cindergraves

[cindergraves]

i needa find some actual art to post on here

[cindergraves]

i drew five lines of it i can reward myself with Experience Old Game

when i get home i have to do something with kea and this post

[cindergraves]

when i get home i have to do something with kea and this post

[cindergraves]

oc-tober day 18: swap

palette swap! something simple given how busy i've been

[cindergraves]

oc-tober day 17: dnd alignment chart

six additional characters and one represented by a bunny since i ran out of steam. im sure a lot of people both in universe and outside it would debate kea's position here, but i'm placing them on a bell curve lmao

[cindergraves]

i am a firm believer that ocs are a reflection of the self in the way that every character you create has to hold some piece of you to really feel alive. sometimes this is why all your ocs have certain traits, sometimes this is why you can track your various issues and traumas all the way from middleschool to now based on what your ocs are like. this is a feature not a bug

[cindergraves]

trying to do that dnd alignment placement thing with exactly one character per square and put kea in one spot then immediately remembered something they do and now im like hm. well its okay no one heres consistent

[cindergraves]

just kind of realizing how birdys whole 'no frame of reference for most things' could be incredibly funny to write out. guy who is not any more scared of foreign planets' wildlife than they are of earth wildlife cos both are equally alien to them

[cindergraves]

ive sketched out the cutest revak ever yesterday while trying to think of something for "past" . have this screencap of it i sent myself while i count down the hours til i get off work to finish it

[cindergraves]

oc-tober day 15: music!

playlists! one of my favourite things to do. i havent done them as often as i'd like lately, so here are some ultra compressed ones i made just for this. from left to right, it's one for kea, one for revak, one for both of them.

kea [lows the light don't reach]

kemosabe by everything everything / who am i? by nina simone / LGFUAD by motion city soundtrack / mama's gun by glass animals / god is a circle by yves tumor / goldfinch nocturne by roar / to the blade by everything everything / blue rooms by kunzite

revak [a wound gives off it's own light]

ghost by coheed and cambria / thaw by laurel halo / the softest voice by animal collective / atom by sea power / gunpowder by vashti bunyan / factories by autoheart / in another life by sandro perri / certain things you ought to know by destroyer

both [shores of the lighthouse]

blue light by kelela / pathetic by blame candy / take my blood by sun drug / memento mori by hollow wood / shameful company by rainbow kitten surprise / flowers-fire by kingfishr / mercury & me by everything everything / the tower by future islands

embeds ↴

[cindergraves]

once this month is over i think ill redo these prompts on my own for some other characters

[cindergraves]

oc-tober day 14: who/what inspired your ocs

always a tough question! i never usually keep track of my inspirations, and often go through series too fast to remember what i'd end up drawing from it. most of my characters are also inspired by/draw from other characters of mine, picking out specific traits and parts of their history to remix and see how things happen differently if certain variables are tweaked.

for the specifics ! ↴

for kea:

the other characters of my own i've put here are beren and sil. i would elaborate, but i'd literally go on forever. this'll make sense if i ever start posting about them!

for the existing characters, it's alma karma from dgm, especially visually, and rakka from haibane renmei (a favourite anime from when i was a kid) in a few senses. unfortunately i think they may have also channelled a bit of izaya orihara, faye valentine and twelve from zankyou no terror in esoteric ways. im trying to think of non-anime characters that may have been katamari'd into them but my memory isn't that good! i may go back and edit this if i have a sudden ahah moment about them. HOWL from howls moving castle both book and movie versions

as for the incident that inspired them or how they were created, i would prefer not to talk about it (kind of a bad memory at this point! took a long time to wash them of it), but at their core they were me trying to fit my favourite archetype (fantasy rogues) into a cowboy. the first attempt at this was scattered and not that well put together, but on their second rewrite i feel their background is more cohesive. they were also massively inspired by things i was going through at the time and the job i had, which has informed certain aspects of their character that made their way to the forefront over time. just this year i started working at a ranch, which is what inspired that rewrite, so i think that also affects part of their character.

i think this one might be very obvious, but they were inspired by the kea, as in the aotearoan parrot. kea was originally just gonna be a placeholder name for them, but like many of my placeholder names, it stuck. their wings are just a kea's transposed onto their back, and their mischievous/destructive nature is inspired by them. i love keas a lot lmao

for revak:

the other characters of my own i have down for him are vol, felanic, and raf. there's way too much to go into there, so i'll leave it to if i ever post about them in the future.

for the other characters, i think possibly warumono-san from mr. villains day off stuck in my head when i was designing him (i'd read a few chapters back in 2019, but forgot about it until recently. entirely possible for the image to have lodged in there and fallen loose for him!) and hazama kuroo, ginko from mushishi, olruggio from witch hat atelier, murderbot from the murderbot diaries. other inspirations i can see for him include rose from legend of dragoon and jin from samurai champloo. there's probably more but i'm forgetting them... one of my partner's inspirations for them that i can remember off the top of my head was percival de rolo.

i made him back around august/september of 2023. kea's story had holes that needed filling, and while coming up with ideas for other main and supporting characters revak came around. he's the result of an idea i left unused for kea themself; at one point i was thinking of turning kea into a monster in a very physical way, giving them the ability to shapeshift - first into a toxic eel-like creature, then into a poisonous lizard. i liked the idea of a character with a poisonous kiss, which seemed fitting for them.

kea's story needed a specific start - their character establishing moment is robbing a rich person and failing, which is how the more mundane aspects of revak's character came around. i liked the eccentric and hardworking but distant from the world/kind of naive character that resulted from me trying to justify keeping a rich guy around. eventually decided at some point that kea had enough going on as-is and slapped the "poisonous shapeshifter" aspect onto him instead, which is when revak came into the concept he is now, a venomous sea dragon shapeshifter who's estranged from his own family history and other side. there is a bit of irony in this idea, but for reasons that're secret 🤫

when my partner and i started writing together and swapping ocs around she took the lead on revak and changed him to the way he is now, fully fleshed out. one of the funnier changes they made is revak was originally supposed to be 5'11", but she took him and stretched him out to 6'4", since they tend to make taller characters.

and thats how they were made! if you want more of "what thought went into the characters" in a general sense, it was my love of hypocritical and dynamic characters that change a lot over the course of a story. they both have a lot of terrible aspects that can at times bury their strengths, and struggle with the concept of being a good person/who they are with what's been done to them. disregarding everything else, the main themes of their story and arcs are identity, coming to terms with your past, and not giving up on people.

ok thatse it 👍 thanks for getting this far. i have no clue if these words in this order makes sense

[cindergraves]

pinned post

hi im cinder. you can call me cin. you might see some people call me another name, just ignore that (they have special privilege for it)

i am an adult. i am probably older than you. i use it/its. i have brain damage, so its hard for me to remember to tag things right - if you need something tagged, send me an ask, and i'll try my best. i would share more about myself, but early 2000s internet strangerdanger programming stills my hand.

i am still recovering from a lot of bad things psychologically and physically that affected my ability to make art, so i'm trying to make up for that. i haven't shared my art publicly in years, it's a bit terrifying! i made this to try to make art friends again but there's a lot holding me back, so if i forget to respond to you or just seem to ignore you, know it's nothing personal: i am experiencing prey animal fear most times i'm online that i'm trying to get rid of.

this blog will probably contain mild adult themes, but i'll try tagging them appropriately. if something that should be tagged slips my mind, just send me an anon. keep in mind that romantic relationships comprise about a fourth of what i do, so tagging for something like pda is not feasible.

this is a sideblog and i cannot like or follow from here!

[cindergraves]

OHH I WAS FOUR MINUTES OFF... sad

oc-tober day 13: memes

the easiest things to draw and the hardest to share (with no context...)

[cindergraves]

i forgot today was thanksgiving day so i have the day off \o/

[cindergraves]

oc-tober day 13: memes

the easiest things to draw and the hardest to share (with no context...)

[cindergraves]

nearly oc-tober time again - time for some prompts for 2024

F.A.Q

do i have to draw?

not at all! you are free to participate with any medium that suits you... writing, artwork, free bases and templates, simple text posts, in-character-as-your-oc roleplay, whatever! (just no stealing or AI)

do i have to make new content?

nope! re-uploading old stuff that fits the prompts is allowed (and encouraged) ... old art that didn't get the appreciation it needed always deserves a chance to be shared again, it's a fun throwback!

do i have to post every day?

nope! only 10 days are mandatory (the ones in red with a star symbol) and everything else (yellow) is 100% optional! if you're busy or tired, please skip as many as you want

can i start early?

you can prep your posts in advance if you need to ... but please wait until the right day in october to share them!

can i re-upload your prompt list to another site?

i would prefer if you dont - i have accounts on most sites, so just reblog/retweet/share from me!

event tag?

#bweirdOCtober

have fun!

image desc/text version ↓under the cut↓ or on bweird.art/october

prompts:

WEEK 1: OC INTRODUCTIONS

⭐ 1: FAV OC

what makes them your fav?

2: NEW OC

how recently did you make them?

3: OLD OC

how long ago did you make them?

⭐ 4: UNDER-APPRECIATED OC

an oc you feel like you don't talk about enough, or you haven't fleshed out as much as you would like

5: RE-DESIGNED OC

an oc who has changed a lot (what changed about them?) or, if you haven't redesigned an oc: is there anything you might want to change about an existing oc?

WEEK 2: BUILDING BACKSTORY

⭐ 6: PAST

where is your oc from? what did they look like as a child?

7: LIKES

what do they like (and why?)

8: DISLIKES

what don't they like (and why?)

⭐ 9: RELATIONSHIPS

doesn't have to be romantic! can any kind of relationship (frienship, family, rivalry etc)

10: PERSONALITY

what are your oc's main personality traits

11: SYMBOLISM/THEMES

what represents your oc? is there a specific colour you associate them with, or a specific animal?

12: FUTURE

what will your oc look like in the future? do they have any plans or goals?

WEEK 3: FUN + GAMES

⭐13: MEMES

do any memes remind you of your oc? are there memes your oc would find funny? maybe you want to redraw your oc as one?

14: WHO/WHAT INSPIRED YOUR OC

are there existing characters that your oc looks like? was your oc based on yourself? is your oc originally from a specific fandom?

15: MUSIC

share a character playlist, write a songfic, post lyrics that remind you of them, etc

⭐16: EYES CLOSED or NON DOMINANT HAND

draw a picture of your oc with your eyes closed or with your non domminant hand, write or type a paragraph about them without your eyes closed, etc ... have fun, and don't worry about it looking "bad" -it's meant to!!

17: DnD ALIGNMENT CHART

put all your ocs into a DnD alignment chart, or any other similar chart if you prefer

i've compiled a few templates on my site, but you can find more easily if you google "oc alignment chart"

⭐18: SWAP

swap something between your ocs - their role in the story, hairstyles, personalities, fashion taste, species ... whatever you want! how would this difference change them?

19: PALETTE CHALLENGES

draw your ocs with as many of these colour palettes as you want (or just skip if you don't draw/don't like doing these!)

hex codes for the colours:

palette 1 - #3C1E81 #6D1EA2 #B059E8 #FE0876 #FE5284 #FE7C96 #E0CFE3 #FFD5C3

palette 2 - #352823 #673F28 #AB541C #BA8233 #897128 #A68B2F #F7BF6A #DAC3A4

palette 3 - #A42E25 #D7412B #E47C29 #F7A233 #FCC02D #FCE4A6 #486548 #FEFDE8

palette 4 - #2F4769 #39597E #53779C #94D1E7 #AADDE7 #D48DB7 #D498B5 #D2BABA

WEEK 4: COMMUNITY

20-26: A WHOLE WEEK OF SOCIAL STUFF

if you don't have the time/energy to do every day this week, ⭐ day 23 is the only one marked as mandatory! you can skip the rest!

some ideas for what you could do: talk about a friend's oc you like, make gift art/writing of them, collabs, trades, reblog/appreciate ocs in the event tag, make interactions between your ocs and other people's

WEEK 5: HALLOWEEN

⭐27: FEARS

is your oc scared of anything? do they have any phobias? are they startled easily? would any of your ocs try to scare ppl on purpose?

28: MONSTER

what would your oc be if they were a monster (eg: werewolf, vampire, eldritch beast.. whatever) or, do you have an oc who is already a monster?

29: PUMPKIN CARVING

your ocs carving pumpkins, a drawing of a pumpkin carved to look like your oc ... or even carve it in real life!

30: GHOST

this can be literally a ghost, or a concept that haunts your oc! up to you!

⭐ 31: COSTUMES

what are your ocs wearing for halloween?