#refugium

Simon Roy (@simon-roy) asked me to invent a guy (alien organism) for his newest book, Refugium, which comes with a guy emporium (alien life guidebook). There's a kind of radially symmetrical bug called pinwheels on the planet that will split into wedges as a defensive mechanism, so I Junji Ito'ed them into a eusocial spiral that workers snap off of once "ripe."

It's one sharp float.

Here's the text closeup tumblr forgot when this got posted.

The Crone's Mantle

Traipsing through the marshy lowlands of Western Altamira's south, one may come across an unusual member of the pentapoda, colloquially known as the Crone's Mantle.

This shallow-water specialist, standing 7 feet tall at the peak, spends the warm months similarly to most large pentapods, feeding on water plants and drawing much of its energy from the sun. Come the shorter days of the cold season, however, the Mantle seeks a different source of energy.

Conserving what limited energy it can draw from sunlight during the short days, the Mantle roots itself in place along shallow stretches of rivers and streams. Its unusual downturned sails create shade that attract small squilloids, which, upon sensing the movement with its bristly legs, are snatched out of the water with its anterior appendage and flung into the Mantle's ventral mouth.

The Mantle shares its home with a variety of semiaquatic rasps, wading terrestrial squilloids and - most notably - predatory grapplers. The slow-moving Mantle defends itself with loud trumpeting from two respiratory organs atop its conical back, and if that's not enough, its ventral sails secrete a foul-tasting oil that deters most predators.

I'd like to give @simon-roy a big ol sooty thank you for including my off-the-cuff Refugium critter in "The Refugium Creature Companion"!

A bit of a last minute entry for @simon-roy’s refugium contest. I was pretty on the fence on if I should join but I decided why not! And it was a good excuse to try some new brush techniques.

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An excerpt from the Altamira Book of Wildlife

An illustration of a male Towering Snappler, so named for the snapping sounds accompanying their feeding. Snapplers are aberrant grapplers that have taken up high browsing niches. The same raptorial appendages of the family are also useful for grabbing and manipulating the branches of foliage, and so they fill a similar niche to many earthen high browsers such as elephants, chalicotheres, therizinosaurs, and sauropods. Towering Snapplers themselves average around 35-40 tons, which is a similar size range to some iconic Jurassic sauropods such as Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus. Snapplers sometimes come into conflict with some Pentapods over resources as they too can sometimes fill similar niches, but these rarely become full confrontations as the photosynthesis and bio-voltaics of Pentapods allows them to go longer between meals.

The raptorial arms manipulate and crush foliage and bark using their claws and grinding teeth that are similar to elephant teeth. Food is then shoved down their powerful beaks to be further processed in a large crop before fermenting in their gut.

Cross-posted from Kickstarter:

A few things I'm looking forward to in October...

Hullo, hullo! Welcome to Update #2.

First and foremost, thank you to everyone who's supported my campaign so far. :) This first week I was hit by an influx of spam marketers and questionable conversations that, while a shitty achievement badge in general, I was unprepared for emotionally; but each and every one of you has been a reminder that there are real people out there who want to support real art.

Speaking of supporting real art... there are some exciting things coming up in October that I'm looking forward to supporting in my life, and perhaps it'll be stuff you'd want to support, too.

IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 

October 15th—Confluence ft. Publishing Goblin | @publishinggoblin

Confluence is on my radar because of my low-key obsession with Publishing Goblin—'cause come on, how great of a name is that? I've supported previous Publishing Goblin projects and will likely support more of their projects in the future. Publishing Goblin brought me The Alleyman Tarot, will eventually bring me The Hot Housewife Tarot, and has been steadily working through several poetry projects. As a bit of a goblin myself, I've got a starry eyed vested interest in seeing another cool creative make art and succeed in this world; for it's art that makes the rest of it worth living.

Confluence has beautiful artwork, a trusted artist working with a diverse team, and is a perfect excuse to throw dice into trays and laugh with friends. Full disclosure: this is likely to be a nice little gift for my TTRPG loving step-son, and we'll see about bullying him into running a little campaign for me and his dad. 

October 22nd—A Fool's Errand by J Strautman | @strautmaskreplica & B Marsollier | @b-marsollier

In other TTRPG news, your friends and mine over at Planet Arcana have designed their own tarot-based system.  A Fool's Errand puts your party into the world of Planet Arcana, with it's lavish landscapes, brilliant beasts, and arcane insight. You don't need to be familiar with the podcast to enjoy the game; but if you're looking for an award-winning group of Canadians playing through a unique Tarot-Inspired universe, it's definitely worth a listen. 

Playtesting our own little calamity has been a highlight of my still-very-novice RPG experiences. I get to live out my piscean fantasties as an angry waterbreathing aquean composite, and weave a tale of prophet and mystery with some storytelling friends. We're only a few sessions into our campaign, but it promises to be a fun experience. 

Sometime in October, Probably—Refugium by Simon Roy | @simon-roy

And I would be remiss not to include my favourite comics on my list. Refugium is the third book in Simon Roy's Griz Grobus series, following the eponymous first book Griz Grobus and the second, Miramar. Simon's a fantastically detailed comic artist and works with a wonderful colourist, Sergey Nazarov, to bring this galaxy-spanning universe to life. It's already funded, but you can buy the backlog or support Simon on Patreon while you wait for whatever he makes next. I'm trying to be patient while I wait for my copy of Refugium to arrive—hopefully sometime this month.   

Can you think of anything else exciting happening this month? Let me know. :) I always like finding new artists to swoon over.