Yana's tumblr

The subtlety of elvish social cues and norms might be confusing to onlookers.

I’ve seen what’s on your mind. I know it well, a tale as old as time. You’re infatuated with what I represent to you. You'll eventually find something else to obsess over. At least the view is great. I... appreciate the moment.

I’ve seen what’s on your mind. I know it well, a tale as old as time. You’re infatuated with what I represent to you. You'll eventually find something else to obsess over. At least the view is great. I... appreciate the moment.

OPEN FOR BIZZNESS!!!!! (still)

The Guy Not To Worry About

This guy is actually one of the players from the sword dance picture. He’s really into bladed weapon sports and historical reenactments, in part because of the advantage in hand to hand combat due to his precognitive abilities. Well, at least against opponents that don’t also have them.

Design-wise he started off as a “someone with higher socioeconomic indicators in regards to Stabri” and so he’s got some common themes to previous pictures. And to some I sketches with notes I haven't posted because I would have to organize them better for showing.

Stars above, stars below. A traditional elven sword game. Follow the music. Cut the opponent’s ribbons during the window of time when your moves aren’t mirrored.

Over the centuries the ritualized sword dances have evolved into complex performances and also given rise to an entire category of sports with significant rule differences, and their own major leagues and events. In many of those the overall style points of the performers are more important than the hits. In some variants the ribbons have inscriptions with gameplay significance, such as requiring them to be cut in a specific sequence, or a cut changes the rhythm and tune of the music so each of the opponents can try to set their preferred pace.

Wounding the opponent incurs a major penalty, so the armored costumes used in contemporary games have special dyes that change color on impact with the blade. They still retain visual callbacks to their ritualistic origins. The traditional player/team colors are green and blue. Purple is used for accents.  

Humans stumbling upon strange, smooth-surfaced, unnaturally well preserved, fractal structures in the woods usually lack the context to know that they’re open air stages for just such dances and festivals, which tend to take place at night.

I could feel myself losing sanity points while doing the background for this.

For the regular viewers of my paintings these characters will be familiar. I even included items and accessories that they've had in various older pictures but not all of them together.

But in previous pictures one would get the impression that she's a sort of haunting presence. I wanted to make one where he's consciously and deliberately interacting with her.

Well, that and also I got prompted because I got asked whether they have ever done any strange dance-like arcane rituals (oddly specific question but I liked it).

So the new items here reflect a more occult context. The body chains are more of a playful nod to the idea of arcane binding since clearly they do not actually impede anyone. The chain around her neck would be more substantial if she didn't trust he wouldn't misuse it (it's a callback to an older one where it was on him but she didn't look humanoid in that picture).

I might have mentioned it in an older picture but her prismatic wings can refract not just light but other types of waves too, so this was my reasoning behind sometimes having a ripple appearance on objects in the environment.

The new elements like the talon gauntlets/jewellery have bits of similar shape to the centerpiece of her crown, he's wearing these because it synchronizes their appearance.

(wasn't sure if the tag comment meant you don't want me directly reblogging from you, so that's why I'm not @ your username)

Thank you, I like drawing them! There's something of a scope creep with pictures of recurring characters, once I'm happy with how they look, since I want to draw them doing things at places, and so it takes me longer to do the background because I have to form a concrete image of what the place looks like. In my head the environments are largely vibes but when I actually start drawing them I have to have some idea of where things are in relation to each other.