It's tough to find a balance between giving them dark faces and maintaining expression visibility... they don't have the handy eyebrows and eye whites that humans have. I could use white lines on the face instead of black, put i feel like it makes them look... shiny? Oh well, it'll get plenty of deliberation as i complete pages.
2018-11-13 07:14:37 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm a bit late to advertise this here, but the second edition of Almost Real: A Speculative Biology Zine has launched on Kickstarter! The last edition had no theme but this one is all about FLIGHT, showcasing everything that flaps, floats, and glides through the atmosphere. We're already almost to 50% funded, I hope you'll help us get off the ground!
Check it out at this link: 2018-11-12 20:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
I was thinking about gnome livestock, and I think I'm definitely giving them two invertebrates: the first is snails, bred for meat, eggs, and shells (useful for cements and building). The second are a kind of large beetle, which I decided after drawing this are going to be descended from cockchafers, because they have a horrible name and sweet baby angel faces.
Flops down on the floor and coughs up bits of kelp blades..... it is complete...
2018-11-12 04:00:18 +0000 UTC View Post
FINISHED PAGE ONE! WE DOIN' THIS!
I'll probably eventually post the first 5-ish pages on tumblr as promo for the finished product (so this won't be Patreon exclusive forever) but that's at least a month off.
2018-11-11 06:46:44 +0000 UTC View Post
Things aren't perfect, but they're better than they were before.
And..... that's it! It's 10 pages below my estimate but like, the story's finished, so no point in making more. I'll actually be trying to keep it this length through the editing process, because multiples of four are very convenient for booklet printing.
Too little, too late.
These pages are a little text heavy. I can't wait to put them on the editing chopping block.
Nobody hurts Breet! Not on Piawii's watch!
Another lifter in their position probably would have released the lead on Breet and let the seastrike take the bird. It's bad to have to sacrifice part of the sled's "engine," but it's even worse to have a dead bird and confused predator with a lot of downward momentum tied to the craft. Thankfully, uh, biting the large wild carnivore also...
This critter shows up in Airsled! It's the closest thing that avians have to a natural predator, similar to how big cats were probably one of the biggest predatory threats to early hominids. Post industrialization, they're pretty rare near avian-settled islands. Avians quickly drive them off or kill them when they're spotted near civilization, to protect themselves and their livestock.
Oh boy! Something went wrong!
I love that all the animals on these pages are in the same family. It's like if humans were driving a cart pulled by spider monkeys and all of a sudden a man-eating gorilla leaps out of the bushes.
2018-10-26 18:48:11 +0000 UTC View Post
I was thinking about the wyrms of gnomeworld (I've only drawn doodles of them so far), who are like big river otters with tiny skink limbs. They fill a sort of, sea serpent/river monster role, and though they are fairly social they aren't sapient like gnomes and dragons. They don't make a habit of hu...
2018-10-24 20:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Running a little late on this one because I had a couple of bad days in a row :')
They finally got it in the air! I got to the halfway point in this story! YEEEAA! I'm sure the sled will encounter absolutely no problems on the way over! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
What Vrazii has planned better be good, I don't think being nicer is gonna fix this issue.
One of the biggest challenges of drawing comics about a non-humanoid culture is trying to avoid turning the pages into visual gibberish. These panels are definitely going to take more refinement later to make it clear what's happening (like, i need to zoom out in that panel where Vrazii is using the nose w...
2018-10-17 19:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Finally some avian livestock that isn't in, like, the same taxonomic family as them. Like all "tetrapods" on this planet, they have no tail vertebrae and their namesake fat tail is literally all fat. It's more like a camel hump than an Earth critter's butt limb.
Also clam dress, the dress based on the anatomy of a clam.
It's the big day. Time to sled some airs.
I finally have a word for what Vrazii is, a quartermaster! Carpenter would be accurate as well but doesn't convey the level of authority they have.
PS: Breet preening Piawii's cheeks is the finest work of art I've ever created.
The goods I know you came here for: birds arguing about ethics.
Also something good finally happens to Piawii! Thank god, about time. As much fun as it is to draw Vrazii's goose tongue sticking out when they holler, I'd rather draw Piawaii's happy scamper.
I've been trying to do a lot more digital painting recently, because I feel I rely too much on lines and flat colors. Here's Flickering Flame my candlemaker pony OC and a..... naked winged person. Shrug! These were shaded in monotone with the background, and then different hues were added on top using an ...
2018-10-08 03:12:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Paiwii can't catch a break :(
A lot of this dialog is a bit.... word soup, and it's because the majority of it is written on the fly (haw haw). Rough pages are when I'm emptying my brain onto a page, stuff gets reorganized later. Case in point: I drew Piawii's head too big in one of the panels where they're preparing the tea, so the interesting bit is off-screen. The objects they're holding...
I'm starting to do rough pages for a 50-ish-page b&w short story about pre-industrial avian society! This is practice time for working on longer comics for publication. I'll be posting updates with rough pages here hopefully once a week until the roughs are done and I can start working on final pages.
2018-10-01 18:23:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Some of the first pictures of gnomes I drew for my new project. I was unsure how much mustache and head hair I wanted to give them... the gnome hats are staying though, they're basically a little folded dinner napkin for your head.
2018-09-27 06:20:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Heeey guys! I'm back and I've been working on my entry for the next volume of Almost Real: A Speculative Biology Zine. The theme for this issue is flight, so of course I... uh... flung a wad of algae out to the edge of space. Since the subject matter is very structurally simple, I decided to use this illustration as an opportunity to work on my digital painting skills.
The basic premise...
2018-09-27 05:41:48 +0000 UTC View PostI'm so sorry I've been silent so far this month, it's been in part do to the intensive online classes I'm in right now (the last two before I graduate) and in part because I need to seriously reconsider my goals in making this Patreon in the first place. The profile description is at this point a bit hilariously outdated, as I have not have the energy, inspiration, or time to work on Cele Trei...
2018-08-06 17:36:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Air sleds were used historically on the avian homeworld as a faster alternative to ships. Since the land all of the flighted avian species lived on was typically scattered islands (many not bigger than the Hawaiian islands), over-land transport remained undeveloped for centuries since the ocean posed a bigger hurdle.
An air sled at its smallest unit is basically an airplane wing full of car...
Sea geese are occasionally bred for meat, but they usually fill a more horse-y kind of livestock role. They're passable at pulling carts on land, good at pulling boats through calm waters, and excellent at pulling air sleds. Air sleds are basically an airplane wing full of goods that is pulled through the air by either sapients, livestock, or teams of both. It's much faster than shipping goods by ...
2018-07-18 22:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Thinking of some alien livestock, finally. Most avians turn to the sea for meat (since their planet is 90% sea) but on the biggest island flightless avians keep terrestrial livestock. These hooved turkeys are bred for meat, eggs, and feathers.
The eggs are more akin to roe than chicken eggs. Given how this clade reproduces seahorse style, you also have to uh.... "milk" them for it :|
Continuation of these two comics:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/bonus-comic-bips-17943242
https://www.patreon.com/posts/bonus-comic-bips-18537753
Sorry for the lateness! Things have been wild this...
Was figuring out some general stuff about avian anatomy. Their beak is more like a pair of boar tusks/rodent incisors than a earth bird beak, each half having a root in the skull they continually grow from.
2018-06-20 21:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Bug Ferret anatomy!! They're like a big worm pretending to be a vertebrate! I'll write in more detail when I eventually polish this up into a post, but some cool pointers:
- The calciferous gland converts excess CO2 in the blood into calcium carbonate, which can be excreted as solid waste. This helps bug ferrets cope with low oxygen environments underground.
-The nerve cord in ferrets IS ...
2018-06-13 21:00:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Trying to figure out the skeleton for centaurs. They essentially have a fore-pelvis. Also, unlike humans, their nerve column runs below their spinal column.
2018-06-06 21:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
I am here to share the suffering this revelation has caused me.
2018-06-04 23:59:59 +0000 UTC View Post