mantisgodsart - Tumblr blog

[mantisgodsart]

Unskippable cutscene.

[mantisgodsart]

Act 2.

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Watercolor flats for the Act 2 avatar. We've only just noticed that we typo'd the URL on the liveblog. Not liveblogging anymore - just iveblogging.

[mantisgodsart]

You were something, before you were made of Blight. Young. Foolish, perhaps. Moth, and nothing else.

Perhaps you lost something in becoming a beast. Perhaps you are nothing but better for it.

(Pre-Zommoth Kjdrira)

[mantisgodsart]

Doing references for men who suck. This is Léopold, Utter and Madame Butterfly's father. He is a pirate and he has been on the pirate equivalent of a whaling trip for nearly five years. He is the world's most absent father because he sucks.

[mantisgodsart]

Our full March ATC album (minus the dating sim cards) for March 2024. Including WIPs! Helpfully marked for the sake of not causing confusion during the actual exchange, since this is also the album we bring to trade with. Also a show of the shine on the Scarlet card, since we haven't shown it off and his wings aren't especially obvious without it.

[mantisgodsart]

A handful of ATC works, and a show of iridescence. 2/3 on offcuts. The glasses on Talita also shine - however, we haven't yet video'd it.

[mantisgodsart]

We have finally finished this project, and thus, The World's Worst Dating Sim is finally DONE! Just in time for April Fools Day. Now, with our six new contestants, choose, uhh... who's dateable? Or not dateable? This last batch was determined almost entirely by People Telling Us Who To Add, contains multiple AUs, and is... hmm. "Unconventional" may be a good term? Half of these are probably undateable but you can still shoot your shot.

As previously, it can be a platonic date if you want, you just can't be neutral. Deadlander Lambda belongs to @cordycepsbian and has been moved into our studio for duration of this poll. Profiles below the cut.

(we're linking the first poll here)

Deadlander Lambda - Maybe - Deadlander - Good question - At least a little bit

This, uhh...

...is this safe? We don't think this is safe. ..."Already had kids before"? What do you mean it's a parent?

...well, we can't get it out of the studio, so it's an option now? We guess? This... really doesn't seem like a good idea.

Rogu - He/him - Ant drone - Very rude to ask a gentleman that, don't you think? - I wouldn't worry about that.

A charming mystery from somewhere only described as "a faraway land", though he wasn't quite scheduled in this lineup, we think we can make an exception. This silver-tongued bug seems to be able to say just what's needed to get under your skin... and from the look of it, he's angling to take you somewhere private.

...come to think of it, haven't we seen that face before? On a poster, maybe? Well, it's not a surprise he's been modelling for things, he's certainly got a pretty enough face for it, but why do we feel... nervous, all of a sudden?

Carmina - She/(scribbled in)it - (illegible) - (illegible) - (illegible)(scribbled out with "No longer relevant" written in its place)

...where is she? She was meant to show up hours ago. What on earth could have held her up this long?

Pebbles - He/him - Moth ("iterator") - Juvenile (estimated) - Unclear

Right out of surgery, this one. While we're not sure if it's entirely responsible to include this one, and we certainly don't speak whatever language he's speaking... he's cute, isn't he? And looking for a home? Well, maybe if you're the sort of person who might want to rescue a domestic moth in a bad situation...

Wereweevil Vi - It/its (wereweevil form) - Wereweevil - 19 - Aro

Pre-existing hangups mean that you can only date this one in wereweevil form. Good luck.

Kina - She/her - Mantis (big) - Haven't asked - Also haven't asked    

Well, we assume that you can do less lethal than the bandit who people mostly know thanks to her former job as a corpse disposal unit, but some people might be into that sort of thing, honestly. Are you, perchance, also a mantis?

[mantisgodsart]

Can u perchance turn the pale king into some sort of bird... Different bug eldritch horror than a snake

We like to think that the worship of a god can directly impact the forms that they can appear in, as well as the way they're seen. We want to clean this up and add some more lore later, here - apocryphal depictions are fun to toy with, with gods.

[With the region's prior population overwhelmingly favoring The Radiance, often depicted in similar forms, it is perhaps inevitable that the region's previous artistic shorthands and predispositions carried forward into worship of this newer god, particularly as His domain overlapped so much with The Radiance. The Star, though it turns up consistently across a multitude of paintings, is always simply a low presence - attributed, perhaps, to the Pale King's lack of desire to be confused with his predecessor, especially as worship of the Pale King and worship of The Radiance were often pitted against each other in this time. As the symbol could easily be confused with that of his predecessor, The Star was discouraged as a depiction, and at some times explicitly not allowed. Still, it remained as a consistent motif throughout the years, even occasionally being used as a symbol of both gods at once.

The Sword-beak is quite facinating, by comparison - though it incorporates many details formerly seen in depictions of The Radiance, particularly in depicting the god as a feathered fleshbeast. Still, it is unique in how it depicts this aspect - whereas The Radiance is most often depicted as a larger, rounder beast, with a heart-shape for a face, The Sword-beak towers over the scene, depicted as a long, stretched-out beast with a many-sided beak. Depicted by some artists, the feathers of the beast itself are seen as nails or similar tools.

Commonly, He is explicitly shown as being "above" His kingdom when depicted in this form - though gifts and tools from its feathers may fall down from above, He himself does not see or hear the bugs below, too massive of a presence to acknowledge the peasantry below. This, as such, is in direct contrast to many depictions of The Radiance in Her own feathered beast depictions, often still shown as among Her moths even when She is a beast of a nature wholly different from theirs.

The Sword-beak's detached nature meant it was more frequently used for satirical depictions of the King, or political art, than art made for sake of worship. As such, it was prone to coming under fire from those who believed that all depictions of Him made in such a way were purely for the sake of mockery, or those who believed it was too similar to prior depictions of The Radiance – notably, there are multiple records from this time showing a trend towards accusing artists who chose to depict him in this way of worship of The Radiance, despite this depiction being very notably distinct from Her own featherbeast depictions, both in terms of literal form and in terms of stylism.]

[mantisgodsart]

Act 1. Somehow, we feel like this is going to be a long, long trip.

[mantisgodsart]

Oh yeah, we actually turned out something we can post on Tumblr without violating community guidelines in Life Drawing yesterday. We think it turned out pretty well!

[mantisgodsart]

OUR promise to YOU: we will ONLY take pictures in the very worst of lighting conditions, with the very shakiest of sketches.

This goofy fucker is about to go through The Horrors and we, for one, cannot wait.

[mantisgodsart]

This goofy fucker is about to go through The Horrors and we, for one, cannot wait.

[mantisgodsart]

obliterate this man. we don't care what he gets turned into he's just our most eligible candidate for the tortures

Ok so as you may be aware we have recently read Dungeon Meshi and there's one specific tidbit that caught our attention

(Dungeon Meshi, Chapter 4 - "Omelettes")

So, if the snake part is the body, and the rooster part is the tail... wouldn't that be a cool TF to do? We think it would be. It was fun anyways.

(sorry about your guy getting turned into a cockatrice. this was totally avoidable in every way but it was fun to do so really it was unavoidable)

[mantisgodsart]

How about Scarlet getting transmuted into a bat? 'Tis Vampiric tradition, after all.

Sometimes, people will say that gods are "helpful" and "useful". These people are lying. These people are lying very blatantly, in a very provably wrong way, in a way that you SHOULD correct them on if you catch them with it, because they're MASSIVE LIARS. Incredibly massive liars. Gods do not solve problems, they make problems worse. They just make problems worse in ways that you couldn't have imagined could even happen previously.

As it turns out, silk DOES NOT play well with a barrel bigger than the one it was tailored to, and even if it's decently stretchy, that stuff does not tear. This is very unfortunate if you are, say, turning into a bat thirty times your original size, and it sucks and carries a high risk of breaking ribs. And organs. Ah, well. At least it's... survivable?

(BONUS: "Kindly explain to me how any of this helps, at all. with anything.")

[mantisgodsart]

WIP

[mantisgodsart]

Data poisoning in the form of "we are drawing human faces despite Not Knowing How To Do That". Anyways, Falin sketch.