation to chemical energy is melanin, so it’s pitch black rather than glowing green. Ah well.] I’m fascinated to think about what a proliferation of this kind of fungus would do to the food web. 

It has a niche; obtaining chemical energy from radiation sites in the same way plants normally get energy from the sun– but that energy isn’t just used up. Plants are nutritious to the things that eat them because of the chemical energy they soak up from the sun. They are solar collectors, and that energy is passed on to the things that eat them. Food webs are energy maps, from the smallest initial processors to the biggest consumers of refined nutrients. 

So let us consider a fungus that, after the Great War, hits this mutation and proliferates because holy crap there is radiation everywhere, and while that radiation is killing most solar-loving plants, it is feeding the crap out of this fungus and making it intensely energy rich. It’s a type of energy that’s toxic to most animals. Because most things can’t eat it without dying [assuming they can even get CLOSE without succumbing to radiation poisoning] and there is an overwhelming abundance of chemical energy to be had with almost zero competition, this fungus spreads like gangbusters in the area and diversifies. And diversifies. And diversifies. Eventually it becomes it’s own competition for space to grow in the high-radiation area, and becomes multiple different spices with various different strategies to take advantage of this abundant chemical energy.

And then the first fucking rad-stag comes by that DGAF about radiation and starts munching on mushrooms that haven’t evolved a single fucking defense for being nommed on besides being in a hostile environment… which the radioactive animals no longer care about because they’ve evolved to process it. 

Point is I want a nuclear crater that is a giant mushroom forest populated with an abundance of radioactive animals that have been developing an entirely new ecosystem with nuclear fallout as its main energy source rather than sunlight, allowing the fascinating arms race of biology to take off in a new direction and accidentally producing some of the most fertile fucking soil in the entire US because all these mushrooms have been sucking up the radiation and helping the bodies of the abundant wildlife to decompose.

[bigironhip]

Needless to say… someone done fucked up.

[bigironhip]

Hello! I just found this blog so I hope I’m not too late to request a sketchy Saturday thing!

If it’s possible, could I get my oc Russell with soft morning lighting?

Thank you so much for the chance! I really appreciate it :”)

Stealing a moment of peace.

[bigironhip]

Fallout4tober day 4: Crows

The watcher crows act as an extension of the Institute’s control over the Commonwealth in general and the Sole Survivor specifically. They’re there when you come out of the Vault. They’re there when you search Kellogg’s house for clues. They’re there every step of the way.

And if you’re under that level of observation, playing into the role set out for you… doesn’t it start to feel a little like you’re just a puppet to the Institute?