#yakuts

[songs-of-the-east]

A Sakha Dance Ensemble in Yakutia, Siberia, Russia

[vintage-russia]

At the festival of Ysyah.Yakut woman pours kumys (1910)

[everydaylouie]

passage of time

[yakutian-laikabr]

http://www.canilsemprejuntos.com.br

[yakutarts]

Nightmare and Dream but feral, non-skeletal body!

For the love of god PLEASE click on the image for better quality + close ups and clothed version under the cut!!

Would you kiss them?

Video process:

I made these using a specific context

A while ages ago I drew and posted a drawing of Nightmare and Dream on their light ball form but with some alterations/personal headcanons.

On the post, I expressed my desire to draw the twins in a universe were Nim didn’t need to give them bodies, and just let them grow naturally. And specifically give them an animalistic appearance, instead of a humanoid one like most artist do.

You can see on the process video that it took me 1000 sketches to make something that looked good and I was happy with, the video is obviously sped up, the total time it took me to make this was 28 hours and 15 minutes.

Now explaining some things:

Why are they so big?

I read on a post made by Joku that Nim, before giving them skeleton bodies, tried to make them human ones, but the pure amount of magic and power the twins had made the human bodies explode or some shit. So she picked skeletons since the magic could flow freely through the bones without being confined by muscle and flesh. That made me think if their power had physical forms, it would be gigantic. So I gave them gigantic forms to better represent their status of strength and power, beings made from raw magic to serve as guardians of all emotions throughout the multiverse, of course I needed to make them big and intimidating!

Why the horns?

Artistic design choice, I gave them little horns and a chubby tail in their light ball form to purposefully make them more animalistic, wanted to keep it while making these. Also just giving them a smooth head with nothing much going on looked weird and boring.

Why the draconian look?

Dragons had been created and depicted as symbols of pure power above humanity and worshipped as deities throughout several cultures around the world, different depictions of dragons has been one of the only things present among almost all cultures, like a default folklore creature. While I tried to incorporate other mythical creatures in the design, the draconic body plan felt more right due to the influence of dragons on human beliefs, and their representation as magical and powerful beings beyond human comprehension. Plus I just really love drawing dragons.

Why the clothing choice? Also why is Dream half naked while Nightmare has everything covered?

While designing the clothes for Nightmare, I used as reference clothing that usually royalty would wear, Nightmare has a really big ego and sees himself as a king, so he uses fancy, expensive clothing and jewelry, adapted and designed for his anatomy. Not practical for battle, but his corruption can go through the fabric without damaging it, and most people and monsters just run when they see him, so he doesn’t worry about it getting dirty or tearing, Nightmare just expects every soul to instantly submit when they see him, so he never worries about getting into a battle and getting dirty he has that big of an ego.

Dream is the opposite, his style of clothing much more practical for running, jumping, flying, fighting and general exercise. He has 4 bags in total, 2 on each side, inside them he keeps several items, be it healing food, magical artifacts, first aid kit, gifts he receives, stuff he buys or random things he finds and wants to take home with him. Dream’s crown is now a colar couldn’t figure out how to make it work with the head shape and horns, his cape is from his official design, but changed to white, was planning to make it yellow but when I looked at it my eyes hurt because there was too much yellow everywhere. I made Dream’s clothes with the intent to match his official design, I didn’t to the same for nightmare because a turtle neck with a hoodie on a dragon would make him more huggable than intimidating. Plus I like to think that the leg warmers was a gift from Blue, and the ring on his horn a gift from Ink. Didn’t add more stuff on him because I couldn’t think of something that would look good and match Dream’s vibe, the rest of his clothes on his official design didn’t translate well here. Oh, while I was drawing this, I drew the colar and the leg warmers first, without the cape, Dream looked like a twink with a pet play kink.

Side note; neither Nightmare or Dream see the use of clothes as a necessity or as decency. For them clothes are nothing but pure decoration and to show off status for Nightmare, they can wear full body suits, partial clothing, just jewelry, or nothing at all, which is what they usually go for when at home, wearing or not wearing stuff doesn’t make that much of a difference to them at all.

Do they act as animals or do they have human intelligence?

Despite me using the word “feral” all the time to describe them, they do not actually act as animals. I’m only using “feral” to describe their body/anatomy, Nightmare and Dream are fully sentient and have human level intelligence/awareness. They are capable of speech and have opposable thumbs on their front paws, they can grab, write, hold… do anything a human can do with their hands with dexterity. But they do have to use only hand one at a time, and balance themselves with the other. To use both hands, they have to be sitting, or be supported by something, they can balance themselves on their wings if they have to.

And now contradicting what I just said, they have some animalistic behaviors. The twins can growl, purr and roar. Despite Nightmare being able to use his tentacles and Dream being able to shoot magic arrows out of his wings, they to also scratch and bite while fighting. Since they are big and heavy, they can easily crush bone under their weight and their bite force is strong enough to split someone in half. If you need a reference, just use Smaug from The Hobbit, he has more or less the balance of animal behavior and human intelligence I’m looking for.

Expanding more on this, the twins stretch just like felines, and often sleep in positions usually cats sleep in (they don’t actually need to sleep but do anyway). Dream likes to go fishing, and by fishing I mean jumping in a lake and chasing the fish underwater. He finds it more fun than sitting around and waiting for the fish to come to you instead.

I guess you count their lack of necessity to wear clothes as animal logic too?

_________________

If you have any more questions about them, I will be happy to answer!

And yes, I do plan on making more drawings of Nightmare and Dream on this form!

Dreamtale belongs to @jokublog

Feral concept/design by @yakutarts (me)

[goraehanuel]

refs for my north asian butch ocs

[joemagic]

Everyone talks about these thin or muscular horses, but what about my favorite?

Yakut(сылгы) horse:

[trafalgalar]

Photo of a Yakut Turk (Sakha) woman, 1883.

Yakuts are a Turkic ethnic group from Siberia. They are from the Siberian/North-East Branch of the Turkic Peoples. Their population is around half a million. They use Yakut and Russian languages. The majority of them practice Orthodox Christianity and a minority of them practice Tengrism.

[kovoranu]

[matriarchy-au]

[bestiarium]

The Abasylar [Yakut mythology]!

In the indigenous religion of the Siberian Yakut people, there is an important distinction between the different spiritual worlds that are inhabited by supernatural beings. Among these beings, the Abasylar (singular: Abasy or also Abaasy) are a bit of an exception, because they inhabit both the lower and the upper world.

The Abasylar are evil, wicked spirits and are known to steal people’s souls. They are also horrifying to look at: an Abasy is a giant humanoid monster with a singular eye and seven huge teeth made of iron. This latter characteristic is because all creatures from the underworld have at least some iron body parts in Yakut belief. I noticed they are always depicted with one arm and one leg, but I don’t know the significance behind this.

Not entirely unlike humans, Abasylar form households and can own animals as cattle. People made animal sacrifices for them, in which horses were sacrificed to the Abasylar in the upper world, whereas those living in the lower world received horned cattle as offerings.

These creatures serve Arson Duolai (also called Ulu Tojon), the deity who presides over the dead. Interestingly, blacksmiths hold a special position in Yakut religion because their work directly links them to the spirits. They can hold a séance and make an offering to the god Kytai-Bakhsy, who is associated with smithing, for professional smithing skills and also divine protection.

This ritual involves the smith pulling the heart out of a dead calf and smashing it on an anvil with a forging hammer. From then on, their soul belongs to Kytai-Bakhsy, but both Abasylar and human shamans are then powerless against the smith. If an Abasy attempts to sneak up on the smith, Kytai-Bakhsy will intervene and grab the evil spirit with his tongs and hold it over the fire in the forge.

It is possible for a human shaman to ally themselves with an Abasy. Should they attempt to harm a smith under Kytai-Bakhsy’s protection, though, both of them will be punished. For some reason, this option doesn’t seem to exist for white smiths (who work with silver and copper, as opposed to a blacksmith’s iron).

Sources:

Znamenski, A. A., 2013, Shamanism in Siberia: Russian Records of Indigenous Spirituality, Springer Science and Business Media, 371 pp.

Jochelson, W., 2018, The Yakut, Kulturstiftung Sibirien, Verslag der SEC Publications, Bibliotheca Sibiro-pacifica, 256 pp., p. 106.

Coulter, C. R. and Turner, P., 2013, Encyclopedia of Ancient Deities, Routledge, 610 pp., p. 6.

(image source 1: Matt Gretton)

(image source 2: Deviantart user Skyggelys)

[aphemera]

— Bran thought about it. ❝ Can a man still be brave if he's afraid? ❞

❝ That is the only time a man can be brave, ❞ his father told him.

Ned Stark, Lord of Winterfell

[vintage-russia]

Yakuts at the feast of Ysyah (1911)

[poder--popular]

the true socialist vexillology appreciator does not reject the flags with tons of writing, weird hammers and sickles and a generally shaky existence from the early 1920s btw

[1five1two]

Innokenty Koryakin.

[yakutarts]

[PUBLIC RELEASE]

Nightmare’s Tentacles

Close ups + commentary under the cut!

Standard Tentacles

The default look, the ol’ reliable. Really had fun making the latex texture, I will try to make them more goopy next time I draw him though.

Rose Throns Tentacles

Rose thorns! I saw an artist draw thorns in Nightmare’s tentacles and thought it was the most creative thing ever, however this one was quite tough to make, considering that I drew and shaded all the thorns one by one. The one made by the artist I took inspiration from also looks a lot better. In my original sketch, I had drawn spikes all over the tentacles, not just on the sides, but when I started coloring I realized that it would take me ages to make every single spike, so I just draw them on the sides. Another reason why the original looks better is that the artist drew thorns everywhere on the tentacles. Unfortunately I don’t have their @ because i think I only saw their art once or twice, but I do know they are an Dreamtale enthusiast and has their on Dreamtale AU.

Snake tentacles

Snake tentacles Nightmare is seriously underrated and underused. More snakes! Now! Also it’s ironic for me to say this because originally there was 5 snakes instead of 4, but the 5th one didn’t look good so I erased it. Really enjoyed making the texture on this one, even though it was torture every step for all 4 of them. But I do really like how they turned out. Making the heads was difficult.

???

I’m gonna be honest with you. I didn’t know what the fuck I wanted to do here, so I made up some bullshit and slapped some shading on top of it. Didn’t had this planned at all. Really like the concept of eldritch horror Nightmare, his shapeshifting abilities are underused. The funky stuff coming out of his body and head are Arcane inspired, I don’t know the name of these things, but on Arcane s2 act 3, the final fight has these things coming out of Victor’ little robots and corrupted hexthec, thought it looked nice so I put them here. Also Nightmare in this last one has goblin feet 👹.

______________________

This was posted much earlier to my Patreon and Ko-fi ! Support me there and you can have access to other exclusive posts, such as special WIPs, speedpaints, supporter-only content, and more!

I already have another drawing posted there!

Nightmare belongs to @ jokublog