"Spoken Echoes Linger Here. Shall I Share Them With You?

"Spoken echoes linger here. Shall I share them with you?

In Marika's own words. Hear me, Demigods. My children beloved. Make of thyselves that which ye desire. Be it a Lord. Be it a God. But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken. Amounting only to sacrifices..."

So I've been getting really deep into Elden Ring again. Almost finished the DLC, but struggling with the area right before the final boss. I promise I'm only a little tiny bit salty about the complete lack of lore regarding Melina's relationship with any of Marika's (other) children.

Oh well.

Art be upon ye.

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

Oh boy new tag :D

Presenting Anna, the fashion school student, and Adam, her mysterious bar-tending maybe-boyfriend. Both come from a short story I wrote back in college, and have been occupying my brainspace ever since

Open tag b/c most of my writeblr pals are either gone or already tagged

OC Picrew!

Thanks for tagging me @oh-no-another-idea (here)!

(picrew maker here)

Behold Jack Tithus (red-haired picrew) and Valen Cassidy (blond picrew), from Supernova Initiative and Scrapyard Boys respectively!

Tagging (gently): @sleepy-night-child, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @smol-feralgremlin, @oh-no-another-idea, @littleladymab,

@winterandwords, @eccaiia, @sarahlizziewrites, @illarian-rambling

@agirlandherquill, @anoelleart, @ray-writes-n-shit

@the-golden-comet, @writernopal, @anyablackwood, @unstablewifiaccess, @forthesanityofstorytellers

@i-can-even-burn-salad, @cakeinthevoid

@lassiesandiego, @thepeculiarbird, @clairelsonao3, @memento-morri-writes, @starlit-hopes-and-dreams and OPEN TAG

Finally replying to all the tags I've missed out on. Thank you for thinking of me :)

I'll also do three WIPs, because I love to talk about the things I'll never fully finish

What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

Whitegarden: Just finishing the damn thing ;-; I have everything planned out, from characters to plot, but the urge to actually sit and write it out continually escapes me.

Sielsi: Wrangling my original work into something less... Juvenile. The original parts I wrote were borderline plagiarized from the Inheritance Cycle, with sprinkles of Vampire Diaries mixed in there. I love the characters I made, but everything else needs a lot of work still.

The Bandit Queen's Bride: Inspiration is the biggest struggle for this one. I wrote the first handful of chapters in a blind haze, and haven't had any inspiration to keep going.

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

Whitegarden: Something dramatic, like the Game of Thrones theme song. Maybe a cool map graphic to show off the map I made of the continent, and symbolism to represent the various characters and factions............... So the Game of Thrones intro.

Sielsi: Something that starts out hopeful and cheery, that slowly darkens over the course of the season(s), until its got a noticeably sinister quality. Perhaps later it brightens again, but never quite returns to the cheerful sound it was before.

The Bandit Queen's Bride: Taylor Swift, but make it bardcore.

What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

This, I have no idea how to answer. I have a really poor understanding of why other fandoms are popular, so I feel zero confidence in guessing what kinds of audiences I would have from other fandoms.

What was the first part of your wip that you created?

Whitegarden: This song. The first time I heard it, I honestly didn't like it that much. Then I kept listening, and inspiration grew from there. Now it's permanently stuck in the top 20 most listened songs for me lol. I wrote up a rough draft of two children, separated in childhood because of a cursed bloodline. That rough draft is a far cry from what I've settled on by now, but it'll always hold a special place in my memories.

Sielsi: I was in middle school when I read Eragon for the first time, and I thought to myself, "I could do that, but with shapeshifters". So I did that, with shapeshifters. Wrote almost 40k words in a word document, just making it up as I went.

The Bandit Queen's Bride: Had the idea for a story and came up with a handful of characters. Spent a solid few hours trying to decide what sort of accent to get the Bandit Queen.

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Whitegarden: Most of the world is populated by animals very similar to what real life has. There are also monsters of various sorts, some more animal-like than others. My favorite is the Enochria, a shadowy beast with multiple arm-like appendages that lives in dark caves in the coldest parts of the continent. They emerge once a year at mid-autumn, then migrate south for the winter/early spring. They climb trees to find mates, then gestate their offspring for variable amounts of time until they find a suitable cave in their northern habitat. Due to magic interference from [Redacted for spoiler reasons], Enochria are moving further and further south, causing many to die from overheating, starvation, or being hunted by frightened humans.

Sielsi: There are natural animals, but nothing relevant to the story. Since half of the main cast are shapeshifters, all the animal shenanigans are their fault. Also I haven't decided if I want standard earth animals, or maybe to add some monsters too.

The Bandit Queen's Bride: There is a very good, very wonderful horse named Tore. A huge bay roan stallion who is extremely loyal to Jin, the Bandit Queen. He originally belonged to Jin's mother, and was passed to her when her mother left the gang. The rest of the bandits have their own horses, but so far, Tore is the only one with any fleshing out.

What part of your wip are you working on rn?

Whitegarden: I flip flop between making more character art and thinking of new monsters to add to the world.

Sielsi: Still struggling with how to lay out the story in a new way ;-;

The Bandit Queen's Bride: Trying to figure out all the secondary/tertiary characters

How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

The answer is the same for all three. Walking or riding horses is the most common way of travel. Those who can afford it will take carriages or ships. For Sielsi, the shapeshifters can turn into birds and fly.

What are your hopes for your wip?

I just wanna finish one of them. Please I am desperate to finish something. Anything.

WIP Questions Tag

I wasn't actually tagged by anyone, but @owlsandwich opened it up to everybody so I'm giving this a try! Open tag, but also no pressure tags to @somethingclevermahogony , @queen-of-the-weenies and @sarandipitywrites !

We're gonna do my main current WIP, God-Touched, and also a couple I've tabled for a bit due to stress, which are called Gods of Steel, and Nico after the name of the MC, respectively. I copy pasted the questions and I may have missed one or two.

What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

God-Touched: This is more of an overall writing struggle for me, but underwriting/being too concise. I tend to make unnecessary time skips when outlining and not add enough descriptive passages.

Gods of Steel: The world building. I usually enjoy complex world building, but I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this project. I'm taking it slow and building one aspect of it at a time as I'm motivated to do the necessary research, so fingers crossed that works out.

Nico: This one's kinda stupid, but keeping myself from imagining my protagonist as Nico di Angelo. She's completely different in appearance, mannerisms, etc, but I'm a rabid PJO fan and that was my first association with the name.

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

God-Touched: Definitely something by Imagine Dragons, probably Natural.

Gods of Steel: Probably some kind of epic orchestral thing, I haven't found a specific track yet.

Nico: Song Of Women by the HU and Lzzy Hale. Going purely off of sound and vibes.

What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

God-Touched: Supernatural, Firefly, the King Arthur reincarnated as a space lesbian book (Once and Future) and the book Spellhacker by MK England.

Gods of Steel: This is gonna sound really presumptuous, but I'm trying to make it similar to Dune and the Na'vi Avatar movies.

Nico: Honestly, Tamora Pierce, even though my story is more sci-fi than fantasy. Also slightly the Divergent movie (haven't read the book in years), in that the MC slowly realizes just how much of a dystopia she's actually living in, even though she started out compliant.

What was the first part of your wip that you created?

God-Touched: The general concept of Christian mythology put into a queer science fantasy context.

Gods of Steel: The setting, (humanity's original non-Earth home), and some of its history.

Nico: The idea for the relationship arc between the two main characters. It was the first time I'd ever wanted to write romance, and it was an interesting challenge to come up with how that would play out.

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

God-Touched: This is a major spoiler, but the main gang ends up adopting an iridescent rainbow baby space dragon. She looks majestic, but is actually a huge derpy goof. She's heavily based on Banana, my little sister's big ginger cat who is not exactly the sharpest crayon in the box

Gods of Steel: The main villains on this story are cyborgs, but some are cyborg animals rather than people. They started out as normal robots, but then got this virus that made them grow flesh, skin and other organic parts, but many of the animal-like ones still have working blades or guns as part of their bodies that they use when hunting humans for food.

Nico: The fauna of the setting for this one is very ice age influenced, the main character has a war mammoth that she's raised from a calf to be her mount and companion.

What part of your wip are you working on rn?

God-Touched: First draft of the first two books, if all goes well it's gonna be a five book series.

Gods of Steel: World Building.

Nico: In my first stage of outlining.

How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

God-Touched: spaceships and hover bikes

Gods of Steel: spaceships, then on foot after all their tech gets infected by the cyborgs.

Nico: Mammoth-back riding.

What are your hopes for your wip?

This is the same for all of them so I'll just do one answer: A devoted fandom that uses my books as inspiration to create their own awesome content. Fanart, fanfic, animatics, those character analysis YouTube videos, anything like that.

Stumbled across @mellon-soup recently and something about their style just

It speaks to me

Anyways have some silly sketches of even more OCs I'll probably never write a full story for

Don't judge me for the weird sock feet on that one couch guy. I can't draw toes ok

Ooh, I love tag games

This one is for Whitegarden, my eternal obsession

addiction | beauty | betrayal | change vs. tradition | chaos vs. order | circle of life | coming of age | communication | convention vs. rebellion | corruption | courage | crime and law | dangers of ignorance | darkness and light | death | desire to escape | dreams | displacement | empowerment | facing darkness | facing reality |faith vs. doubt | fall from grace | fame and fortune | family | fate | fear | fear of failure | free will | friendship | fulfillment | good vs. bad | government | greed | guilt and forgiveness | hard work | heroism | hierarchy | honesty | hope | identity crisis | immortality | independence | individual vs. society | inner vs. outer strength | innocence | injustice | isolation | knowledge vs. ignorance | life | loneliness | lost love | love | man vs. nature | manipulation | materialism | motherhood | nature | nature vs. nurture | oppression | optimism | peer pressure | poverty | power | power of words | prejudice | pride | progress | quest | racism | rebirth | relationships | religion | responsibility | revenge | sacrifice | secrets | self-awareness | self-preservation | self-reliance | sexuality | social class structure | survival | technology | temptation and destruction | time | totalitarianism | weakness | vanity | war | wealth | wisdom of experience | youth

Genuinely unsure who to tag for this so I'll leave it open to anyone who sees this :)

WIP themes tag!

Thanks @mysticstarlightduck and @buffythevampirelover (buffy I'm so sorry it's been a while since you've tagged me)

Rules: bold themes from one of your WIPs and italicize lighter themes

This is for The Secret Portal

addiction | beauty | betrayal | change vs. tradition | chaos vs. order | circle of life | coming of age | communication | convention vs. rebellion | corruption | courage | crime and law | dangers of ignorance | darkness and light | death | desire to escape | dreams | displacement | empowerment | facing darkness | facing reality |faith vs. doubt | fall from grace | fame and fortune | family | fate | fear | fear of failure | free will | friendship | fulfillment | good vs. bad | government | greed | guilt and forgiveness | hard work | heroism | hierarchy | honesty | hope | identity crisis | immortality | independence | individual vs. society | inner vs. outer strength | innocence | injustice | isolation | knowledge vs. ignorance | life | loneliness | lost love | love | man vs. nature | manipulation | materialism | motherhood | nature | nature vs. nurture | oppression | optimism | peer pressure | poverty | power | power of words | prejudice | pride | progress | quest | racism | rebirth | relationships | religion | responsibility | revenge | sacrifice | secrets | self-awareness | self-preservation | self-reliance | sexuality | social class structure | survival | technology | temptation and destruction | time | totalitarianism | weakness | vanity | war | wealth | wisdom of experience | youth

Thought colors would help

Tagging @gracehosborn @theeccentricraven @theelfauthor @thepeculiarbird @unrepentantcheeseaddict @blind-the-winds @andyswritings @little-mouse-gardens @little-peril-stories @dyrewrites or anyone who sees this!