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Btw this year I got the funniest tramp stamp I could think of

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Shrine of Nocturnal.

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Just a taste of you...

art by @plague-ridden-rat <3 always my favourite

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Nerevarine With Ordinator Helmet (based on that one Osmar Schindler)

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WIP Wednesday

was tagged last week by @madam-whim @sanzas-reverie @pocket-vvardvark and @sulphuricgrin! consider yourselves tagged back >:)

also tagging @tiredela @captain-of-silvenar @varlaisvea and @countravenwatch

unsurprisingly, I have been working on stuff for the pinup challenge! I have a few more rough sketches kicking around but I'll share these two:

wanted to do a more classic pinup style with Lily hehe. just imagining the worm cult has a yearly sexy calendar type situation LOL

aaand then there's this one, which while not exactly a pinup per se, is inspired by a certain painting that I thought was still in the spirit of pinup art as a concept; not being explicitly sexual, but a little suggestive and just risque enough and sometimes caked in metaphor. have I been thinking way too hard about what makes pinups (and other forms of historical erotic art as a whole) good? maybe :/ LOL

also guess who's hand it is hehehe

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Reposting old illustration with a new background. ESO oc

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Razum'Dar.

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the False Madonna and the Genuine Prophet

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May I present for your artistic pleasure...the 2025 TES Pinup Challenge! Coming to you August 2025!

My ask box is open for prompt suggestions through Saturday, July 12! The official prompt list will go up Sunday, July 13!

Please like, reblog, and share this post so everyone can see! If this challenge has a good turnout, I may put together other challenges for October and December! Doing that completely depends on participation and feedback, though, so if that's something y'all are interested in, I need y'all to amp this up!

(Challenge and guidelines text below the cut)

TES Pinup Challenge 2025

Happy summer, kwamafetchers! On August 1, the second TES Pinup Challenge will make its way to your dashboards! “A TES Pinup Challenge?” you ask, “What’s that about?” You see, the TES Pinup Challenge was a month-long art challenge that I originally ran back in June 2023. Now, due to popular demand, the challenge is returning this August! The main theme will be drawing our favorite NPCs and OCs in a pinup art style reminiscent of the 1940s and ’50s! Once drawn, we’ll post our work here on Tumblr to share with our friends and fellow fans! 

Everyone participating in the challenge should use the #tes pinup challenge 2025 tag so I can reblog your work here for everyone to enjoy!

Guidelines:

All characters of every race qualify, so long as they are adults! This is a suggestive challenge, so depictions of minors are a big no-no.

This time, rather than limit the “art” side of the challenge to traditional or digital art, I’m opening it to other mediums! If you can write, sculpt, bake, bead, cosplay, etc., a prompt for the pinup challenge, be my guest! Just keep it within the Tumblr community guidelines! Be sexy but sensitive, if you catch my drift. 

No character claiming! If you and your friend both want to do Serana, that is totally fine! The point is to have fun and express ourselves artistically! If that means having five different portraits of Brynjolf from five different people, then we’re all the richer for it! 

For example: The 2023 challenge produced SO MANY Sotha Sil pieces and I am thankful for EVERY ONE of them! 

The month is divided into ten groups of three days (e.g. 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, etc.). Each group has a primary and secondary prompt, so if you don’t like one, you can do the other! Or, if you’re feeling particularly creative, you can combine them or do both! How you fulfill each challenge is entirely up to you.

Because August has 31 days, August 16 will be an open “Freestyle!” day! Want to take a break before tackling the back half of the month? Go for it! Want to come up with your own prompt? I can’t wait to see it! Want to revisit a prompt from the first two weeks? Say more! Point being—do whatever you want that day! 

Participation in the entire event is NOT mandatory! Whether you want to fill every prompt or choose just one, the goal is always to be safe and have fun! 

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i made another post with close ups of each of them, but this was really an appreciation post for eso's design of these moments.

like, each of them is framed by a halo made up of design elements from the grand rooms they're in, each of which matches their aesthetic. mother morrowind decorates with flora from all over the province. she is the most accessible to the people—you can simply go to her temple and visit her without doing any associated quest—but she's flanked by guards at all times. vekh the warrior poet has his spear on his back and his lute in front of him. he's nowhere to be found until you finish his questline, but after that he's available to you whenever you'd like to visit. sotha sil is appropriately mysterious: this gif is from the only moment in the clockwork city questline that (the real) seht is in his audience chamber, and even then he is distant, absorbed in study. ayem and vekh look godly, floating in the air, radiating light. each of their temples is at the top of hundreds of stairs, but once you get to the top, they're right there in front of you. sotha sil's basilica has a normal staircase, and though he is standing on a platform, he humbly stands on the ground. yet, it is nearly impossible to access the clockwork city, and even if you did manage to go there and he was in his audience chamber (he rarely is), his back is to you. this is the most accessible he gets—even if you've finished the clockwork city quests, he's gone once you've chatted with him in the garden at the end. idk i just really love the thoughtfulness and lore-accuracy of the design choices eso made here, the way they thought of this view specifically in their design considerations.

The Tribunal, Almalexia, Sotha Sil, and Vivec, in their audience chambers, 2E 582

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The Tribunal, Almalexia, Sotha Sil, and Vivec, in their audience chambers, 2E 582

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Mercy Mystery Mastery

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Zerith-var :3

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Did You Know: The "Bladesongs of Boethra" suggests that Boethiah was responsible for stopping the Marukhati Selective from achieving monothought of The Exclusionary Mandates when they danced upon the Tower during the Middle Dawn, ending their attempt at Sacred Expungement of the "Aldmeri Taint"?

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Critiquing the Construction of Cipher's Midden

AKA "Why Can't Hermaeus Mora, In His Infinite Knowledge, Teach These Poor Nerds Some Basic Joinery Techniques"

Being back in Apocrypha replaying these quests after what, 2 years now? Got me actually looking around and looking at some details in a few houses (for fic purposes, of course) and then once I started doing that, being a woodworking aficionado with some construction experience myself, I couldn't help noticing a few things.

(Disclaimer that this is just for fun and not meant to be ripping on the actual ESO devs who did a great job of creating some really great environments and set pieces)

Unsupported beams: Putting beams across an otherwise open roof situation like this will add rigidity to the structure, but uh. They've gotta actually be attached to the frame. To have it just stuck to the interior panels like that is concerning. Honestly, from this point on, I'm just assuming any circular beams are purely a decorative choice because they just don't make sense otherwise.

Mystery Gaps: This is only the beginning for these particular beams. They will become a recurring theme. it's actually fairly common in modern-day construction to have multiple thinner pieces of wood (like 2x4s for example) stacked together like this to create support beams as this is usually a more cost-effective option than something like 4x4 hardwood and isn't really significantly less strong. but having 1-2 inch gaps between them is ???? not that bad I guess but just why? You're only making more work for yourself.

Missed Connections: If we're assuming these beams are carried over from the outside, then these oddly-spaced, doubled-up beams are likely what's supporting the eaves of the roof. That's not good! Leramil, your study's gonna blow over in a stiff breeze! Always carry your load-bearing beams across the frame!

This is Fine: well, it's not fine, it's probably not helping with insulation in here, but structurally it's not a big deal, just a bit baffling. It looks like their roofs are built in 3 layers; the boards visible behind the broken parts would be laid down first over the frame, and then the shingles on top, and then this broken shiplap (using that literally here lol) is the interior layer. Note how they don't quite meet up where the frame is.

I have no idea what that metal brace is holding up. Or the ropes. I guess the Ciphers are all just really into shibari or something.

Here we can see that someone among the Ciphers has the skills to actually cut proper joinery. From the look of it, that beam is supported by this round log, which has a joint cut into it to keep it in place. Good job!

And here we can see the ends of those doubled-up beams from the interior.

Decorative Protrusions: So, there is a historical precedent for details like this, but typically they would be supporting the floor of an attic. On the opposite side of this, there's just... wall.

After the nightmare that is the interior, I was interested to see how bad the foundation would be, but honestly? It's pretty solid, assuming the beams are lap jointed (cutting blocks off the beam on the outside and cutting a corner off your beams on the inside so they then fit together and sit flush without the need for nails) Evenly spaced 4x4 beams about a foot apart, this would be great if not for the floorboards running parallel to the beams themselves, and then the odd connections of the posts that serve as the foundation not actually sitting on the frame. So close!

So, canonically, I believe that the Ciphers get most of their material salvaged from Fathom's Drift, which makes things like this doorframe actually make a decent amount of sense. These long, curved beams could feasibly have been part of a ship's hull once, and I think that's a pretty cool touch.

Now, onto the walkways:

a suspension bridge without a railing is just a springboard for co-workers you hate. bonus points for the tripping hazard to make extra sure you faceplant on the ground below.

I have no words for this railing. the nice thing about it is, assuming all those rods are dowelled into the boards beneath them, this could actually work out if they properly connected the rail itself. which it doesn't seem like they have, if the mix of nails and rope is anything to go by.

Before I finish this, I just wanna take a quick look at some furniture:

(Yes, I know these are technically the rustic High Isle set, but I'm doing them anyway)

Really the only issue I have with this table and chair set is that the seat of the chair is covered in nails. Don't do that. You've already used dowels on the back, just use them to connect the seat as well. Or if you have to use nails, you can sink them down further and then plug them with something. (I'm sure there's a tamriel equivalent of wood filler, it's basically just sawdust and adhesive) Otherwise these are both pretty solid and well built.

The chair back is a little interesting though. It's pretty common for chairs to be built with tennon joints (basically the vertical pieces have niches carved into them, and the horizontal slats either have the ends tapered, or carved away entirely to sit flush with the other piece) but the visible dowels are a little weird and probably not doing anything structurally. I guess it could be an aesthetic choice.

TL;DR:

Most of this place would absolutely not pass a building inspection. These choices vary from dangerous to just kind of weird, and the Ciphers should probably find a new carpenter.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk <3

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Khajiit commission Character belongs to eldritchgnoll ^^