Latest Posts by quantumqstar - Page 5

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” tyuran said: I want to know everything! But I guess that’s… not… possible. No but seriously my familiarity with your headworlds is really low so a general overview would be nice (if that is even a thing that is possible and you don’t mind giving one)?”

Let’s see… I really only have about 3 stories (is that only or “only”?); also had some neat collaborations in the past that fell apart unfortunately.

My elfy story is called The Last Paladin (original I know, but it stuck). I started writing about it when I was 14ish and was obsessed with Zelda and Elfquest- I can’t really abide elves in most fantasy, they aren’t badass enough for my taste. Also all-beautiful all-immortal races are very annoying to me :( So I made the kind of elves I wanted to read about and draw- especially draw because POINTY EARS.

Errikan (chosen one, champion, world saviour, whathaveyou) is the title character. His sidekicks are Astral (bookworm, moral compass- the Hermione) and Naroth (cliche silent dark and brooding type); and his girlfriend is Lillia (a psychic priestess who sometimes comes along for ADVENTURE). They run around fighting evil, typical swashbuckling fantasy heroics.

I’d like to do some novels with illustrations (I had written quite a bit when I was younger but I scrapped it all cos it was terrible), and maybe an artbook as well. I was also really obsessed with Dinotopia when I was a kid so I’d love to do something similar. HOWEVER I’m not in a hurry to finish anything with this at all, it’s really a sandbox/playground to dump my art mojo.

My second story is about a seaplane pilot named Shae, the format of the titles were all going to be Shae Maxmason vs. _____ (The Bloodsucking Librarian, The Toxic Militia, The Human Neutron Bomb,10,000 Ninjas! Etc). She’s a courier on a mostly ocean planet with no continents so it’s plagued by super ultra hurricanes (Hyperstorms), but is otherwise kinda a beachy paradise colony planet. This is a pulpy junk-drawer manga-inspired story where I can just throw in lots of awesome things (ninjas, pirates, occult cults, worldwide government conspiracies, etc) and make it all fit because science fiction. And an excuse to have lots of people with ridiculous superpowers fighting all the damn time.

Shae has a secret (what? I can’t tell you, its a secret) (ok fine its a map on her body) that has tons of “special interest groups” fighting over her. She was sent a bodyguard from a shadowy organization called the Guild of Historians. That’s Felix (aka. Bloodsucking Librarian lol). He’s totally a vampire. Shae doesn’t know what the Guild’s plans for her are either, but she is forced to trust Flex because he keeps saving her life, how annoying.

I don’t know what to do with this story at all. In my head it HAS to be a tv show with a two season plot arc (I have it planned out and everything!) but… yeah…

Last story is my newest baby, I call it Amor Ex Machina (I will never not be gleeful over this title XD hee!). It’s… yeah… a girl/robot steampunk fairytale love story, leave me alone :p Edie is a mechanic in the royal military of a tiny kingdom who’s primary export is Giant Robots (of death). She finds discarded curious robot replica of a long-ago famous popstar (Casper) during one of her scavenging trips, she repairs him and he gives her music lessons X3 I’m working the hardest on this one right now because it’s not epicly long and I’d like to publish a book in the next few years hopefully :( I don’t have the best record on these things but I at least have a good plan for this one.

I have a couple of other ideas bouncing around but they are just random characters with vague, vague, nebulous world ideas surrounding them, no plot really. I may do more with them, I may not. Three stories is enough to keep me distracted and unfocused, don't you think?

Worldbuilding Wednesday

I really missed doing this! I hope y'all are still interested cos I'd love to talk story! Worldbuilding is my most favorite thing k. If you want questions answered, nonquestions, advice, whatevs. Discuss!

moroccan table, a set on Flickr.

Painted this last summer for a dear friend. Only just now took the photos off my camera ffff.

tv imitates life imitates art imitates life imitates tv imitates well ok we might argue about it being art but I for one am OMFG LOVE THIS LOL

Plus I thought of Cybruce Willis from Power Nap XD

I swear I didn't know this existed until I decided to googlehunt tablet pcs with wacom digitizers, and it's as glorious as it sounds. It's not without drawbacks (windows7 has very decent tablet pc tools, but I'm having a hell of a time trying to get pressure sensitivity AND multitouch working at the same time) but I'm just so happy to have a computer again asshdjkashdjahsd I CAN COLOR AGAIN

Heraldry was pretty design-trendy a while back, but like most trends/fads it was pretty shallow. Pretty! And shallow. But the worldbuilding nerd in me wanted to make some designs that actually had some research behind them so I could use them for story. Blazon, the hardest part (hard=interesting I'm so predictable bleh), is the most interesting to me since the designs have to be reproduceable reliably through their written descriptions.

Have several of these, using them to learn inkscape. This one is for the United Houses of Applied Thaumantic Radiology (ahem). Described as:

A kite, gyronny of twelve, murrey and tenne with an orle argent; overall a five-toothed cogwheel Or, on a rondel azure.

Painterly 3D, my truest of true loves ♥

Why are you not working in an art related capacity?!?!?!

I think I got this note a million years ago, but I'm gonna answer it NOW~

multiple reasons-

a- I may be slightly awesome at art but I am a hot mess in every other possible way

b- ways that affect my ability to properly network and manipulate the necessary channels to get real, regular work as an artist

c- this isn't true much but has been occassionally in the past and is currently true: I have a job where I make more money than I would drawing. And I like money. A lot. Money is awesome.

fyi:

my computer died and I can't afford a new one 8| I have a backup email-checking netbook that works... intermittently but it is too puny to do arts with

my site changed hosts and there were some... technical difficulties so I don't know when questionstar.org will be online again sighsighsigh

happy halloween suckas!

I thought it might be helpful to post pic of character also because I feel bad for not having new art since I mentioned as an example. I have been tweaking her design a lot since I drew this but it is essentially the same.

I think there's a lot of mixed opinion about what qualities make a good protagonist, they have to be relatable but not looking for a full self-insert (though I GUESS that's fine depending on the story), and relatable characters can be pretty subjective too unless you have a really narrow audience? Edie is meant to be, well, ordinary, which is relative, but I think in a fantastical setting it's important to have the protagonist be mostly human, and that doesn't have to be literal, btw, but it's gotta be deliberate "humanizing" characteristics given to someone the less you can take it for granted that they are relatable (like say your protagonist is an alien blob or a serial killer).

blurb:

Edith St. Eisenmädchen's father was a widower from Austria, he was a very talented mechanimancer but fell into extreme debt due to plot contrivance, and then he DIED. Edie lives with her stepmother Hortencia Casamaestro and both of them work two jobs to pay off that asshole's debts fffff

She works for the Royal Axiomatic Mechanimancer corps (RAMcorps) as a low level engineering technician/grunt. She is somewhat odd there being a woman and all, but its not unheard of, it would be like finding a female mechanic in an autobody shop... well, TODAY. Her second job is helping out part-time at Bridgemason Bro's Repair & Resale which is owned by a family friend. In her free time she likes to make and sell musical instruments that play themselves, and stomp around in the city underground (sorta identical to seattle underground) scavenging for parts and scrapped equipment.

Awww shit as a random aside I looked at the wikipedia entry for Dexter and got season 5 spoilers DAMMIT WHY DID I LOOK.

When creating/designing anything- fantasy races, settings, clothes- do you prefer to try isolate them from this world and let your imagination flow by itself or do you like to do things like deliberately draw from history, base cultures off other cultures, places off other places, etc?

I would say a mixture of both but I think it's SO important to make the distinction that creativity doesnt happen in a vaccuum ever, springing forth purely from mysterious dark recessess of your mind, everything you think of has a previous frame of reference. I feel as an artist (and ahem as a human being) the goal is to learn and study as much as possible, collect as many experiences as possible, stuff that into your mental reference library and a creative inspiration will do the rest. Even ideas that pop into my conscious are never fully formed, so it is often at that point I work on it more systematically. What are my goals for the idea, what interests me about it, how can I make the idea more effective.

I think maybe an example could illustrate this best? I've been working on a sort of fairytale thing, it's based on a dream I had that had a couple of characters (a singing robot guy, and two witch princesses) but not much else to go on if it would be made into a story, which I totally felt needed to happen as soon as I woke up! So I started with the character, and the starting "facts" of them. And then I had to decide the type of story I wanted, and the tone (fairytale! cute and romantic... possibly... a love story). Then the ideas for setting and genre were important (if one of the characters is a robot, and there are also shenanigans involved that are suspiciously magical, well then let's go with steampunk. Ottoman Empire steampunk). New characters are developed to serve the needs of plot (a protagonist/other half of love equation was needed, so I created Edie and made her a mechanic), and once those things are figured out I start doing lots more research to fill in all worldbuilding details (this is not important to the story at all.. maybe... lol sometimes I am so torn about what is plot relevant or not- but I made up a country for the alternate history timeline and the reasons for its existence, its political system, economy, and culture) so that in the end, everything involved in this imaginary story and world and people is actually coherent. That helps the emotional aim of the work to feel more true, even in fantastical settings and situations. Sometimes the setting is closer to "reality" ( near or distant future perhaps, historical fantasy, urban fantasy, parallel universe), sometimes not as close (making a world from scratch, decidedly NOT in our universe, totally different laws of physics apply- or don't apply- its misleading to think that this type is simpler and requires less research; but that's a whole looooooong extra thing to talk about imo).  Either way, things have to make their own type of sense or the story won't be as engaging. If art is self-expression and you are communicating, it's about being a good communicator, making a connection.

BLA BLA PREACH PREACH. Point being is that this is a both/and thing, but also niether. Creativity is problem solving. When its in the form of art instead of say, engineering or even design, people make out the process to be more mysterious and abstract but my personal view on this is that it's not really different, its just that the problems art (and philosophy, etc) try to address are more emotional and existential.

I don't know if I'm making any sense :( But that's how I feel about it and I articulate it as best I can man this ended up long and rambly

vigilante chic - street ninja by quantumQstar DERP well, since I am entirely out of artfuel for a while now (and I feel like I have been running on fumes all year anyway afkjadfksdf no joke! whenever I try my mind goes how can you draw at a time like this and I can't ignore it anymore, seriously, I'm trying seriously so hard not to turn this tumblr into bitching and flailing about artblock but it is so hard you guys, so hard.), posting to an art blog is uh... tricky?

I was one of those people who had heard of polyvore but had no idea what it actually was and so when I found out I was just HOLY SHIT ITS LIKE THIS SITE WAS MADE FOR ME. So I went nuts and made a bunch of outfits cos that's what I do. Godammit I love clothes.

And of course I wanted to post to be like oh hey, worldbuilding wednesday, I really like it so I would uh, encourage some asks, yes.

I love worldbuilding wednesday <3 First of all I LOVE your fauns- I hadn't seen any until you posted that picture of Megla. She makes me happy. Anyway, to the question. How do you go through developing overall? I know some people start with one race and then work outwards, while some start with like landscape then go down to nations and races and fine details. Also, what's your favorite part about worldbuilding?

For me worldbuilding has always been an extension of creating characters. The design usually comes with all you need to know about where they come from, so for me its always an exercise in extrapolating. Species and biology of character- are they fantastical in a magical/fantasy kind of way? A monstery/occult way or alien way, etc? Are they a robot (or a person turned into a robot which makes things extra interesting cos I love a good existential crisis)? Climate and technology level of society as indicated by clothing and/or accessories...

My favorite bits to work on are probably magic systems and politics, I don't even try but I suppose I am obsessed with politics at a level that it sneaks in to every story I have even when I don't intend for it to, so uh, I go with it XD

IF YOU WERE CURIOUS ABOUT HOW EPICLY EPIC the epic-sized poster looks irl, here you go! I gotta admit it is even more awesome in quality than I expected, the paper is nice and thick and glossy and the colors are pretty much exactly right which is usually an issue since I paint with *~rainbow~*

ps its worldbuilding wednesday ask me stuff :D

Been stumbling through months and months of frustrating art constipation where my drawing attention span is just not even there, and my ability to simply draw anyway has been faltering? Normally I don't sweat this and if drawing is too hard I just take a break from it but that hasn't been an option this year (I am SO poor you guys)

Doodling a fun thing yesterday I thought would get me more motivated and excited about drawing but even then I just constantly felt like stopping! Today I am workin on another commission and its a bit of the same story. BLARRHHHHhh

Anywaaaaay. This is Megla she is a unicorn faun and I want to make a costume for my best friend, pretty much every time I design a random character Im like DUDE THIS NEEDS TO BE A COSTUME I'm totally gonna do it ok it's gonna have glowing sparkly hair and tail (leds and fiber optic threads) and digigrade legs (I found some tutorials!) and its gonna be so awesome XD I notice when I have artblock its not so much creative block so much as I wanna do something else I wanna make stuff :E But crafts have waaay more overhead when I make money I have to buy food instead of art supplies

Portrait commission, tried to move out of my comfort zone a little and do more dramatic light/shadow.

jakface:

Zazzle Quality!, a set on Flickr.

Hey guys! This is the amazing print quality of a print off of Zazzle. They do an amazing job and are SUPER fast. This is a print of my friend Aysha’s THE PALADIN, which I am so happy I bought! So I can totally vouch for the quality! YAY!

SWEET arrrghhghgh I can't wait until I can have one of these for myself lol oh Errikan <3

Prints of my masterpiece totally still for sale guys *plug plug plug* 8x16" 15x30" and 26x52"!

How did you come up with the design for you're merpeople? They're freaking epic.

They started out as pretty typical fishy merpeople, sort of like zora but with the usual fishtail lower half. But later I decided I'd rather they have legs and tail so that they could share a common ancestor with my trolls but also cos I do think it makes SLIGHTLY more anatomical sense. and then I made them more mammillian with dolphin and manatee type fins because thats more interesting to me too! And anglerfish foreheads because that's just more fun to draw. So its really almost always about what I enjoy drawing more... heh!

I didn't realize you were doing worldbuilding Wednesday every week! xD So last week I was the one talking about having a crapload of races in one world. I know there are way too many races for me to focus on anything- there are at least 20. I just love making new ones! So I tried splitting them up but I'm finding it extremely difficult because in my mind they're all connected somehow and it's impossible for me to sever the links. Do you have any advice?

gosh I don't really know other than what I mentioned. You have a few options imo:

1- relocate them to other worlds (not working for you though)

2- combine similar races into one race for each ecological/cultural niche

3- rank/prioritize, even if they all share a world some races will be more dominant than others, figure out which are more populous, which control more land, which are isolated (more likely to have smaller numbers), which are more warlike and industrious etc etc. Then use that info to figure out how that will influence your stories. Giants are a bit of an isolated minority race in my world (they are basically yeti and can only live where it's cold) but they founded the dominant religion and have a broad cultural influence and mystique about them.

4- embrace them! you have too many races, you are simply doomed to write lots and lots and lots of stories :) You'll still have to pick some favorites to start with though, stop telling your children you love them all equally they know it is untrue

I have the WORST art block right now... sigh. But I finally made it to a Dr. Sketchy's to see what the fuss is all about. It was alright though I'd love the chance to go to one with better costumes LOL

PS- worldbuilding wednesday isn't over yet!

Worldbuilding = the best topic in the history of mankind. I'm kind of obsessed with making races and cultures and such. My question for you is do you think there's a limit on how many different races/cultures you can have in one world without making it busy? Whenever I make a new race I tend to shove it into the same world with all the rest. Those two small-ish continents and random islands seem rather... packed. Do you think it's a better idea to have different small worlds with a handful of races each or a giant world with lots of land but also lots of different cultures and races running around all over the place?

I totally think its a matter of personal taste, but MY personal taste is to avoid having too many because then you'll never have time to show them all off! In which case the only solution would be to revisit your world in lots and lots of unrelated stories... which is a totally awesome thing to do too though.

So I have... seven races in my fantasy? And sometimes that feels like too many because my story is alll about elves. And then I feel almost as if I tossed the other races in there instead of bothering to add more culture and history to the world, or just an excuse to make crowds in the background have more interesting shapes and faces. It might be helpful to figure out what evolutionary niche your races fill, and if there are a bunch in direct competition with each other, to consider combining them into a new race that has all your favorite aspects, or moving some to a new headworld? That's just my thoughts though.

As for my other stories they just feature regular humans with the occassional demon, alien, or robot, so I don't think that really counts.

Madranek looks like a pretty sweet guy. What's his story/what's he like/got anything interesting to tell us/etc? :) Spill! <3

Madranek is a minor councilman for a small wealthy province of Esterahad, he's psychic and is sort of a mentor figure to Lillia who is a very young powerful psychic. Because my story is mostly about politics a huge portion of my characters are politicians of some kind D: 

It seems like a lot of your characters have pointed ears/"unnatural" hair colors-- I'm assuming they're something not-quite-human, so can you explain what exactly they are/what's the deal with their race/their culture? Does your storyworld(/storyworlds) have other common races? What's up with them?

oho, two questions! All my pointy ears characters are elves from the same story of which Errikan is the main character... I've been working on a website to provide at least a bit of overview and context for them. So its a fantasy world with several races but most of my characters are elves, and they are really only elves and not human because I love drawing big pointy ears, created them way back when I discovered legend of zelda and elfquest comics about age 14. :p It was kind of a blow to learn that most elves in fantasy aren't actually as cool as those so heh, I just had to make sure mine lived up to my expectations.

The fantasy takes place on a continent called Rethamnel, the elves are the majority humanoid race, but there are also dwarves, merpeople, orcs, trolls, giants, and centaurs. I won't lie, they are mainly there because it is fun to design your own versions of fantasy races, but its not a huge aspect of plot or anything, since by the time I decided to have lots of non-elf races my main characters were already established. I worked that into my history by making them the majority, conquering, culturally imperialist race with the dominant religion, so it fits :p heh

I really like the look of that Naroth fellow! Why don't you tell us something about him?

Naroth was born into a very superstitious tribe that took his red eyes and hair as a bad omen and tossed him and his mom out because she refused to sacrifice him. They were taken in by a surly desert dragon who raised Naroth as his own after his mom died of heartbreak due to exile or something equally pitiful. He's a very talented warmage and specializes in casting spells in song/chant form but due to having a strict slightly brainwashy master/apprentice upbringing by a dragon he is really socially and emotionally stunted. His sidekick role to Errikan is a typical cold silent loner, but really brutal in battle.

Would you take science into a lot of consideration when creating worlds and their inhabitants, or would that take some of the joy out of it?

Well, considering that my favorite genre is... science fiction... I'd say no XD I put a lot of thought of that sort into my fantasy worlds as well, to the point of asking whether or not a clockwork person winding themselves up in order to keep running indefinitely violates the laws of thermodynamics (it does). So I suppose in my case SCIENCE is where I actually derive a great deal of joy :D

What is the hardest part about worldbuilding for you?

Logistics, PLOT... lol. Having an idea of what you want to happen with the world and characters but then trying to make it all fit and work properly... augh. Plot holes drive me so crazy in other works that I am really really obssessive about... not having them in my own work. If a question goes unanswered it needs to be deliberate. If there's a Deus Ex Machina plot twist it needs to GO (or at least have a precedent earlier in the course of events), it needs to be coherent and follow some kind of internal story logic.

Can't abide lazy storytelling *fistshake*

Who's your favourite character? Which character do you think changes the most or has the biggest arc throughout the story? Is this character the main character? Why or why not?

AHAHA don't tell my other characters but... It's Felix I have a crush on himhe is really complicated and weird and just so much fun to write!

I have multiple stories so this is kinda tough question. For my fantasy I want to say it's Naroth but since his arc is still tangled up so much with the others that none of the character drama (of which there is MUCH) happens in a vacuum. Errikan is the title character of The Last Paladin and Lillia Naroth and Astral are sort of like sidekicks but ohhh I dunno I made the story in four parts and give each of them an arc, sort of.

Where do you start when you begin to build a world? With the people, the landscape, the politics, the clothes? (heh) What seed of thought directs you?

Characters, nearly always! I'll have one or two and just build everything up around them. Though some of my favorite ideas have come from dreams which I am less comfortable taking credit for since they happen without my permission :p but it's still my brain I guess, right??

What are the naming conventions?

Assuming I have them, lol! Honestly I pull names out of my butt. Sometimes I'll put in a little more effort depending on the story (I have one where I made sure at least most of the characters have names that are marginally clever puns) but for the most part I just go with whatever I think of that feels right at the time... D:

Can you please have an about page somwhere? It's just that I'm nosy and I'd like to know things. For example, how old are you? Do you have a day job? Do you draw a comic or just random art things? (Both are good). I'm only interested because you're art's so pwetty :3, so please take this comment/these questions in the least creepy way possible!

I'm so comfortable under my internet rock! A long time ago I used to be super open about my life but I hate to admit it was cos my life was boring as hell. It hasn't been boring in a looong time... but its not in a fun way that I want to share... Hmm. I'm 26. I don't draw random art things but I don't draw a comic either (though I have a story I am writing to be a comic, the rest of my stories aren't, my ideas for their formats vary). I am... looking for a day job AHAHaha man I am such a starving artist cliche right now.

IS THIS SATISFACTORY cos that's all you're getting :)