A Spot Of Cream: A Short Story

A Spot of Cream: a short story

The man stared into his coffee mug, swirling the cloudy liquid absent-mindedly and observing how the thin layer of cream gathered in the center, a melancholy yet fond look on his paling face. The sun was beginning to peak through the kitchen window, as evident by the way the morning light was just shy of touching his hand where it laid idly on the kitchen table

Just under half an hour ago, he had returned home from the store, having left to get the very cream that was currently occupying his attention upon discovering that what little he had left had spoiled overnight.

He listened to the gentle pitter-patter outside, and breathed a content sigh, taking another sip of his morning coffee. He could feel the subtle warmth of the rising sun creeping up on his hand, having never left it's place on the table beside his favourite mug.

The man smiled to himself, - it was a resigned, barely-there quirk of the lips, just in the corners of his mouth, - as he took another sip of his now luke-warm coffee and ignored the steadily growing feeling of numbness stemming from his hand, now completely illuminated by the morning rays.

Pulling his eyes away from the coffee mug, he watched with fascination as the light gleamed like gold flakes in the scarlet that covered his, now limp, pale fingers.

His gaze shifted further up, settling just above his wrist, where the bite had begun to turn the surrounding skin a sickly greyish shade of what had been a lively peach just an hour ago.

The man sighed once more, and took yet another sip of his, now cold, morning coffee.

Soon, he would join the pitter-patter outside, all for a spot of cream in his coffee.

My prompts for this story were:

Virus, Sound, Mug, Result :]

My bug boy - Acherynn - is now registered on Art Fight, so I am now vulnerable to attacks starting July 1st :'D

The link is in my masterpost, for anyone who is interested :]

I have decided to give my good friend Pothead Larry (A plastic halloween candy container that once housed a singular hemp plant which I found had sprouted in the yard) a realistic make-over

Painting away those angry eyesockets is definetly a challenge lmao :']

Making said eyesockets - as well as the nasal cavity - look like they aren't just shallow indents has also been a journey to say the least, and why is the cheekbone so long???? And why are the teeth so small?????? 😭

Definetly turning this into a flower pot once again after this, gotta get me some plant lights though since my window doesn't get enough light TTvTT

Hello friends!

I don't have any art updates to post this time, I just wanted to let you know that you are absolutely wonderful, and that I appreciate every single one of you!! You're amazing, if you're reading this (and if you aren't, let's be real bahahaha), and I hope you're having a wonderful day ^-^ <3

Yours truly, Stickbug 🪲🧡

UPDATE!! He has an official name now!!! :D

I was looking at the wikipedia page for the Goliath stick insect for inspiration, and I scrolled down to the many different scientific names it's been given by different people throughout the years. One word that popped up in three of the names was "Acheron", which is the name of a river in classical mythology. The word itself means both -death- and -hell-

I wasn't completely sold on this word as his name for that reason, since the meanings don't exactly suit his character, but I wanted to include it somehow to tie his name to the actual insect!

So, I decided to combine the word 'Acheron' with my own name, 'Robynn', which gave me 'Acherynn' ^-^

I think this name has a much softer feeling to it, which suits him much better! And as a bonus, it's really easy for me to remember since it was easy to come up with :]

He no longer has to go by strictly 'bug boy' bahahahaha

Alright, that's my rant over lmao

Stickbug (and Acherynn!!) out 🪲

He's finished!

Or well, his base concept bahahaha

And as promised, I'm also including his colour palette! The shadow colours aren't set in stone of course, that 100% depends on the style and lighting one chooses to use - should they want to doodle my bug boy -, but I wanted to include them because - why not? -

Nothing is set in stone tbh, if you wanna up the saturation, darken/lighten some colours, change a hue or two to make him fit your style a little better, you're more than welcome to do so ^-^

I haven't worked out a name for him just yet, but I tend to call him "Stick", "Bug", or "Bug boy", so I guess those are his nicknames so far! ^-^

And just to be clear, there are no set pronouns for this buggy dude! I tend to use he/him because it comes naturally to me, but this character is in fact genderfluid, with a majority of the time spent more on either the agender or masculine side of the spectrum

He basically shares my gender identity (and my eye colour, a fun little detail), which makes sense since he is my persona after all bahahaha

His height, which I now realise I should have included in one of the pictures :'], is 7'8". Yes, this is very tall. Yes, he is based on an absolutely massive insect lmao

Clothes are honestly up to whoever is doodling him, I drew him without them here since I wanted to clearly display his build (and he technically doesn't need to wear any clothes unless he's cold, since there isn't really anything to cover up lmao)

All of that said, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day! 🧡

Yours truly, Stickbug 🪲

(and Stickbug's bug boy)

We've got art!! (Long-ish post ahead, friends)

Poorly photographed art, but art nonetheless bahahaha

I was listening to Epic: The Musical a lot while working on this, and 'Thunder Bringer' definetly influenced the sky a lot during the painting process! I'll include a picture of the sky about half-way through the process after the close-ups, so you can see what I mean :]

I've edited the first image -to the best of my ability- since my phone camera couldn't quite capture it accurately (it looked really de-saturated, and a lot of the detail was lost to the lack of contrast TTvTT), but the close-ups are un-edited since they're more true to life ^-^

I'm really proud of how the water turned out, I've never painted water before so it was a fun process to figure out!! :D

And I don't usually name my art since there usually isn't any meaning behind it, but this painting is directly inspired by The Odyssey through Epic: The Musical, and I've decided to name it "Six hundred men"

Why I've decided to name it this, you'll have to figure out yourself! (although, the name is pretty self-explanatory lmao)

A little hint is in the flowers I've painted, specifically the meaning behind those flowers, and their use in Greek and Roman myths. The colour of the flower isn't essential here, only the type of flower

Here are some pictures of the sky early in the painting process, and half-way through, as promised :]

This is essentially what I picture in my mind when I think of the term 'rolling thunder'

I spent a total of about four workdays on this (in hours, that is)

Paintings with hidden meanings and flower language aside, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day ^-^ 🧡

Yours truly, Stickbug 🪲