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Small fantasy worldbuilding elements you might want to think about:

A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin

A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans

A clock that isn’t 24-hours

More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know

Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain

Multiple moons/no moon

Planetary rings

A northern lights effect, but near the equator

Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks

Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals

Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands

The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage

No concept of virginity or bastardry

More than 2 genders/no concept of gender

Monotheism, but not creationism

Gods that don’t look like people

Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats

Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot

Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom

“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls

A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language

A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)

I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.

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"Hi, uh, Malodoress? Yeah, don't ask how I got this number. Or who I am. Anyway, uhhh. Big favor. Can you like, start something? Like villain shit. You know. Not now. Friday. Like around 11am. I just - I need a certain superhero to respond. No, I get that - no, listen, I promise it won't come to that. Listen - listen - I promise - I mean - he's my dad, okay? Yes. If it comes to it, I'll tell him."

"Okay. Thanks. You don't know what this means to me."

Your dad is a superhero. He doesn't really have a secret identity. Everyone knows who he is, and what he does. Your mom is an Archeologist. Next week is your high school's career day, and you secretly think your mom's job is cooler. You want to invite her, but you don't want to hurt your dad.

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A funny thing about magical girl media is that folks who are broadly aware of the genre but don't take it in tend to assume Pretty Cure is the most G-rated of the lot, based on the fact that it's got brighter colours, frillier costumes, and generally younger-looking protagonists than average – then you actually watch the fight scenes and those squeaky middle schoolers are doing Bruce Lee shit to the monsters.

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For what feels like the first time, I have enough art from throughout the year to do one of those "one finished piece from each month" deals. Fun stuff!

Details below the cut.

January was some concept art for @astralfrontier ongoing Phase 3 Menagerie continuation stories. This is a very fun character named <deep breath> The Most Illustrious Supernova of the Universe, the Legendary Navigator of the Space-ways, the Right Honorable Quinnar Gentry who is a joy anytime they show up. Very much a foil for Concord, but also a (sometimes) ally.

February is more Phase Three art, this time of the Hand, a stage magician-themed villain who is a part of the Seven Wonders, a world threatening group. I really wanted to give her a look where, if I was to include them in any Sentinels of the Multiverse cards, she wouldn't be confused with any of the four-to-six other stage magician themed characters in the custom community's many decks. Not sure what the appeal is of the stage magician-themed super. I'm sure it's Zatanna's fault.

March is a bit of fun with @solkaras's Valerie and that skimpy meme dress that was floating around at the beginning of the year.

April is the first of several entries' here from my friend Bobbert's HMCS Moondancer environment deck, this one featuring cameo's from my other friend Mist's tokusatsu-inspired characters Alius and Ampere (whom I've also done art for). There's going to be several of these, so I'm going to spread my thoughts out, but for this one I will say that I always love doing cameos and I'm happy Bobbert let me go a bit wild with them in this deck's artwork.

May is when I started gearing up for ArtFight, including drawing new references. I feel like I've always struggled with drawing Niko in a way that I like (I'm not the best artist when it comes to animals) but this year I feel like I definitely made some strides forward in that department.

June is more Moondancer art, this time featuring Clara Cloverfield, whom I did the character design for (and might do some additional art for in the future, we'll see). This was one of the cameos that Bobbert insisted on, so I had some fun exploring the character and figuring out the best way to depict her undercover at the casino.

July a cameo from a pair of the Menagerie kids: Jason Quill and Alycia Chin, with Jason cheating at craps. I struggled a bit to figure out which of the Menagerie crew to cameo (it would have been fun to dress any of them up in fancy clothes) but the obvious conclusion was Jason and Alycia. Their leaning into spy tropes and their history with shady organizations made them a perfect fit for the Moondancer's themes.

August moves us on to the Moondancer's lounge singer, Frankie Bongiovi. They were a fun character to design with Bobbert giving me a bunch of inspirations for the character to draw off of. I also got to try out some new techniques (particularly with Tucker in the background there) that I think worked out well.

September gives us the final piece of Moondancer art, as the deck was released the following month in October. While I had a lot of struggles working on the art for Moondancer (it was the first project I've done at this scale for someone else) by the end I feel like I finally got to a good place working on other peoples' projects and I'm thankful to Bobbert for giving me the opportunity. It really helped me grow as an artist.

October saw me dive back into my comfort zone with this group shot of the Menagerie kids. I've got some big projects in mind for these kids coming up, which I hope to have started before the mid-year.

November was a bit of a cheat. I was running a Sentinel Comics RPG game during this time and spent a lot of time working on that game, so November we have artwork of Fractal from that game. This ended up being a token for her character when she showed up in the final fight the adventure (as a hostage, not a villain). As winter starts to rear its head, my drive to create tends to dwindle.

Finally December brings us a sketch of Ashley and @solkaras' Valerie again, playing off some silly BS we were talking about on Discord during the Christmas-to-New Years period. Given that this was done on 12/29 and I really didn't have anything else to show for December, I really squeaked this one in at the last minute. XD

Anyway, happy New Years. Let's all hope it's not utter dog shit.

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I thought this too at one time. But I also believe humans are natively friendly to other living things and given the evidence I’ll take the second belief at the cost of the first

Studies show that babies are not afraid of snakes

Scientists launched reptiles into the nursery to assess the reaction of the kids. The result killed: the crumbs perceived the reptiles as toys, and some tried to eat them

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https://www.sandrewswann.com/books-by-s-andrew-swann/forests-of-the-night/

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Puts “this could have been an email” in a whole new light

just kinda had my first email orgasm holy fuck

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From IG annabodneydesign

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Can’t believe Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice in the 2000s

And in 2015 Emily Brontë released literary clsssic Wuthering Heights

Thank God someone paved the way for them…

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Celestial Bodies Titanic Eclipse Edition Preview: Supplement Zine #1

Hey there!

In case you hadn’t heard, we have a kickstarter coming soon for Celestial Bodies. (Please follow it if you haven’t already!) Today I’m gonna talk about the Titanic Eclipse Edition that we’ll be crowdfunding! Specifically, one of its contributors.

As part of the vision for the Titanic Eclipse Edition, we wanted a few little add-on zines to go along with it. Specifically, we wanted to bring on some other people to answer questions we didn’t want to answer: what WAS the calamity? Why was it so pressing that humanity leave for the stars? This is the kind of framing that can color a whole campaign.

Kyle Tam (@percypropa) is going to be one of those contributors! Her supplement will be premised on the calamity being a result of overuse of a new power source, and the kinds of people who took to the stars as a result. It involves quite a bit about big conglomerates maintaining their power despite being the ones who caused this all to happen, and scrappy transport cooperatives opposing them. But it also ties in the role of religion in the waning years of Earth: the reorganization of faiths as conditions change, as well as the creation of new ones as social needs present themselves.

Sound good? Well, get on board then:

More (including another contributor) will be announced in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

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Yeah quiet quitting is great and all but have you tried chaotic working?

Like. I remember back in my grocery store cashier days I did so much crazy shit.

When WIC (Women, infants, and children voucher program to help low income mothers/families with children) people were in my line I would pretty much know who they were. Before the cards they had to tell us upfront they were WIC and show us their vouchers for what they were allowed to get (it was awful some times. Like. 2 gallons of milk. $4 worth of vegetables etc etc). They’d always have items hanging back, waiting to see what the total was and if they would have to take it off the belt.

I began to place the fruits/vegetables a certain way on the register scale so that like 1/2lbs of grapes read as like .28lbs or something. Then act shocked when I said that they still had X amount of lbs left. They got all their fruit and vegetables.

I think it started to kinda? Catch on to the women? Because I would have the same moms in my line month after month. And even after they switched to the cards (they worked like food stamp cards?) I’d still do the same thing. They were able to get more produce for whatever shitty max amount Indiana gave them.

Anyways. Be chaotic. It’s more fun that way.

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One of the most important things you can teach your kids is when and how to say no to authority figures.

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