the very worst thing

more Carot cards, this time from the Traveler’s Suite. Carot is a simple ttrpg where you and your opponent play as the travelers you pull from the deck as well as the world that wants to absolutely wreck them.  each side represents a different rabbit family and each family has a litter of 4 kits. the game is a journey of a year where both litters go out traveling, and the goal is to get as many of your siblings back home as possible while trying to use nature and circumstance to merc your opponent’s bloodline. you play 4 seasons, a season for each rabbit, and these seasons are like short stories of what happens when you and your opponent’s traveler meet on the road.

games can also be totally friendly collaborative stories, but y’know. rabbits.

even though you play with 4 traveler cards each, there are 10 in all to choose from in a deck. here are 6 of those cards because i still need to finish the rest but i really wanted to post something for the first day of spooky month. these are like the standard/classic designs you’d see on cards but there are variations all over the place because rabbits sometimes make personal decks to play with.

if you were into shady divination stuff these are the ones you would use though.

not that anyone on the island is doing that.

ahem.

here are some rough descriptions of each one:

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over on patreon Camille Alexander asked for evil women so you know i had to make a whole squad that mixed in a bunch of other prompts.

Amy Crook wanted bones, Siadea wanted hummingbirds, FyreNWater wanted ‘soft, yet unyeilding, Triskadeka12 wanted discarded cocoons (though the one here is still in use), Beelezbuddy wanted lamps, and Kona Goodhart wanted 'wagtails sing’.

Fun Fact: all of these ladies can take on human form, at least for a little while, but drawing them in their more fae/monstery forms is much more fun.

These 4 ladies are the Queens of the House Of Returned Wings. It’s a secret society where people who know in their hearts that they must have fae blood or were a fae in a past life learn to use their latent powers to take control of their lives, be their own bosses, and eventually cross the veil to regain their rightful status in the realm of the fae. One teeny tiny problem is that only people who can really prove they deserve to be uplifted get to come live at the House where they can mingle with the Queens and learn the true fae arts before they are sent across the veil to start their new lives. So much recruitment and strange rituals and labor intensive but low paying work to be done. So many paychecks that are desperately needed turned into envelopes full of cash that are thrown into fairy circles that appear in back yards and are gone as soon as backs are turned.

But those little bits of magic you get back are totally worth it.  The queens give out such amazing wishes for loyalty. So what if the price becomes heavier each time and the wishes seem to wear off quicker and quicker with more and more disastrous results? That’s only because the magic is borrowed from these incredibly gracious ladies. If you work hard enough you’ll have your own magic back, and you won’t have to worry about any silly time limit or spell corruption.

No, this isn’t a super culty magic MLM. Why do you ask?

Let’s talk about the queens.

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over on patreon Tama asked for: ‘Selkies who live in a lake rather than an ocean, like irl Baikal seals’ so here are some fresh water friends. a jolly trader stepping out for the day, a dancer trying on an algae-dyed skirt, a cocky wrestler in pre-match ceremonial garb, and a bab.

General Selkie Facts:

Selkies in the Small Guide universe are somewhere between mermaids and werewolves. Except it would be more accurate to call them were-humanoids. They’re born in seal form and their skin doesn’t loosen until their first molt approaches. After this molt they can usually  remove their seal-skin at will, though many go their whole lives without completely removing it and just vibe in their half transformed forms by loosening their skins (seen here). They keep them attached as faux clothing since they’re able to split and mold the loose skin as they please. Also, trying to find somewhere to to keep clothes when you live in or near the water your whole life is a pain. This does not hurt, as seal-skin is strangely gelatinous  when loose and its tactile sense is kinda garbage. Like, if you stomp on someone’s skin with all your might they will certainly feel it, but it’d probably take them a while to figure out that you’re gently pinching one of their weird flesh tentacles.

Also don’t do that. That’s weird. 

A seal-skin is a real living part of a selkie’s body and it doesn’t stop living when they completely take it off. It’s an organ, and it acts like one. All skins look kind of creepy without a person inside them, but some are worse than others. It’s just as likely that a skin will look like a deflated, gently pulsating, seal-shaped jelly monster as it will a roiling pile of random fur and flesh. When there’s no one to control its structure, anything goes baybeeeeee.

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it’s time for part 2 of the zodiac based Carot cards. Horn cards are horizontal instead of vertical because they’re meant to be placed above the three other suites which lay side by side. the last two suites are tentatively named the Travelers and the Island and now that i know what direction i want to take with them i’ll hopefully get through those in between work. anyway, here’s some lore.

Horn Signs

Horn signs are the second half of the rabbit/hare zodiac system. When a rabbit or hare is born they have sharp little starter horns encased in rubbery membranes that fall off soon after birth. These horns will eventually shed in a process similar to teething when they get older, but before that they’re basically baby’s first shank. A nasty natural surprise for any predator looking for an easy meal or any parent who gets too tired to keep track of the pointy bits on their child.

Your horn sign correlates to how many points your birth horns had. Again, no one takes this seriously lest people start catching their death of prophesy. But since horn points are the way that many parents initially tell kits apart in litters where they look very similar, it’s fun to joke about.

The Horn Suite

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i won’t be posting all the Carot cards because 1. they’re still not all done and 2. i might sell them in one big pack as physical cards? jury’s still out on that. i will post the first two suites though because they tie into the rabbit zodiac and i can write about that bit separately!

Litter Signs

Litter signs are the first half in the rabbit/hare zodiac system. No one believes the zodiac. No one even knows where it comes from. It’s fun to talk about for jokes and it plays into Carot games but rabbits are very averse to anything prophetic and foretelling personality traits by the order a baby shoots out of you is. A. No. You start doing that shit and the universe takes notice and wants to play along. Starts sending vague visions to randos about possible futures and such. Horrible. No thanks. Maybe you’re cool with the universe writing bad fanfiction about your future and trying to trap you into acting it out, but not rabbits.

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and so i bid adieu to Goblin Month with some final goblins from patreon. 13 goblins (counting goblin adjacent creatures) is a pretty good number i suppose.

here we have:

Small teaching her apprentice guide Moth how to navigate with local natural resources in areas where things are so magically goofed that compasses become garbage and you might as well ask a puddle or random stick which way is north.

A neighborly chat between two mushroom goblin farmers during harvest season.

Some unicorns who are over the hill but still stylin’. you can tell they’re old unicorns because their colors are really coming in (young unicorns are white, silver, and black, only gaining color as they age) and their horns are getting wild. Also, I think from now on unicorns are gonna be goblinoids with rhino/deer/goat/ect features and even though their name means one horn this functions kind of like a millipede’s name where it mostly means ‘at least one horn’. They can have one or they can have a few all clustered close together, and as they get older it’s not unusual to grow extras.

And lastly, your standard Theater Ghost (who was never actually in the plays but was paid to die in the theater because they fired their last ghost for being a creep. Can’t act at all but she enjoys the free shows and knows all the drama).

So over on patreon Trevor asked for my take on the Addams Family and I grew up LOVING the Addams family movies so here we are. Instead of doing a straight up style interpretation, I decided to do a full on design challenge, using the characters as bases to make a black southern gothic Addams au. I actually drew the kids first, using the character bases of Wednesday and Pugsley to create some delightful kiddos I’m calling Sunday and Blanche. I of course then redesigned Gomez and Morticia into Carlisle and Mortesha.

The Addams have a very specific high aristocratic goth aesthetic (they’ve got a butler and nobody really works among other things) so in this re-imagining I wanted to go with vibes that run a little more middle class/upper middle class.  I thought it would be interesting to think about what would be considered weird and off-putting in an entirely different culture, and how being a big ol’ goth is way less controversial than it used to be.

I tried to keep this short (HAHAHAHAHAHA) so I didn’t spin off into an essay about villain coded families, black people in the horror genre, and normalcy as it pertains to social survival, but just…bits of that are in these designs and lore. Keep that in mind.

Also I made the kids twins because they’ve flip flopped in age so much in different media and also twins run in my family (i’m the daughter of one). And let’s face it, I’m pulling a lot of their southern gothic traits from living as a southern goth so *shrug*.

10 thousand pounds of lore incoming loooooooooool.

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some old drawings from June! i never posted them for some reason, i think i was going to do a whole big lore write up on their village’s deal but i don’t have time for that right now so here’s some fun facts about the gals from over on patreon.

1st pic is Bea at some kind of fancy event. Their village doesn’t really do proper dances anymore, but the spirits still like to get down and the Sisters are always invited. Bea will dance until she collapses if you let her. Which honestly is kind of a hassle for the other Sisters so she gets led off the dance floor for mandatory rest and water breaks often.

2nd pic introduces Bea’s best friend, Luc! Bea and Luc are childhood friends who came to the Sisters a few years apart. Luc was a chronically ill child who’s parents eschewed proper medical care in favor of snake oil from the ‘community leaders’ and good ol’ bootstraps. she was eventually abandoned in the woods as punishment after said leaders convinced her parents that she didn’t want to get better and that she was only ill because she was communing with the spirits and other blasphemous things when they weren’t watching her.  This happened when she was 11.

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more merms from patreon. a lovely musical group or sea witches.

These ladies live year round on beach that Kirom’s pod considers their ancestral home. They’re all strays from other pods who were taken in by his gram gram Kiromi over the years, and serve as informants/territory guardians/ interspecies peacekeepers while the rest of the pod is away (they also do a little sea-witchraft on the side).

This is an important job but they’re mostly known for their impromptu concerts at the docks, where they will literally sing until bribed to stop. It’s not like the singing is bad, quite the opposite, it’s very lovely and it’s interspersed with saucy musical comedy bits about the goings on they observe from their perch of the day.

But sometimes they’ll sing All. Day.

And they’ll park themselves wherever they feel like.

And they’ll sing any dirt they’ve got on you to the whole neighborhood in a real catchy number if they spot you being shitty (yes they DO take requests, thank you for asking).

And wow, mermaids sure can hit those high notes when they want you to know that they’ll be out there at midnight still singing unless some kind soul shows up with a free lunch for all this free entertainment.

Despite this lucrative ‘buy my silence’ variety show they’re running, they’re generally beloved by the community and never really have to worry about finding places to stay during really rough weather.

From left to right they are:

Miv: The youngest and the largest. Quick witted and bubbly, she’s only a year older than Kirom and everyone thinks she’s an angel except him. Their rivalry might just be a jokey intense friendship, but also they WILL physically fight each other at the drop of a hat. No one has any idea what started this as they are both kinda slow to anger merms. Loves to make up daily horoscopes for people. Left her old pod to diffuse hierarchy drama.

Tyrie: Not the oldest but people always think she is. Very quiet, intense, and curious. Knows all the hottest goss simply by virtue of sitting still and thinking her thoughts long enough that people forget she’s around and listening. Which is a feat (the forgetting), because she gives off some intimidating vibes. Are these justified vibes? No one really wants to find out. Can speak/read a lot of languages for some reason. Left her old pod because ????????????

Chicken: That’s not her real name but that’s what she goes by. Don’t bother asking why, every answer will be a lie. She’s the oldest and the main reason why the other two stay year round instead of migrating. The girl has had it rough and she’s not the best swimmer. Greatly enjoys watered down alcohol (mermaid stomachs aren’t really meant for alcohol but you try and tell her that), awful trinkets she can add to her treasure hoard, and games of any kind as long as they don’t require reading (get that bullshit out her face). Has the softest sweetest voice and a gentle sleepy demeanor, but is also the first to endorse chaos every time. Can tell you so many stories about the stars. Hair is always a little green from algae even when the other ladies help groom her. Her old pod left her to die in the middle of the ocean because they were tired of taking care of her and her pups inherited her powers so they had replacements for her skills already.

biiiiig dress up/design commission for @alivingmel of their terrible fashion child, Val! they hooked me up with a tablet in my darkest hour and are also a great artist so i felt i had to do The Most.

the first 3 pics are the finished fits, lotta jewel tones and gold accents. i was told i made them sufficiently punchable which, hell yeah. to quote: “ The biggest inspiration for Val’s overall vibe has been the late 60’s/70’s, with emphasis on glam rock and mod fashion… With some Dolce & Gabbana thrown in to take it to that next level of excess. THEY HAVE THE MOST OBNOXIOUS SENSE OF FASHION POSSIBLE.” 

the next pics are all narrowing down The Look. first i sketched out a few different plumage options, then did some outfit planning, faves were selected, color/pattern planning happened, faves of THOSE were selected, and then i moved on to the final designs. it was a wild ride and i took forever because disasters kept happening but it was worth it!

thanks again @alivingmel !!!! luv 2 draw a horrible glitter bird.

Trevor asked for Yuki Onna over on patreon and being off from work made me go. Buck. Wild. With character design.

I also threw Shannon Leigh Legler and Amy Crook’s prompts in here for Flavor.

I tried to take inspiration from older illustrations, myth variations, and horror manga, while also playing with the idea of a more elemental look. Like, a literal Snow Woman purposefully (maybe instinctively?) molding herself into a human form.

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Spooky Time.

Mixing some prompts from patreon here, namely ‘gay vampires’ and 'all dressed up for a spooky soriee’

This is Fera, she’s a performance artist, she’s very gay, and she’s legally blind but she forms her mosquito minions into glasses or suspiciously thick eye shadow and sees through them. She’s currently attending a 'children of the night’ themed benefit sponsored by Cashmere’s company as a guest and later she’ll do something on stage that will cause at least one emotional breakdown in the audience.

Here’s a bunch of lore about the kind of vampire she is because of course I wrote some:

Mosangre Vampires

What are they: A human just filled to the brim with mosquitoes and all the supernatural powers that apparently come with that.

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design/fashion patreon sketch commissions for Laurel Kona Hart of their Invisible Sun fae character, Sound of Bells! included here is a general look, some sleepwear, a dramatic opera outfit, and a surprise summer look that they let me design prompt free. i had a lot of neat design prompts to work with, notably costumes from the “Shades of White” ballet , inhuman coldness, bells, cages, and wisteria/sunset inspired color pallets.

Design Notes:

i’m a big fan of using different materials as a hair substitute with my  own characters so I thought it would be cool to style their headwrap  different ways for different occasions. for example, that sleek summer fit uses the headwrap as both sweeping locks and a slinky cape.  

the sheer fabric on the opera fit isn’t actually fabric, it’s a sort of  feather-light expertly crafted crystal. fancy acoustics for the bells  and if they need to get everyone’s attention they can tap on the crystal  with their opera glasses to create a lovely (but slightly eerie)  chiming sound.  

the sleep outfit can be worn two ways. the way you see here, and if  you lift the fur skirt up to your shoulders you can wear it like a  hooded fur cloak. imagine the dramatic reveal of walking into a room in a  twilight colored fur and dropping it to reveal the sheer skirt and  Dramatic Sleeves. also any of those indigo pearls on their sleeves can  turn into a small floating lamp if need be.

thanks again for letting me play with your character!