Amor Ex Machina - Blog Posts

Doodle from tiny sketchbook I keep with me at work. Still figuring out designs for supporting AEM characters... In the past I'd get a little agitated after short doodling sessions because I always immediately wanted to figure out colors but HAVEN'T THE MEANS. Problem solved! Sketchbook Mobile app is great for anytime anywhere color studyin'

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.

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.