Wow, that gif does not work!

It's flapping its wings, though.

This is the working protagonist, which I've only ever referred to as "THE BEETLE, THE BEETLE" to the tune of Protomartyr 's "Why Does It Shake?"

I'm making the pixel art for @bloodorangestudios.bsky.social 's hover hell game (working title)! It's gonna have bugs and magic.

I'm going for Super Metroid-style pixel art and some Hollow Knight cutesy-ness. I'm not great at pixel art, so we'll see how it goes.

#pixelart #art #gamedev #indiedev

The Imperial Revenue Service agent attempts to collect.

#worldbuilding #dnd #ttrpg #oc #ocsky #art #comic

Reposting in honor of tax day.

Panel 2: "Another mortal. Come to test your blade? Steal my hoard?" Panel 3: "Greetings! You have failed to respond to your Taxpayer Collection Notices. The August Empire has filed a lien with your local municipality. Please pay your tax debt or file a petition for a hearing. Please comply..." Panel 4: "Or the collections process will begin."

The completed first (final?) comic on collecting taxes from dragons.

#worldbuilding #dnd #oc #ocsky #art #comics

In Aulterr, mourning is a bittersweet celebration of food, stories, and singing, partly because (A) there is a confirmed, just afterlife; and (B) the "Night Parade," although its schedule is unknown, may pass through any location, giving the living an opportunity to reunite with their loved ones.

An unfinished map of Aird, a continent in the setting of Aulterr.

Do you ever have to do something very repetitive, but by the time you're about finished you've realized you've improved?

I started doing the mountains from the bottom to the top, and now I know I can do the southern and central mountains better. So I'm probably gonna start over.

#mapmaking #art

The fun thing is they only expect about $6-10K if you have health insurance.

If not, I've gotten hundreds of thousands off medical bills by just talking to the hospital's billing department, explaining it's getting paid out of pocket, then setting up a payment plan of like $100 per month.

I love these!

There's something about big heads on bugs that just works.

Definitely the freshest and most horizon broadening black metal I've heard in a long time!

Particularly the tracks Bodhidharma, My Garden, and Flea.

Chat Pile has been coming out with some singles recently that are a great return to form! Very heavy sludge metal, great griminess and intensity.

I also saw Agriculture perform their latest black metal album, "The Spiritual Sound" a couple months back. Fantastic performance, would highly recommend.

An elder Keviri, or "faun," forge cleric, Yezda, Speaker of Krait, God of the Canyon. The text reads: "Faun The Keviri, also known as "faun" in the August tongue, are former high elves corrupted by the canyon god, Krait. Their affinity for earth is unmatched, and their forge clerics can fire ceramics capable of stopping bullets. Their city in the Blue Canyons is lit by eternal flames fed by natural gas lines."

The faun are former high elves "blessed" by their canyon god, Krait; however, they are cursed to slowly turn to stone.

Their most dedicated forge clerics build kilns into their own bodies so that they can deepen the magic in the items the create.

#worldbuilding #dnd #ttrpg #oc #ocsky #art

Thank you, and yours looks great!

And I have considered map-making programs, but my logic for doing it by hand is that (1) I have more control, (2) I won't have to use a mouse, (3) I'm miserly, and (4) my current workflow is drawing in bed or on the couch watching Gilmore Girls, not at my desk.

Thank you, and very nice!

Thank you! And it's a shame I like the look of it so much, because I just can't justify the time I'd need to spend on finishing it.

I was discussing an old project with a friend and looking through my folders, and I actually found the better maps!

Very much changed to style I'm going for because this represents probably around 24+ hours of mouse-and-keyboard in GIMP, and it ain't worth it.

#worldbuilding #mapmaking #art

I'm happy to do it in small doses, like in this fella from last June-ish, but covering that whole damned bird was killing my hand and my will to draw.

I had the concept for rocs since at least October, but detailing the feathers burnt me out, and I never loved the design to begin with.

Then I saw a crab claw with a googly eye on it in a novelty shop, and I burned through the reposted image in like 3-4 hours. Crazy how inspiration works.

Thank you! I changed it to the trout in January, and it was supposed to blend in to the app theme, but then I realized I prefer dark mode to light mode. So I changed it the other day.

Ravens were one of my references! The other two were Jōmon pottery and a crab claw with a googly eye on it.

What is a roc?

Rocs are monstrous, bird-like creatures with wingspans nearing 20m wide. The first rocs were made from ceramics, magic, and bird corpses. Now, they are seen as a blight, carrying away full-grown cattle and the occasional traveler.

#worldbuilding #dnd #ttrpg #art #oc #ocsky

Agreed! Which is why it was the setting for the first arc in my home DnD game I started like 4 years ago.

Ruins, you say?

Following a great calamity nearly 400 years ago, most high elves were remade into Shades: magic-devouring undead. Within the Sepulchral Vale, their ancient capital of Madzinaj and its great tombs lie among swarms the undead.

#worldbuilding #dnd #ttrpg #oc #ocsky #art

A gap in the Mons Saxum where the Athal Kilsani breed and ride rocs: giant, artificial birds. The Athal Kilsani are "Shaezin," high elves. The one depicted to the right wears a scarf around their mouth, goggles, and a headpiece resembling an Aztec headdress, a mix of traditional and utilitarian wear for a roc-rider.

This is part of why I recommend mapping out your setting: you can see all the places where there's nothing and then flesh it out.

Previously? A gap in the mountains. Now? The Athal Kilsani, high elvish roc-riders beside the ruins of their ancient empire.

#worldbuilding #dnd #ttrpg #oc #ocsky #art

What's even sadder is that I had a full mercator-projection with the updated continents and a half-finished height map of Aird on my old laptop, but somewhere after three years of disuse and a move, it has gone missing.

So I'm starting from scratch.

The seven continents of Aulterr: Aird, Ghahar, Orr, Noster, Halkiurra, Dzsungel, and Vatan (as well as Adal, which has since been demoted to an island).

I wanted to start redrawing my old maps, but I actually can't seem to find them all in my mountain of papers.

So, here are the continents of Aulterr: they are barely recognizable now, but I'll be posting their updated, pretty forms in the coming months.

#worldbuilding #mapmaking #dnd #ttrpg

Oh it is absolutely all me. I don't believe I've ever had anyone say anything negative about the art I've done. That's my privilege!

Following my comment the other day about drawing faces, I was bored during a lecture on LLC governance, so here's my margin tiny-face doodles as I tried different things.

Turns out I just like drawing tired old men.

Tag yourself, I'm no. 6.

#oc #ocsky #art

A question for any artists who might see this: how did you decide the style in which you faces?

I'm still figuring out my style, and I feel like the style I do have doesn't lend itself to faces, so I have to find a face-style. That's part of the reason why every character I draw is masked/inhuman.

Emperor Calux of Augustus of the August Empire, the largest imperialist power of the world of Aulterr. By the time of his abdication, he had ruled for nearly 500 years.

I'm a few days late, but happy Ides of March!

The date reminded me that one of the foundational concepts of Aulterr was: "What if Caesar just beat the Roman Senate in the 1 v 300?"

So, here is the Lvl 20 paladin, Emperor Calux Augustus of the August Empire.

#worldbuilding #dnd #oc #ocsky #art