#textposty

Hi everyone, this is Penwrythe and I would like to get some feedback on something!

Over the past three years, I have been working on my worldbuilding project, World of Relics! This setting has sub-worldbuilding projects: Rise of Relics and the Mundane Realm. World of Relics features living objects in a high fantasy setting. They are kind of like the classic fantasy mimics from RPG games and stories, just without the flesh-eating part, lol.

Anyway, while I enjoy working on my stories set in this world, there's a question that popped up in my head regarding a certain trope. The baleful polymorph trope. The baleful polymorph trope is where a character is turned from their human form into something inhuman like an object, monster, or animal to be taught a lesson in humility. It's a classic trope often used in fantasy and even appeared in myths and legends. The trope still exists nowadays, usually appearing in animation. My concern with this trope however is how often BIPOC characters were used for this trope.

Without making things too long here, some people are concerned about how this trope is often used to erase the humanity of BIPOC characters. Like we had to earn our humanity again while the rest of the world stays the same. So there's pushback against the trope to try to get more BIPOC characters to be and stay human. I'm concerned about this too, as a Black person who grew up in the 90s and 2000s seeing little representation of Black characters in children/teens/adult animated media. Representation is important because it can show people who look like me having adventures or taking up responsibilities in their world, making these experiences relatable to me and not something that's out of reach.

It's a personal thing, but I remember not "seeing" myself as Black. I feel like a broken mirror, where my self-reflection of my Blackness is not represented in the way I handle my art or in my imagination. I see myself as a variety of things but not myself. And yet it is me. I am a paradox, lol.

I do represent my Blackness more often now in my art, but that feeling is still there. And I want to explore it. Kind of like a micro-representation thingy? Like, I see my Blackness but I also want to reconcile with my feelings over certain tropes and so on. I want to see my take on this.

So to my point, what do you guys think about me reclaiming the Baleful Polymorph trope for World of Relics. It is the backbone of a certain event that kicks-off Rise of Relics' story and is part of the backstory of the Mundane Realm. My use of this trope will be different from the way it's normally used:

It's not just one character who is turned, it's almost everyone. Plus the transformation is permanent and represents the drastic changes in our lives that force us into a new reality. There is no normal anymore.

Transformed objects/relics still keep their powers and agency. I don't want the characters to keep chasing their humanity. In this new reality they are in, it's gone and they must redefine themselves in this new form to survive.

Agency beyond the physical human form. Humans have great tenacity and perseverance. We see to preserve ourselves in any way possible, even beyond death. I want the same for my object characters.

The Rule of Cool trope. I want my object characters to be cool! Who wants to be a giant laser sword?!

I elaborated on my points here in the FAQ in my World of Relics pitch carrd site. Give it a look and share if you like!

Oh my god

I'm having too much fun with this

Oh hi firey

So, I been working on the Spoon Ballerina for five/six days and I'm learning a lot about the process. This model is a style test before the actual style test! Once I master the 2D/3D style, I'll be set for working on RFR pages (by 2025 maybe I don't know lol)

I know I definitely need a pipeline for character and environment asset design and creation prior to producing the pages for RFR. But to streamline this, here's what I'm thinking about:

After style test, create base shaders and rigs for eyes, mouth, and other surface anatomy for my object ocs. This will allow me to easily place and modify these assets without recreating them for each character. Since most object ocs range from similar forms to more complex forms, recycling models is going to be important. Same with human/god characters, too.

Also, for human/god character models, I look into making base models with a variety of body types so I have a ready-made asset to modify for a new character.

Sculpting is going to be important for the more complex character designs and background elements, so I need to learn how to sculpt and also recycle sculpted assets.

Maybe....a process test after the style test? Say for example, for a scene, I need three living swords and five living orbs and three cloaks, along with the characters from the style test (Eightenate, Inga, and Gwenny). Three of the orbs have injuries and two cloaks (rust rot, ichor loss, burns), the other two are uninjured. The swords are helping them, one of them is a leader speaking to Eightenate, clearly more decorated with regalia and etchings as signs of their rank. In the same scene (or panel whatever) shows Inga recovering (maybe escape from the swords) speaking to two other humans about what happened. All these characters will borrow elements from each of their base characters with modifications needed for their role and design in the scene.

How long will it take for me to do modifications to the style test characters to create the new ones in this example? What about background elements?

Because, I think it might be a week or two to create the original base characters and environment elements, then a day or a couple days to modify them into the new characters. Then another for setting up the scene, rendering, and adding final touches such as color grade and affects. Final render then publishing it.

Also for some background elements, I might be able to find ready made assets on 3D modeling stores. Just do the modifications needed for the style of the comic and just import them into the scenes needed.

Oof storage space is going to be something ahhh, I'll figure it out, might get a three terabyte drive, might last me a few years, and a cloud backup system for it too

And that means finding ways to fund the comic once I get it off the ground. For paying asset plugin creators, backup services, other artists and designers if I start hiring, and so on. I have no idea for merch... maybe art books, short story anthologies, commissions, or figurines and plushies, maybe an actual sword lol (that's going to be thousands to make lol).

I'm not hiring for right now, I don't have the income to pay artists, but when I do, I'm looking for artists and designers who work in Blender, Krita, and Photoshop. They need to be 18 years or older (WOR is New Adult Fantasy; target audience is 18-25 yrs), have some familiarity with fantasy elements and ancient and medieval cultures I take inspiration from for WOR's storytelling and design, and also object shows since that is WOR's main inspiration is from.

If anyone got a random shared post from me, please know that I didn't mean to send it!

I browse Tumblr on mobile and my finger tend to press on the same spot where the share button is while scrolling.

Things since the New Year had slowed down a bit and I feel like I'm under an art block or something. But, I'm still working on RFR and TMR, just working on a few worldbuilding details and editing chapters. Some writing WIPs might pop up here!

Before I get back on Twitter tomorrow, there's something I briefly want to discuss:

I think the grief that was hovering over me over the past year has finally dissipated. I explained my feelings over certain events from 2021-2022 in it my pasts posts on this, including an apology I made in early 2022 for my old Twitter account. But, yeah, that grief and pain over what happened are gone. I let go. I don't know why I couldn't do it before, then again I kept telling myself that I'm over it, only to suffer yet another spiral soon after. But this time, really this time, I feel like I can let go of the things that happened two years ago. I am done. I am at peace.

This is slightly related to some of the things I said on my Twitter before I took my break this month. I'm not going into details, but there were some things in the OSC that bothered me. But instead of asking myself how to make things better, I lashed out, not realizing that was a reflection of my grief. That was not fair of me to put my grievances over an entire community. For those who saw that and were hurt by what I said, I am sorry.

I do want to do better, but also I want to help this community to be better, too. But I don't know what to do next. Obviously, don't do the bad thing again (that was bad Pen)! I am open to suggestions!

You know this feeling, like it feels like something is about to crash upon you at a moments notice? I been feeling that for the past few months. Aside from the thing that happened earlier this year, everything from the anti-trans political ads I keep seeing in my state, the Don't Say Gay bills, and this Pride month ending with Roe vs Wade overturned...It all just hurts.

It hurt a lot. I feel powerless. I recently early voted in my state, but I am not sure if me and so many other voters will be listened to. This November, I will vote again. Even with all this uncertainty, I will still vote.

I say Neighs instead of horses.