chickizeestudios

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COOL LADY ALERT ‼️

Portfolio piece two! A reference sheet for my girl!!

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Little funny fun fact that makes me laugh, after they've been dating for a while, Juni and Gill start subconsciously picking up on each others mannerisms and phrases, for example:

Gill starts saying "Oi" to get people's attention

and Juni catches herself saying "dude" every so often

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The Plalipian Royal Academy

HEYA tumblr void! Long time no post!

I've been super crazy busy lately, but I missed posting and yapping on here! I'm excited to get back on here, so if your feed gets bombarded with a bunch of posts, I apologize in advance :,D!

SO what I wanted to yap about today is the Plalipian Royal Academy! I talk about it a lot, and it's super important to the story, but I've never totally explained it all. Not that it's super complicated or a crazy concept or anything (you can pretty much understand what it is from the name alone) but there are some fun lore things connected to it, so I thought I'd ramble! Hopefully, this sounds vaguely coherent L OL

Overview

The purpose of the Plalipian Royal Academy is to train and prepare young Plalipians for eventual King/Queenhood, making them capable monarchs for the people, as well as trained and knowledgeable. Situated at the planets capital country, Plalipia, the school runs all year round, accepting admissions consistently. This makes it so any particular student can be accepted into the school at any point in the year, and begin classes almost immedietly. This also leads most of the students to have varying graduation dates, with not enough overlap to do an official "graduaton ceremony" for a particular class.

Any Plalipian of at least 21 years of age is eligible to apply, (even those not of royal lineage) and if accepted, will be enrolled in a 4 year program, typically graduating at age 25. The 4 year program is not very flexible, with students required to complete the program in exactly the 4 years time period given, no more or less is accepted. Because of this, while the school isn't competitive per say, there is a pressure to stay on top of all assignments/classes, as to not fall behind and get kicked out.

The actual application process consists of 3 parts:

Letter of Recommendation/vouch of character

Interview with a member of staff

Admissions exam

The letter of recommendation and interview actually don't have much of a bearing whether the student gets in or not, as the admissions process almost all hinges on the Exam. The Exam consists of a lot of what the student will be learning within the school, and judges the student's readiness to become an eventual monarch. The test is notoriously difficult, and can only be taken once.

Special Privileges of Those With Royal Lineage

While anyone is eligible and encouraged to apply, the statistics of students who come from a long line of royals to students of common birth are staggering. Additionally, children of royal families are typically enrolled in private schooling from a young age, of which they are trained and taught exactly what they need to know for the exam, as royal families have access to the exam's format and questions.

Moreover, while denied, there are many rumors of students with royal blood being admitted despite doing poorly on the exams, or wealthy families paying large sums to skip the examination process altogether.

Graduation and After

After graduation, students are given an Academy diploma, and officially gain a royal title of Prince or Princess. Becoming potential "heirs" to the thrones in the varying contries of the planet, they are now eligible to succeed monarchs who pass away or retire.

When a particular monarch retires, and they have no elegible heir, the people choose from the pool of Plalipian Royal Academy graduates to fill the empty throne. For many countries across the planet, there have been many diverse and different rulers over the span of many years, as monarchs typically retire without an heir that has attended the academy.

Not all have been this way however, with the most extreme case of this is with the Stellae royal family, who's direct bloodline have ruled the capital country of Plalipia for generations.

Royals Who Choose Not To Go

The children of the current monarchs are given and are able to indulge in various "royal" privileges, the biggest one being their wealth/royal inheritance. If a particular child decides not to go to the Academy, their inheritance is legally revoked, and they are unable to access it. For a lot of upcoming students with a royal line, this is one of the prime motivators for attendance. (*cough cough POMELO cough cough*)

Hopefully that makes sense! It was tricky for me to try to lay it all out into words for the first time, (which is why I'm trying to do this more!) but hopefully this boring little dump was vaguely nice to read 😭 !

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Plalipian Princess Graphic Novel Book Cover!

shared this on Instagram a while back, I thought I'd share it here too! I'm still super proud of it, and it feels like the perfect little intro post for their story! vvvv

In about a year, Juniperetta Stellae is being sent off to the Plalipian Royal academy. Here, she will join other country’s heirs, prepare for her eventual Queen-hood, and officially gain her title of “Princess”. Sounds great right? Well it’s the place her step-father had schooling, and where her mother recommends (demands) she go, so l guess she’s attending whether she wants to or not.

Wanting to prove her independence, she sets off to do something no Plalipian has done in over 70 years...leave the planet. To which she immediately gets horribly lost. Crash landing on Earth and meeting a curiously hidden town of people, she now has to get back home to her responsibilities. But after a frightful attack by a creature the Plalipians believed to be myth, Juniperetta quickly puts her school preparations on hold. Along with her newfound friend Gill, she sets off to uncover the truth behind these so-called “space sirens”.....and maybe do some meandering here and there. I mean... the academy is a long ways from now, she’s got time, right?

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The Engagement Party

The loud conversations of the adults in the dining room echoed throughout the hall, clinking glasses and the barely audible conversations seemed to dance along the light among the hallway.

Juniperetta stared tentatively, her fingers just barely grazing the stair railing

“What do you suppose they’re talking about?” her eyes glued to the entryway

Pomelo shifted slightly, not really addressing her directly, “grown-up stuff I suppose, properly boring I suspect”

“Doesn’t seem too boring.” Juniperetta strained her neck closer, “…my mother seems happy.”

She paused, pushing her face even farther within the bars of the staircase

“Do you think she’s talking about me?”

“I doubt either of us would be important enough to be talked about.”

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Red & Slim

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Severed? I hardly know her. Because my brain has been split into two and so my memory doesn't work the way that it should and also I'm depressed and mourning my wife but also I'm a baby working in an office

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Little Juni and Gill comic from a little while ago! I'm still really proud of it, looking at it again really makes me wish I had time rn to make more mini-comics 😭😭! Hopefully soon!

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Stellae Family Portraits Through the Years!

The left is one taken closer to present day, while the other was when Juniperetta was about 10!

Here’s a little ramble about the piece below if you were curious:

HEYA TUMBLR VOID 🕺🕺

(ALRIGHT Im not gonna sit here and pretend that my drawings are full of metaphor and complex meaning, it’s pretty basic stuff. But! I think it’s pretty fun to talk about, and it gives some insight on what I was thinking about when making the piece :)!)

For Juniperetta’s character, pink is a huge theme, it’s a color she wore a lot when she was younger, but eventually abandoned in favor of the cool blues of the royal family. (Hence why it’s such a big deal that her design much later in the story shifts back to pink!) The pink is meant to represent her childhood in a way, but it’s also a nod to my personal experience of “hating” pink as a child, only to rediscover it as an adult, along with embracing and loving more “girly” things! It’s kinda crazy when I talk to people about this idea, a lot of people have had this same experience.

Back to the images, the one on the right is Ferosa (junis mom) and Amandee’s (the prince) engagement portrait. Juni being about 10 here, this is 2 years before Ferosa and Amandee actually got married. (Juni’s less than enthusiastic reaction to the news gave Ferosa some pause, and the wedding was delayed)

There is much more of a sense of closeness here than the other one, (with more overlap of the figures/her mother’s hand resting on her shoulder) and while Juni looks pretty uneasy in the picture, I wanted to portray her as truly “trying”. She’s mustering the biggest grin she can, and is trying to mirror the body language of Amandee. She stands out in the image, not only by her placement below the two of them, but also with her pink dress, contrasting with her mother and the prince’s matching Plalipian blue.

In the second image, it’s about present day, with Juni being around 20. Instead of attempting to mirror Amandee, Juni is facing and trying to mirror the body language of her mother. Her smile is also less noticeable than the last one, as well as Ferosa’s. There still is a literal closeness between them, fitting them all in the portrait, but there isn’t much interaction. I wanted to give the feeling that after this portrait was taken, they all kinda just went about their days without saying much. Juni’s dress, while no longer pink, is now a sea foamy green, blending in much better than the pink ever did, but still having her stand out in an awkward way. (Also green? Foreshadowing? Wink wink LO L)

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I'm gonna put him in a box. I'm gonna close the lid. I'm gonna shake the box violently. I do this out of love.

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HEYA Tumblr void! I think I've decided I’m going to try to post on Tumblr at least once a week, but we’ll see how far that goes 😭😭

ANYHOODLE today I really wanted to talk about Juniperetta’s relationship with the Plalipian Royal Family! I also want to go in depth about little details from my “Royal Portrait” piece a little while ago! I’ll probably have it as two separate posts, here for a little story ramble, and the other for talking about the piece!

Anyway, prepare for some incoherent rambles:

Golden Childhood and Meeting the Prince

For a good chunk of her childhood, it was really just Juniperetta and her mother, and she adored it. She typically refers to this as the "golden era" of her childhood, which in hindsight is quite short, considering that it only lasted until she was about 6 years old. She doesn't know much about her father, (her mother becoming divorced while Juniperetta was just a newborn), so she doesn't give him much thought. (He's also really not that important within the story, so you don't need to give him much thought either).

When she was about 6, her mother met the prince.

Just graduating from the Royal Academy, he was making his rounds to the various shops and peoples of Plalipia before his homecoming ceremony, where he stumbled upon a lost and frantic Juniperetta. In the bustle of people and shops, she had gotten separated from her mother, who was just a few streets away. He helped them reunite, and after a small chat with her mother, the prince left for the palace. Juniperetta wondered if they would meet that kind man again, little did she know, her mother was thinking the same.

Not too long after, her mother and the prince began seeing each other, trying their best to keep the fact that it was romantic from Juniperetta (until what her mother deemed “the proper time”). Dropping her off to go on their outings, Juni began to spend extended periods of time at the palace, where she met (unknowingly) her soon to be cousin, Pomelo.

She wasn’t used to seeing her mother so infrequently, and although her and Pomelo had started to become closer, she couldn’t help but feel that she was losing something in all of this. She had seen how distant Pomelo’s parents were to him, and feared the same fate may befall her.

It wasn’t too long before gossip among the palace staff began to spread about her mother and the prince. By the time Juni was told about their relationship and that her mother intended to marry and have them join the royal family, she had already known for at least two years.

She was about 10 when the prince proposed to her mother, and by the time she was 12, they were married. It was from that point that nothing was ever truly the same. In the present, Juni can’t remember the last time she had a worthwhile conversation with her mother, and her soon enrollment in the academy is now constantly looming over her shoulder.

Looking back, she often wishes she had stayed put that day at the market, as her mother had told her to.

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Thought I’d start off posting some of my favorite pieces on here!

This is Juniperetta and Gill from the story that I’m currently developing! I hope that by this time next year I’ll have the complete story draft done 😭😭

Be prepared to see these two a lot 🫵💕

(The original image I based it on!)

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Hello hello everyone!

This is a bit scary, but hi! I'm finally gonna start posting on Tumblr! Bear with me as I try to figure out this website like an old woman :,)

I thought I'd use this first little post to kinda lay out what I want to be using Tumblr for! Instagram is still my main social, but I'm excited to start posting on here in a much more laid-back way, more of a blog to talk about and keep myself accountable for the stories I'm writing! (Especially Plalipian Princess!)

Here, I'll be posting:

Some overlap with Insta posts wise, but I'm going to go a lot more in-depth about my processes and thoughts behind the pieces/character moments

Lore dumps and insights on my stories/characters (so it's actually written down somewhere and not floating around in my head)

Messier thoughts/sketches

So the couple of mutuals that started to follow me on here from Insta (hello!) are gonna be getting secret insider sneak peaks of my stories and all the little thoughts in my head.

I hope this will be fun :)!