Wind's Corner

Hello! I’m a young artist who is just starting up the whole online presence thing. I would love to write and illustrate comics one day and I’m currently working on my first longer comic, called On Choosing to Leave. This comic is quickly teaching me how much I still have to learn. Long-term, I want to make OCTL a webcomic with its own website, but it’ll be a long time before I could have a consistent update schedule, as my current progress through pages is very slow. I’ve got lots of other headworlds and other OCs that also pop up on this blog.

Do I take commissions: Yes! I recently set up a carrd website for commission information. I accept USD over paypal and I’m willing to draw animals, pets, fantasy creatures, humans, anthropomorphic characters, etc. No to heavy gore or anything NSFW. I can to talk over discord, email, or DMs on a website.

Find me elsewhere:

Ii have a bunch if wips going but apparently the next dergtober is what I've finished first. The sketch from 2024 is here (which apparently has a content label now? I don't know why, maybe because there's a snake).

Here's my 'scared and slightly divine tundra cub.' He lost some of his smol scared baby look in the lineart, and I still don't know how to render ice, but overall I'm pleased with how this came out.

I wrote on some of Mani's background when I first posted the sketch. He sits deep in my personal headcannons of how eggs absorbing elemental magic, familiars bonds, etc. work in Flight Rising. His egg was abducted by an ancient ice clan that had been painstakingly collecting and studying even more ancient ice artifacts. The collective magic aura of these items was dangerous for most adult dragons, but for eggs, which absorbed elemental energy in order to hatch, the intense energy would freeze them solid. Mani's survival was due to a mix of rare compatibility and questionable spellwork that bonded him to a familiar while still in the egg, so that some of the excess energy passed through the bond instead. Both tundra and elk familiar survived, but not unchanged. Poor baby Mani possessed an absolutely absurd amount of ice magic. It would be a long time before he learned to more or less control his magic, and even longer before he relaxed enough to really settle into his found family, far far away from the dragons that did this to him, but he gets there.

Next up is day 11 pile, where I'll get to properly focus on that found family.

I recorded part of this one too, which is shorter mostly because I skipped a lot of the tedium of me getting confused over the back leg, cleaning up crackle markings, and all the final rendering while I tried to figure out how ice works.

Christmas and Christmas belong to PequeneNinho, for whom I tried to envision what decorating for holidays might look like in Dragonhome.

Gulbahar and Paz belong to Bennie, who was to be my initial recipient before the santas had to be reassigned.

Tenzhin belongs to Sightlesz, as a thank you for being my previous year's santa

Day 26: Cinder features Willough, who will eventually get the cinder gene, getting awestruck by a lil' fire. This may be the first time I drew an aether and their face structure had me very confused for a hot minute.

For Day 27: Plague I broke out my plaguiest boy Nikodeme to retry last year's Rot and I'm impressed by how much better it went this time. This feels like a base I can clean up and build on where last year's felt like it needed a full restart. My boy will get his spooky portrait yet!

At this point I was starting to get outside of October itself since I fell behind at the end. Dergvember!

For Day 28: Streak I did the streak familiars, specifically the snow streak bonded to Pruino with a touch of Pruino's silhouette in the foreground. I've always loved the streak familiars, there's something otherworldly about them and I've been in suspense as to who is armoring them since Fallen Streaks were released in 2015... although I doubt the devs will ever elaborate on that one.

Day 29: Fish features a scribbly fathom about to catch a billy bass. The fathom was intended to be Phi, but honestly any of my fathoms would fit.

Day 30: Funeral was a struggle at first for me because there aren't much in the way of canonical deaths in my lore-- it's happy fiction land where dramatic things can happen without fatal consequences. I haven't exalted or sold a single dragon in 12 years and I like it that way. >-< Deaths in backstories sometimes happen though, and since Wrathe is my unofficial Halloween boy due to being hatched on it, he seemed fitting. Wrathe sees himself as a mere shadow of a dragon due to the death of his charge Melaena. I've never fleshed out the exact circumstances, but I wrote if it from another dragon's perspective once in a CYOA:

"He remembered a spray of dusky feathers in the sand, and a great red dragon thrown into a rage that cast friend and foe alike away from him. That same dragon turning cold and still and unresponsive to any attempt to reach him. A paid venture gone terribly, terribly wrong. He remembered the days before, and the dragon that had been. A young coatl still soft in the ways of the world, but deeply gifted in the Sight and protected, so they thought, by a shield so tough and vigilant that she didn’t need to grow up."

I had two ideas for how to show Wrathe at the start of his long mourning, and ended up trying to throw them side by side in some sort of multi-image composition. I started to envision what his garments looked like before they became hopelessly threadbare; they were once a ceremonial uniform to go with his position as seer's personal guard.

For Day 31: Shade there was a few directions I could take it, as the Shade is definitely a thing in my lore even if it's rarely collected enough to act with any intend. I treat it as little fragments scattered everywhere (that much seems to be FR canon), that are drawn to negative emotions and violence. It gathers around suffering and quietly influences everyone to be worse. Having enough of it in one spot to have a noticeable presence is rare and a Problem.

Day 20: Storm is a quick scribble of Vinca caught in a storm; the pose isn't quite what I was going for but I wanted a fluffly huddle so I got that at least. Vinca is among my oldest dragons (she was just after the cutoff for the feast drawing) but somehow hasn't accumulated much more lore than that she isn't much of a flier despite being a wind dragon.

For Day 21: Harpy I did a family portrait of sorts for my mirror Kuntur and the three condorwing harpies that raised him (my tiny harpy flock!). If I go back to this one (which I'm sure I will), I'd want to bring Kuntur a little more forward so he's got his head in line with his moms. He should be sitting with them, not as a backdrop! I'll also have to decide whether I'm drawing them standing for the portrait or drawing the portrait a clanmate is doing, and what art style said clanmate might use.

For Day 22: Carnival I was stumped at first, but decided to do a headshot of Serin being spooky. He's got some of the flashiest vibes around. A lil' headshot is just satisfying after sketch so many full bodies in scenes.

Day 23: Blackberry features a young Savir, who has a blackberry primary, studying blackberry plants in a library. When I first started this I thought hard about the logistics of imperials reading and writing when they have short arms and such long necks. Savir here is taking the clumsy teenager approach that is sure to ruin his neck in a few years. Maybe imps have good enough eyesight that they don't really need to put their heads close to what they are doing.

Day 24: Trail features North, who has the trail gene, following a winding path up the Windswept Plateaus.

For Day 13: Feast I wanted to show my clan proper but didn't want to have to include a ridiculous number of dragons or the current lair given that its a daily sketch. My solution was to go back to who would be present by the end of the clan's first October (I joined September 2013), probably around the Riot of Rot and holding a mini feast to celebrate. (I was originally going to do through November and changed my mind when it meant a third more dragons, hence the tally with dragons crossed out). At this point there were 4 adults (the founders Rhea and Aural, plus Akantha and Aiden), 2 adoloscents/teens (Junco and Merlin) and 6 young children (Celeste, Shu, Elation, Lazulia, Aeolus, and Petrichor). I realized after the fact that Akantha and Aiden might not have been there yet, being more of early November arrivals, but I'll let it slide because they desperately need more adults. Maybe they celebrated the Riot late.

Elle would be the only plague dragon present at the time, so they would have been largely celebrating her.

Day 14: Messenger features Oneiri, whose back half was featured last year for day 7: portal. The dimension-hopping abilities he got from his ancient Baku familiar can function kind of like teleporting and make him great for sending messages. And if his wings look small, it's because they are. Oneiri isn't really capable of powered flight and usually the best he can do is slow a fall or coast a strong updraft.

Days 15: Spire & 16: Cloud I missed Spire out of exhaustion but still wanted in on the intense perspective people were doing on the discord. So, I combined it with Cloud to have my spiral Salix rising into the clouds with a spear. She carries a spear now apparently.

For Day 17: Hunt I wanted to draw Aural hunting but couldn’t settle on a pose I liked enough, so I just sketched a bunch to explore what it might look like—he is blind and relies on wind magic, so he uses his wings a lot more than most mirrors. Hunting for him would be high-speed and very precise.

About time I catch up on here.

Day 5: Sculpted is a quick thumbnail for my gaoler Kouros's early days in the Grotto. The clan held him more or less hostage for a while because letting him return to the other Seekers posed a threat to them (his bio links to a short story on their meeting!). One of their attempts to get him to loosen up was to try training him in the many trades someone or other knew, and he became entranced by sculpting pretty quickly even if he wouldn't admit it. From a sneaky distance I've got Aural, who always believed there was more to him than the gruff and threatening creature they first met, teasing a more skeptical clanmate (probably Xolotl).

Day 6: Venom features Sandía, who is venomus, in a spitting cobra way. I had fun making her head shape a little different from the other nocturne I finished recently (last year's pirate).

The next few days are scribbly because I was busy and only gave myself about 20 minutes on each. I missed Day 7: Battlefield so I combined it with Day 8: Ghost. Battlefields are easy scavenging for my nocturne thieves, and the leader shown here happens to be good with ghosts.

Day 9: Scales features Roscoe perched on his familiar’s antlers; you can’t see it but he has the scales gene! The dergtober discord had just been talking about the size range of breeds and how squishable the small ones are, so the scale of faes was definitely on my mind.

Some extra scribbly scrobbles for the next two days because I was both busy and tired.

I explained my dormant statue obelisk being a plague dragon in my lore by having him very slow to wake for yet unknown reasons. He first awoke in the Scarred Wasteland after some thieves mistook him for an expensive statue. Day 10: Petrified features them hefting their ill-gotten prize shortly before they get the scare of their lives when he wakes up.

For Day 11: Metals I was vaguely thinking of a young Nala, a metals double, peering around Venus, an older wildclaw who together with Nephrite does most of the metal smiting. Nephrite is technically there too, but I forgot to finish drawing him in and I was too tired to go back. XD

It's the second year of dergtober and I'm challenging myself to practice quick thumbnailing so that I can still scramble to finish a bunch of traditional paintings this month.., which honestly might not look all that different from last year, just no cleaned sketches or lineart allowed.

Day 1: Harvest features Celeste, who manages most of the clan's cultivated land, harvesting a carnival squash. This first day I was considering trying to do thumbnails in full color, but yeah no thank you. Trying to first put in colors and values/light conditions at the same time confuses my brain too much. Adding some accents to black and white like last year is easier.

Day 2: Truth focuses on Alethea, whose name means truth. I thought about continuing last year's drawing of her for the easy route, but that didn't seem like much fun or 'truth' enough. This scene depicts a hypothetical first encounter with my band of nocturne thieves Mapache, Westra, Flint, Nicandra, Seaberry, and Darter. Alethea lies easy as breathing, in contrast to her name, but she makes for a reliable business partner to fence stolen goods.

Day 3: Potion, where I didn't have much time so I took the extra lazy route and adjusted Altair's position in last year's drawing for Alchemist. I like the new pose a little better, and hey, he's got a potion now.

Day 4: Shelter I had two ideas for shelter and gave one a quick attempt before focusing on the other. The first is from when banes were first released and banescale hatchling emerged in the hundreds—my two took shelter in a cave far from the main emergence and were stumbled upon by Pyrope. I want to draw the moment properly one day but I don't think I've quite got the composition down.

Sliding another one of these in as a refresher between other paintings I really should be finishing. 2024's Dergtober Day 4 Pirate features the now officially named Seaberry. I'm not sure I quite captured the lighting condition I had in mind, and I wish there was a slightly clearer focal point, but other than that I'd say I'm definitely getting better at rendering.

I'm skipping over 4 days and going to Day 9 Exalt after this, although because the second year of Dergtober is around the corner I expect it will be a while before I actually continue.

And I've got another video, the shortest yet at just shy of 17 minutes. Aside from some time off-camera cleaning up the mass of coins and jewels, everything from lineart up to final rendering is in there. The final render isn't there because I didn't realize how long I was going to be polishing and a lot of it is me sitting back and staring anyway.

Here we go with the rest of artfight! This seems to be the year of high-effort attacks and a lot of fullbodies. I didn't have quite enough time to revenge all the attacks I got, but it was a nice problem to have because it meant I was receiving more gifts than usual.

Here we go with Artfight attacks over the first two weeks! Not a lot of attacks so far, but that's in part because much like last year with S.T.A.G., I got sucked into an attack that was much higher effort than it needed to be. I'm still entirely sure how I pulled off the reflective ground underneath Nebula, and drawing lineart for a full skeleton certainly took some time.

I've got a fullbody revenge with a background in the works because I guess I can't make anything easy for myself this Artfight.

Some images I put up on Artfight in preparation for this year's fight, including my first themed banner! I've been meaning to decorate my profile over there more for ages so it was about time I made something. I don't usually pick teams before the fight starts, but of the teams this year Fossils is just so much my sort of color scheme that I knew immediately, and therefore had a week to throw something together.

Here's a recent commission I had the delight of making, a pet portrait from photos of a very loved but now deceased ackie monitor named Leonard. I have done lots of cat and dog portraits, but it is not very often I get to do a different animal and it was a pleasure to go into detail on scale patterns instead of fur.