magic-is-something-we-create

[magic-is-something-we-create]

ive decided that, unlike in the millennium saga, in the lost there isn't any universal translation. there are some implants and things you can get that can real-time translate some languages (usually just the ones from the planets those originate on, because planets have thousands of languages each) but it works kinda like google translate; it's not perfect, it doesn't apply cultural context for idioms, and if the font is funky enough the visual component simply won't recognize what the fuck it's trying to read

people with psychic implants like ano's, which also have an internet connection and kinda function like a computer with a screen in your eyeball, can use those to translate more stuff with essentially a translation search, and can translate their own speech in real-time using the psychic aspects of their implants to get their meaning across

people like the champion, who had many lifetimes before the coliseum to exist and travel the universe, are better served by just spending time to learn a bunch of the languages they encounter, and so a lot of the longer-lived space travelers are polyglots that stick to certain areas for long periods of time

people in the service industry like ghost will get training in the common languages encountered in their specific work environment. in the coliseum that means you get a lot of languages from very rich planets and maybe you pick up on a few of the phrases your coworkers mutter under their breath in their mother tongue

and silence knows 2 languages from creophora LII. because she was raised in a mixed heritage home. and thats it. the watchers didnt even give her a translation core they just assigned handlers that spoke one of her languages while she was in their system

thank you for coming to my TED talk, it was brought to you by the fact that i just drew a bunch of different neon signs for this scene that are completely incomprehensible to reflect silence's experience of the moment

[magic-is-something-we-create]

Keep reading... [X]

Beloved Audience, we are delighted to announce that the Sponsors have had their fill, and the first installment of the latest adventure of the Great Coliseum is now available for your consumption free of charge!

In this introduction, you will meet the key players of the upcoming season, and learn why the last was cut short unexpectedly in the middle of an episode. We fellow Watchers apologize for the wait, and hope you enjoy the rest of this tale enough to forgive our fumble.

Real life translation: Chapter one is now available for free for everyone to read!

The website and comic are both meant for mobile viewing, and the link above brings you directly to the chapter one landing page, where you can check the content warnings before reading.

All pages are fully described in ALT text both here and on the site.

If the link ever breaks for some weird reason, the URL is thelost.space. If you want to be notified when new chapters come out, follow this blog! The only posts will be updates on the comic itself, so you can enable notifications without getting spammed!

Want early access for chapter 2+? [X] Want the fonts and/or main brushes used in the comic? [X] (dialogue font will be available later today)

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when your OCs start getting on your nerves

[magic-is-something-we-create]

Crawling out of my cave to share this illustration of the "Virgin Goddesses" from Greek and Roman Mythology (Hestia/Vesta, Athena/Minerva, & Artemis/Diana)

Originally created for the @aspeczine!

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The Path

The result of a random color palette and some experimenting with new brushes! Never done anything in this style before, but it was extremely fun, and I think I might treat it as concept art for some future settings in The Lost :)

ALT text in image. | Commissions open; 2 slots available. | Wallpaper version available free for download here.

[magic-is-something-we-create]

Thank you!!

First of all: the font I used is Ringbearer, which is free for personal use but I will probably have to use something else when publishing prep eventually comes around. It's a great font that you might recognize from the covers of Lord of the Rings and other fantasy books trying to emulate that style!

As for how I did this. Well, quick disclaimer that I did this like 5 months ago and I'm generally just the kind of guy who Gets Art Visions and then is usually able to Create Them with minimal issue. and also this got super long so apologies for the length on the dash

BUT

I started this not from the point of view of the map itself, but from the point of view of the characters, if that makes sense?? Like I've always had vibrant ideas of how the city looks when walking certain streets, like how the riverside quays and the buildings lining them look, where Unity Park is situated and what sort of area it's in, how far characters had to walk to get to their various places of work, etc, and I mapped those out first. 1.a. I had a bit of a unique situation where, as you can see, it's a coastal city situated between the roots of a massive tree, and I knew that it needed both a river to run through the city (to match my descriptions of it in the story) and access to an interior waterway that ships could take without hitting themselves on the stone bridges I envisioned periodically across the city portion of the river. So like, I guess this point can be distilled into give yourself landmarks that serve as limitations/jumping off points. Cities need access to water and food, and depending on the story/world, points of defense. Use those as inspiration 1.b. As far as like. Things you don't know specifics of? Literally use a messy grungy paint brush (or if you're doing this on paper, scatter some dry macaroni or dice or beans or something on the paper) and outline it lightly. That's the fraying edges of the city. Build entrances and exits from there, don't think too hard about it because there's always new things being built and there's never space in the center of a city this big.

It's not obvious in the finished thing, but once I mapped out those key pieces (and, crucially, only like 2 or 3 roads) I then kinda just. Painted the vague shapes of different districts within the city. I knew I wanted a lot of the oceanfront to be very import-, storage-, and tavern-heavy, as this is a massively important port city - and so I made sure that lower-class residential areas were closer, and middle and upper-class residential areas were farther away. They also got connected to industrial areas! And the thing about warehouses and industrial zones is that those buildings are a lot bigger than houses, so the streets are farther apart and said buildings fill the block a lot more.

Don't draw every street. Just don't. It's tempting for realism, but you'll notice on things like Google maps that you get more detail the closer you zoom in; for something like this, the major throughways are fine. Connect manufacturing zones to commercial areas, commercial areas to recreation areas, and recreation to residential. Grids are good for cities that were planned ahead of time; you'll get a lot more funky shapes and curves and corners in cities that grew organically. This is the biggest difference between London and New York on a map

Don't draw every building by hand. Most of the time, you shouldn't draw any buildings by hand. The only ones I did that way are ones with distinctive shapes and sizes that are important to the narrative, and that wasn't even really worth it. I'll put the brush I made and used up for download sometime soon, I just haven't transferred it from my old computer yet, but brushes are your best friends in any kind of map making

Most importantly: This was my FIFTH ATTEMPT at this map. You mostly likely Will Not get it right the first time, but you just gotta keep trying! Take note of what you didn't like, ideas of how to fix that, and try it again after at least a few days to let those thoughts marinate. Study real maps and how they look, don't get too caught up in the details, and play around with different starting points to see what's the most fun or what makes the most sense for your brain. I know some people make maps like this by taking screenshots of real maps of real places and cutting them up and rearranging them and then tracing over that. I know some people do that random city map generator and use it as a jumping off point. There's probably a million strategies I don't even know about that may help you!

Hopefully some of that helped!! If you have more questions about specifics I'll do my best to help out :D

for some reason today i decided i wanted to do some Fantasy Cartography again but this time its the city edition. please send vibes because i dont know how im gonna do this without going crazy

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A Rainy Evening

Thank you to everyone who came to the stream yesterday! I had a lot of fun working on this piece both during and after, and the style experimentation made this one really pop. Be sure to click in and zoom to see all the lovely texture from the brush I used, because that's the best part imo :D

[magic-is-something-we-create]

for some reason today i decided i wanted to do some Fantasy Cartography again but this time its the city edition. please send vibes because i dont know how im gonna do this without going crazy

[magic-is-something-we-create]

im hard at work on the next drop for the lost (the second one for chapter three came out on saturday) and while drawing cityscape backgrounds is very time consuming especially for the beauty shots, i am having the time of my LIFE doing it

[magic-is-something-we-create]

ive decided that, unlike in the millennium saga, in the lost there isn't any universal translation. there are some implants and things you can get that can real-time translate some languages (usually just the ones from the planets those originate on, because planets have thousands of languages each) but it works kinda like google translate; it's not perfect, it doesn't apply cultural context for idioms, and if the font is funky enough the visual component simply won't recognize what the fuck it's trying to read

people with psychic implants like ano's, which also have an internet connection and kinda function like a computer with a screen in your eyeball, can use those to translate more stuff with essentially a translation search, and can translate their own speech in real-time using the psychic aspects of their implants to get their meaning across

people like the champion, who had many lifetimes before the coliseum to exist and travel the universe, are better served by just spending time to learn a bunch of the languages they encounter, and so a lot of the longer-lived space travelers are polyglots that stick to certain areas for long periods of time

people in the service industry like ghost will get training in the common languages encountered in their specific work environment. in the coliseum that means you get a lot of languages from very rich planets and maybe you pick up on a few of the phrases your coworkers mutter under their breath in their mother tongue

and silence knows 2 languages from creophora LII. because she was raised in a mixed heritage home. and thats it. the watchers didnt even give her a translation core they just assigned handlers that spoke one of her languages while she was in their system

thank you for coming to my TED talk, it was brought to you by the fact that i just drew a bunch of different neon signs for this scene that are completely incomprehensible to reflect silence's experience of the moment

[magic-is-something-we-create]

dusk is officially the first person to make tieling swear out loud on screen. ember's gonna be so mad he beat them to it

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feeling a bit sick tonight but have a snip of ember being absolutely bombarded with questions by their coworkers, including a guy named eddy because ive wanted to name an ehlf after water eddies for forever because i think it's funny

transcript in alt text

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the thing i just wrote is JUST BARELY too big to fit in a one-image snippet but oh my god i want to share it so bad.

ember you fucking scoundrel your coworkers are NEVER inviting you out for drinks again

[magic-is-something-we-create]

do you ever draw something for yourself that’s so deliciously self-indulgent that you just sit there like

[Image ID: 2 digital drawings of a short-haired person drawing on a tablet. In the first image they are looking at the screen and blushing pink. In the second image they are looking away from the screen and blushing more heavily, with the caption “…is this allowed?”. End ID]

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My flash piece "The Blooming Pond" is available for free in this month's issue of Baffling Magazine, along with several other amazing stories. If you enjoy any of these stories, please consider checking out the Neon Hemlock Press Patreon.