A little progress, and some results!

Tmt Nova

Feb 24, 20204 min read

After these last few beginning months of the year, I had a slight scare about whether or not I was being creative enough.

This, of course, is untrue and I syke myself out like this all of the time, but due to this minor panic, I decided to try and be a tad more involved in my projects than I've been. Mainly focusing on three so as to not be overwhelmed.

The Three I have been working on so far are:

Starfish Lovers

and

The Bowerhoard Shop

Starfish Lovers

Has become a massive project, I aim to write about 32,000 words by the end of Summer and start in on the illustrations for the book as well as the typesetting over the fall and into spring. This project is a massive undertaking and I'm not going to lie I'm seriously concerned about having it ready for my portfolio alongside the other 12 projects I want to include.

This summer is going to be very busy for me. At least I'll have 3 and a half months to dedicate myself to these projects. I'm hoping the writing won't take me so long especially with this Spring Semester being steeped in world-building and overall planning for the next step.

Thus far, the worldbuilding has been very successful and I've at least managed to figure out a great deal of information so as to settle my picky brain.

For instance.

How are they breathing, let alone surviving the dangers of space...hell... how are they all not dead without a sun to orbit around!!?

If you are not up to speed about what I've been scheming for Starfish Lovers, here are a handful of deets:

One day, far from our world, the feline city of Patria finds itself in a state of peril. The starfish that glows ever bright at the highest tower has disappeared. The whale that carries their world on its back is now lost and left unguided by the starfish’s light.

This was the starting paragraph I had for Starfish Lovers before it evolved from being a Children's Book into a Juvenile Novel. There were a few things that I had to figure out because I had made a world that has a combination of two places that do not allow for oxygen. The Deep Ocean and Space.

This is when I started sweating bullets and kicking myself for once again making things difficult. Granted if it isn't challenging in some way then it isn't worth pushing through.

Gratefully with some thought, inspiration, and help from a Video Game ( I'm talking to you Zelda Breath of the Wild). I started to wrap up a few ideas on how they might possibly survive.

"If you ever decide to write or even draw, the number one thing that will provide you with the confidence you need is research."

1) Artificial Suns

I ran across an article that explained the possibility of creating an artificial sun. So my mind wandered to, well if you can create one, why not create many? In fact, China and Germany are already on their way to creating and testing this theory.

With that figured out the next thing to worry about is.

2) Why in the heck are they wandering around on Whales?

I'm not overly concerned about the fact that these whales and other creatures are living in a combo world of deep space and deep ocean because I feel they are created for it. This realm works on different chemistry than ours and some of the inspiration for these creatures, and lack of explanation for their ability to survive, is Titan A.E.. A good movie by the way and, I recommend any of you who have not seen it, to give it a try.

My wondering about why they travel on whales dwindled down to, not all of them do, and that most of them dwell on the Reefs that encompass their known world. Which officially helped construct the many cultures that developed on these reefs as well as their government and technological advancements. Which leads to my final question.

3) What are the conditions on the Reefs, how did they breathe life into them once more?

The study of Phytoplankton and a great deal of assistance from this article presented several ideas. The concept that the Felines in my story were VERY advanced, even more so than we currently are, otherwise the ability to originally terraform and create artificial suns would not be possible. Now with a twist to make their technology look a bit magical (praises to the Legend of Zelda and how they handle their Divine Beasts and such) we have some kind of basis on how they might have achieved this.

Now my hope is to make their cultures seem older and even though they are technologically advanced, I didn't want that to be the case for the current story. So from here, I've decided that at some point their nation fell and those who remained had to literally pick up the pieces. Much like the medieval ages and how the renaissance looked back on their fallen forefathers The Greeks and the Romans. This is the theme that I wanted to embrace in regard to time even though it may not fully represent everything that the Reefdwellers are capable of.

This finally leads to inspirations for this particular painting that I've paused briefly due to my other project.

It became a depiction of the Mata race, which is heavily based on Minoan and Greek heritage. This painting, in particular, is meant to represent a traveling merchant who is bringing goods and materials from one end of the reef to another. Her steed, a Fiddler crab, of which I've decided crabs are one of the many creatures they use for transport. Seeing as seahorses are not particularly creatures capable of easy travel since they ride on currents. I feel they would be terribly slow, at least slower than crabs, especially fiddler crabs.

This wraps up what I wanted to detail for Starfish Lovers since talking anymore about it would reveal too much.

The BoweHoard Shop

Aside from Starfish lovers I have also endeavored to include another sticker set to which I completed yesterday!

For some time I had hoped to create a motivation/inspirational sticker set for the Undertale fanbase. It was an idea I carried with me into the new year and it is so satisfying to finally see it come to fruition!