#I mostly did this for design and practice fast and cheap rendering

[canarydraws]

Portrait 7/7 ~2.2hrs

Final portrait study is my favorite girl Karlach!

[ruffoverthinksthings]

Does the Descendants universe have collages?

I assume you meant “Colleges”as in “institute of higher learning, characterized by a focus oncritical thinking, independent research, and specialized educationalcurricula.”

Yes, the Descendants universedoes have colleges, and plenty of them.

With the lack of magic, andthe extreme focus given to science and technology as a solution tocompletely replace it,* it is in their new civilization’s bestinterests to have systems meant to educate their population, breednew generations of researchers, innovators, and professionals whowill keep technology marching along at a steady pace if not by leapsand bounds, helping support the ever changing and growing needs oftheir society.

The only exception to thiswould be Camelot, which by order of King Arthur, is permanently stuckin the Middle Ages. (This is canon, and is mentioned off-hand by Benin The Return to the Isle of the Lost.)**

In an interesting case of theTemporal Clash that happens in Auradon, places like Ancient Greecedid retain colleges that were the sole domain of the wealthy andwell-off, “bastions of wisdom and enlightenment” as Plato or hisDisney counterpart would put it; but there are also institutions likethe ones you see today that are much more accessible, the next stepforward for majority of the population after they finish high school(or whatever mandatory education is in Auradon).

They serve the purpose ofboth educating their students and making them much more effectiveworkers, citizens, and happier people in general (ignorance is itsown kind of hell), and being hubs for research, culture, andinitiatives that are either too unprofitable for private companies towant to invest in, or are a less corporate, much more liberal andflexible entity that is a part of the industry/field.

Some examples off the top offmy head:

The Iduna Institute of Foodand Agricultural Science (AKA “Cocoa College”)

Located inArendelle, this is Auradon’s premierecollege/research center when it comes to all matters involvingagriculture and food, be it for reform and programs aimed atimproving farmers’ lives while keeping them from becoming obsoleteby the fast-improving technology they often pioneer and help saidfarmers deploy, ways to sustainably and reliably feed their evergrowing populations without taxing their environment too much, andfinding new and innovative ways to satisfy our hunger without havingto resort to the infamous “nutri-block”*** any more than wereally need to.

All of this is frequentlyovershadowed by the fact that initially, they were literally builtand funded to produce “The Best Chocolate Anyone’s Ever Tasted,Ever” to quote Princess Anna of Arendelle, and are actuallystill doing this to this day, though they have made their goal themuch more realistic “The Best Chocolate Anyone’s Ever Tasted, ForThis Year.”

The annual “Chocolate Ball”is a widely attended event by anyone who’s anyone, wealthychocolate lovers everywhere, along with a scant few enthusiasts whoare lucky enough to find the silver stickers inside the wrappers ofproducts being sponsored by “Cocoa College” that year.

It’s widely criticized as avastly overblown and self-indulgent abuse of power by the reigningqueen and her sister (and later on, the second in line to thethrone), kept going only because:

The exorbitant entrance feesand money raised are donated to charity and government programs,along with being heavily taxed in general;

There are few completelylegal things the competitors aren’t willing todo, that oftentimes far exceed the monetary estimate of whatthey would earn from a lifetime’s worth of selling a product with asingle, or the much coveted double Seal of Royal Approval;and,

The products with silverstickers are frequently produced by a series of small, independentfarmers, or corporations that are known to be much more enthusiasticabout their legally mandated “social responsibility” programs.

(And completely offleft-field here, I did NOT expect to write this much about “CocoaCollege” all in one sitting.)

The Auradon Extreme Weatherand Climate Research Center (AKA “The Hot House”)

It seemed only appropriatethat Auradon’s primary research center for living in the harshest,most hostile, and deadly environments would be in a series ofman-made underground tunnels some kilometers from Agrabah.

Here in the “Hot House,”its students and its resident researchers work hard to figure outnewer, better, cheaper ways for Auradon’s residents to “Seek,Sleep, and Sprout”--that is to say, safely explore new environments, comfortably live inthem full-time by choice, then start to work in and manipulate theirenvironment to better suit their needs and that of the rest ofAuradon, to the point where average people will start to wantto live in there—in any environment, or corner of the worldthey so please.

They’ve got biomes that areeven hotter than Agrabah in the peak of summer, standing out of theshade, with a giant circle of sunbathing mirrors pointed directly atyourself, and focused with laser-like precision on you.

They’ve got biomes where ifyou or your equipment don’t freeze solid within the first minute ofstepping in after the airlock shuts behind you, it’s considered asuccessful design that merits further iteration and study in thehopes that you or your equipment will freeze solid within twominutes.

They’ve got biomes whereit’s not a question of “if” you are going to get struck bylightning, it’s “how soon after the airlock shuts behind you”and “how many times in the same spot.” (The current record are“five minutes and forty-three seconds” and “seven.”)

The designs, the safety gear,and the clothes you can see here are oftentimes described as “alien,”“like something at the bad parts of a drinking binge,” and“didn’t realize something like that could even be a thing.”

And that’s after theyrefine, improve upon the designs, and make them functional andfashionable, along with understandable to the populace at large.

In a nutshell, the Hot Houseis best described by their motto: “To explore whole new worlds, andmake them our home.”

The Halls of Remembrance

Unlike the Museum of CulturalHistory which is content to just educate and show-off the relics andpractices of a bygone era, the Halls of Remembrance in Greek seek to keep themalive, or even bring them back from the dead.

The courses and the classesoffered are incredibly rich and varied, all unifiedby the fact that they are for traditions, vocations, and arts thatare either now completely obsolete, quickly being outpaced bytechnology, or have simply fallen out of the tastes of the public atlarge to be viable outside of a publicly-funded institution such asthis.

Want to learn about Medievalstage plays? Slave songs from New Orleans? Weaving and making threadusing a spindle? The crafting and the use of weapons throughoutcivilization, especially the originals that the current designs theRoyal Guard SIA (Standard Issue Armaments) werebased on? Medicinal horticulture before modern pharmaceuticalsrendered that largely obsolete?

The Halls have a class and aprofessor for that, and oftentimes with highly specific variantsshould you want to specialize.

About the only issue anyone--visitor, student, or staff--has is that while it’s very easy to find the entrance, onceinside these vast, expansive halls filled with classroom uponclassroom upon classroom, it’s very easy to get turned around and unable to findthe class you originally intended to enroll in at the time you weresupposed to be there, or even just know where in the complex you are.

(The architect, Daedalus,blames being introduced to 3D modeling and the ease with which thatyou can go completely crazy, without having to deal with theintegrity of the materials of your models, finding enough physical room tobuild it in, and having to create an entirely new model of a ladderor other supporting structure once the original gets too high.)

Fortunately, the Royal Guardis very keen about recording and monitoring who enters, and everyonecomes out eventually at some point, oftentimes with a number of new,interesting skills in all manner of vocations, arts, and sciencesthat have long ceased to be useful outside of conversations atparties.

You’re guaranteed tolearn something new at the Halls of Remembrance, you just don’tknow what.

* One that has failedmiserably, with how the Descendants themselves keep showing thatmagic is far more useful, and very dangerous when most of thepopulation do not have it, nor are people used to dealing with it.

** What modern amenities, ifany, were allowed is up in the air, and I imagine this did not worknearly as well as his majesty Arthur intended it to. Feel free toask.

*** A “nutri-block” is agiant brick of mostly human-edible complex carbohydrates, dominantlyfiber. It is loaded with most of the necessary nutrients and mineralsthat one needs to continue functioning from day to day. It’s cheap,easy to produce, and keeps astoundingly well, but even the RoyalGuards at Faraway and the Borderlands only ever eat them as acomplete and absolute last resort as the experience is likened to“literally chewing on tree bark, except much worse--at leastthere, it tastes just of wood, and not also of cardboard, pulp, andglue.”