Exit Interview

#1 Work Ethic

My work ethic in this class has never been better. I actually wanted to do the work, even when I fell behind I tried to catch up.

#2 Enjoyed Assignments

I enjoyed all my assignments. If I had to pick a favorite it would be my unit on world building. While the research was tedious, I could put all of my creativity into it. My least favorite would be my 3D modeling unit. Starting from the beginning of such a huge program bogged things down. If I had to do it again I would find more resources before starting.

#3 Difficulty

All of my projects were difficult. The work with Maya was challenging because of how many tools and options there were. The Clip Studio unit was hard because of how many steps and processes there are to hand draw an animation. The webtoon unit was difficult because of the new perspectives I tried. World building was difficult because of the huge amounts of research that goes into it.

jan 21 final post

So this is the final post for this month, I learned quite a bit. Now to sum it all up.

So I started this month by developing the fae race in my world. I researched and developed...

#1 appearance
-mythology references
-general appearance
-what influences appearance
-physical capabilities
-age systems
-internal organ stuff/reproduction

#2 societal stuff
-history
-religion
-societal structures
           -the impact of...
                       -Gender
                       -Race/Ethnicity
                       -Sexual orientation
                       -Religious beliefs
                       -Physical and mental health
                       -Appearance and attractiveness
                       -Age
                       -Marital status and parent status
                       -Education level
                      -Occupation and income
                      -Native language and citizenship

-common attributes

-language

-opinions

-laws
-traditions

After that I moved back to working on part of the magic related system, familiars.

I had never set up how aging worked for the creatures, so I did that next.

January 15th, 2019. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

I haven't set possible life spans for creatures. So I'll be doing that today. As well as going through the systems for the race's ages.

So since I've already done the work I figured I'd explain the races first, then do the creatures.

I already explained aging for the fae...

-age to appearance
               -are born at the size of a toddler (around 2)
               -at 10 appear 6
               -at 20 appear 8
               -at 30 appear 10
               -at 40 appear 12
               -at 50 appear 14
               -at 100 appear 20
               -at 500 appear 25
               -at 1000 appear 30
               -at 2000 appear 35
               -at 3000 appear 40
               -at 4000 appear 45
               -at 5000 appear 50
               -at 6000 appear 60

Fae wings start to deteriorate at around 5000, losing the ability to reproduce with their wings.  Most fae will reproduce or die in battle before they reach 2000. At most they can live to about 6000 so that's where I set the cap. I wanted fae to be able to live longer than elves, though their culture encourages dying before their prime ends. I felt like it would work well if they aged faster in their early years then it slowed in later years. This similar to humans who in their younger years are developing quickly then it slows with age. However with fae it's at a much more extreme point.

The elves have a shorter life span than the fae.

-at 5 appear 5
-at 15 appear 10
-at 100 appear 20
-at 500 appear 25
-at 1000 appear 30
-at 1500 appear 35
-at 1750 appear 40
-at 2000 appear 45
-at 2250 appear 50
-at 2500 appear 55
-at 2750 appear 60
-at 3000 appear 65

Elves can feel when they are reaching the end of their lives.  Living to around 3000 years old before crumbling to dust. Some die sooner than this though, but all elves feel their death approaching within 50 years before it occurring. My friend was actually the one who made this choice, so I can't really say the reasoning behind it.

Vampires have the longest life span out of all the races. Living to around 10000 years at most. Vampires age at a high rate at first, it almost stops, then begins to accelerate again.

-at 5 appear 7

-at 10 appear 14

-at 15 appear 21

-at 30 appear 24

-at 60 appear 25

-at 100 appear 26

-at 500 appear 28

-at 1000 appear 30

-at 5000 appear 34

-at 6000 appear 35

-at 7000 appear 40

-at 8000 appear 50

-at 9000 appear 75

-at 10000 appear 100

Revenants have life spans closer to humans than vampires. I did this because revenants were humans turned by vampires, so they would be incomplete. They have a life span of about 250 years. There appearance locked to how they looked before being changed. Any human younger than 10 won't survive the change to a revenant.

Humans would have the same rate of aging they have in real life. Though due to the influence of magic they live to about 120. 

Onto the life spans of the worlds creatures...

-animals with heightened features
-Camazotz
-spirits
             -daemons                          -aethrials
             -wraiths
-dragons, wyverns
-golems
-regular animals
-elementals

Regular animals and heightened animals have the same life span of real animals.

Camazotz live about 300 years.

Spirits won't die as long as the have an energy source. In the case of wraiths they have to feed off souls. Aethrials will live as long as they are near their element. And daemons could survive as long as they have a vessel to possess. With out a vessel they have a few days before they fade without one.

Dragons live for about 8000 years, in mythology they had amazing longevity, I always liked that part of the myths.

Wyverns don't live quite as long as dragons, dying at around 4500 years. 

Golems can live as long as their creators do. Once their creators are gone though they don't function anymore. This is because of the signature that life magic leaves. A different source of magic can't activate a golem once this signature is left.

Elementals, due to their link with magic live to about 5000 years old. 

So that's the end of todays post.

January 14th, 2019. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

All right, so now since I'm finished defining all of the worlds residents I'll go back to working with magic. Onto the familiar system!

So, familiars are magical creatures linked to a person through contract magic. To be exact the most powerful contract possible. The contract binds the 2 beings souls together, if one dies so will the other, and the pairs magical energy is linked. In the world not having a familiar is extremely uncommon. There are many traditions related to it in the world (I need to add traditions to the list for developing races). Such as vampires having their protege enter into giant dungeons after a certain point in their life to find a familiar. As well as most vampires having Camazotz or spirit familiars.

A person and their familiar are called a sodality. I like using uncommon worlds to describe certain things in my stories. Such as in one story I needed a name for supernatural abilities, so I called them aberrant abilities. This is common in stories, authors, instead of creating a whole new word will re purpose a word that isn't used often. I do this by taking a common word that I could use to describe what I want, then I run it through a thesaurus a couple of times.

If one will naturally live longer than the other, the others life span is increase.
             example: an elemental bonds with a human.
The human would normally live to at max 120, where as an elemental could live to 1000 years (note to self: go through the live span of mythical creatures). The soul bond would combine their life span into one unified timeline, lengthening both creatures life spans.

Magic is fueled by life energy in the soul. This energy is used with a catalyst to influence the world and or it's rules. So when a familiar contract is formed and the two souls are linked the sodality gains access to each others magic energy. This also boosts the magic capacity of both parties. This does not allow them to use each other's specialty. Though it does increase the pairs proficiency in those types of magic.

Being linked allows telepathic communication. The distance this can be achieved at depends on the sodalities relationship. If the pair doesn't get along the distance will be short, the opposite being true as well. No matter the distance the pair will always be able to tell each others location. I chose to do this because animals wouldn't be able to speak with humans. They would need a way to communicate. I also didn't think it would make sense if a sodality was separated for them not to be able to tell where the other is. Stronger pairs would also be able to link their senses, this would only be possible with a extremely good relationship.

The relationship between pairs is extremely important. If it is strained the pair will weaken. Their emotions influence each other greatly, and if one is hurt the other will feel pain as well.

That's all I have for familiars, I took a lot of inspiration from witches familiars. I added my own twists to them though.

Next post I'll go over life spans.

January 11th, 2019. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

I'm going to start with the easiest one, opinions. More specifically, opinions regarding other races. The fae view every other race with contempt, feeling themselves better than the other races. In the worlds history, they have started many wars with the other races. They fight the most with the revenants and vampires. Causing a deep hatred between the two races. The reason the fae believe they are better lies in their military prowess. Having the most powerful army out of all the races.

Now, onto the most difficult part of world building, Laws. I took law in school and I still don't completely understand the legal system. Now I'm going to create my own, this is going to be fun (did I say fun, I meant terrible).

I was doing research into laws just now and realized. My friend who made the history also included aspects of the legal system into it. So I'm going to skip over this and leave it to my friend, because POWER OF FRIENDSHIP!!!

So I think I have all the world info I'll need on the fae race, plus more. So I'm going to do a quick sum up so I can go through the exact same stuff on my other races.

#1 appearance
-mythology references
-general appearance
-what influences appearance
-physical capabilities
-age system
-internal organ stuff/reproduction
-anything else I think of while doing it

#2 societal stuff
-history
-religion
-societal structures
           -the impact of...
                       -Gender
                       -Race/Ethnicity
                       -Sexual orientation
                       -Religious beliefs
                       -Physical and mental health
                       -Appearance and attractiveness
                       -Age
                       -Marital status and parent status
                       -Education level
                      -Occupation and income
                      -Native language and citizenship

-common attributes

-language

-opinions

-laws

-anything else I may think of later

Since I've gone through all of this on the blog already. I might just do the rest in my own time and move on in the blog to other things. 

January 10th, 2019. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

So, I'll get right to it again.

Common attitudes. I'm just going to create a list for this. I'll go through the list after and give reasons for why these attitudes would be collectively held. As well as why lacking them may affect a characters social standing. I googled a couple of online lists and picked some that fit. Including some of my own ideas that weren't on online lists.

https://psychlens.com/positive-and-negative-attitudes-list/

http://www.scriptmag.com/features/columns/a-flick-chick-by-paula-landry/quirks-flaws-improve-plot-character-development?utm_source=wir&utm_campaign=scr-jvb-wir-170117&utm_content=913766_SWIR170117+Tues+Script+Week+in+Review&utm_medium=email

http://jenniferellis.ca/blog/2016/3/23/what-makes-a-character-likable

-independent

-values resources
-have high level of self-esteem
-sincere
-hard working
-can be trusted
-reliable
-value time
-closed minded
-ruthless

Now this should be enough of a list, time to reason through everything.

Independent: would be due to how they are raised. A fae who depends on others would be viewed a bit oddly but it wouldn't have a huge impact on social status.

Values Resources: Fae are taught to value their resources, this is linked to their belief in elemental deities. They would see wasting resources as disrespectful to both the gods and the person who worked for it. A wasteful fae would be highly shunned.

High amounts of confidence and pride would be exhibited by a majority of fae. The minority would be caused by a lack of magic or physical potential.

Sincerity: while the fae are very prideful, often to the point of arrogance. They are very honest people, they view lies and deceit as pointless and shameful. It is seen as a weakness, lies are told when you can't stand up for the truth. Fae who are insincere are treated badly and held in contempt.

Fae have to be hardworking to do well in their society. They know the value of hard work and expect every person to put their everything into a task. Those who aren't hard working are often dismissed by their teachers and will be unsuccessful in gaining a mentor or work.

Because of their sincerity and diligence fae are very trustworthy and reliable. Fae are very loyal, while they don't form very many intimate relationships. The ones they do form are held in a high regard and are greatly valued. It is extremely rare to find a fae who isn't dependable.

While fae live long lives they live those lives well. Wasting time is frowned upon just as much as wasting resources. That doesn't mean they are always being productive however. Fae view any use of time as valid, reading, working, taking a nap, all have purposes. Sitting around staring into space is not a valid use of time though. Most fae are raised to habitually do something so a time wasting fae is uncommon.

Close mindedness: A very prevalent attribute of faes. They will stick to their opinions and beliefs firmly. They fight for their beliefs and if they are disproved, only then will they change them. Debates are encouraged between fae, as a useful way of solidifying knowledge. This doesn't apply to activities though. Fae are very open to trying new things, constantly seeking out new experiences.

Fae don't cut corners, they don't hold back. If they want something they will do anything to get it. They believe that if you can't protect what's yours you don't deserve to have it. Survival of the fittest.

That's the list of common attributes of the Fae, I'll do laws and opinions next post.

January 9th, 2019. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

So, firstly language. The fae do have their own language, however none of the main characters in the story know how to speak it. The fae speak it among themselves and refuse to teach it to outsiders. Esen is a fae, being abandoned at birth prevented them from learning the language. the rest of the main characters are not fae. Because none of the main characters know it I won't actually create the language. I imagine it would sound similar to Spanish or Portuguese due to English being the origin language in this world.

Onto religion for the fae. The most common belief is that their is a great deity who presides over the elements of the world. This deity died and became the world, skin becoming the earth, hair the plants, sweat the water, and so on. Finally this deity's blood became magical energy which flowed into certain trees becoming the fae. This magic flowed into stones becoming humans. It flowed into crystals becoming the elves. Finally that magic flowed into the leaves forming animals. Out of the world new deities where formed to preside over things individually. That's the belief they follow.

I kind of just randomly thought this up. So there was no real process to it's creation other than making sure it wasn't the same as the most common real life religions. Though I didn't want the fae's beliefs to not matter in the world so I made it make sense in the world. None of the races have any history dating back to the evolution of humans. So it would make sense that their beliefs would be impacted by the lack of knowledge. The fae do worship the deities but don't believe that the deities impact their magic.

I've mentioned this a couple of times but never really stopped to clarify. The fae can only be born from a certain type of tree. This tree won't be one that exists in the real world. I was thinking that I would make this tree be created by certain humans. similarly to how wraiths are created, these humans used too much magic directly and it influenced their forms. I'll probably do that in a separate blog post.

So that finishes religion and language. I'll copy the list again here...

1. History
2. Religion
3. Society structures of hierarchies
4. Common attitudes
5. Language
6. Opinions about other races
7. Laws or rules
8. Culture

I'll do common attitudes next post.

January 8th, 2019. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

Alright, back to it again today with societal structures, yay....

So for societal structures I have no clue where to start. So I'm going to google it. I found a good result, apparently when it comes to social structures, most are centered around social identities. Some of which being...

• Gender
• Race/Ethnicity
• Sexual orientation
• Religious beliefs
• Physical and mental health
• Appearance and attractiveness
• Age
• Marital status and parent status
• Education level
• Occupation and income
• Native language and citizenship

So first I think I should define what I mean by social status. Social status is a fae's value to their society. If a fae is of low status they are less likely to succeed. It is also a matter of pride for the fae, they are very prideful. 

Starting at the top, gender. So a fae's gender is defined by their wings, which I've already gone through. The fae are a very violent race, in the worlds history they start a majority of the wars. fighting is part of their culture. Female fae are warriors, they are trained in combat as children. This is because female faes are more magically adept and physically strong. As warriors females are the more dominant in the race, having a high social status. Males are not disadvantaged by this however they can gain status as teachers and through other paths. The wingless or gender less are viewed as worthless and are abandoned at birth.

Race and ethnicity don't really apply in this case. That would be more related to the inter race relations which I will cover another day.

Sexual orientation isn't applicable because there is no such thing as sex to faes. Romance is also not a thing.

I'll go through religious beliefs when I go through their religion. Though their religion wouldn't have much of an influence in interactions between fae.

Physical and mental health, as well as magical aptitude would play a huge role.

            Starting with physical health, any weak fae would be at an extreme disadvantage. The fae are a survival of the fittest type of society, if you cannot fight or teach you are lesser. Weaker fae would hold more menial roles in society. Though if they were weak physically but adept at magic they would still be able to have a higher rank in the social hierarchy. 

            Mental health is valued among the fae, though not in a way that would define social standing. Mental health care is widely distributed between fae, it is the responsibility of a fae's mentor to not only teach them, but in younger years to take care of them, including their mental health.

            Magic is one of the greatest definers of status to the fae. If a fae has a low magic aptitude they will be discriminated against and will even be abandoned at birth. Teachers can refuse to take on students, this will often happen for those with low magic potential. They end up in the lower ranks of society. 

Appearance is valued among the fae, mostly in the males however. It's very similar to real world bias's on appearance.

Age affects status differently depending on a fae's gender. It is a thing of great pride for any fae no matter the gender to die in combat. However for females it is seen as a shame to live past their prime. With male fae it is more accepted to live to an older age to mentor younger fae. It is culturally unacceptable for any fae to live till their wings fade.

Marriage is non existent within fae culture. A fae is raised by their mentor until that mentor has nothing more to teach them, then they move on to another. These mentors teach fae how to live, how to fight, and their craft. Often a fae will take over the craft of their first mentor. However some will continue to learn from different mentors until they find something they like.
Fae do form relationships but it is often platonic friendships, or short term partnerships. Fae are often closest to their mentors, often returning to visit and share new knowledge.

Education is covered above. Though what I haven't mentioned is how for lower class fae their are schools that they can go to. These schools have multiple fae under one mentor, like real life schools. Often fae in the lower classes will not be taken in by a mentor so they learn in these schools. The curriculum is generalized.

Occupations are impacted by status, if a fae is of low status they are less likely to be accepted by a successful mentor and will have trouble learning skills. Add to that the lack of physical strength and magic potential and they will have trouble doing most work. Occupations that make the most money and have the most status are thing that involve fighting. The fae have a very big military, being in the military or police force are common jobs. Being a sport fighter is also highly sought after. Magic has uses in every career so if you have a high magic potential you are also valued highly.

I'll explain the worlds currency, citizenship system and languages at another time. What I will type in quickly is that fae look down on mixed breeds. Having a half fae child is impossible through how they are born.

So I've gone through all of that information, I'll go through language and religion tomorrow.

January 7th, 2019. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

Alright last month, I'm going to continue with concept art and world building because I'm really enjoying it. I'm probably also going to continue this blog after this class ends as well.

So today, since I'm finished with the world's creatures I'm going to explain the people of the world. The world has 5 races, humans, elves, fae, vampires, and revenants. There is a lot of things to cover for each race. So I'll probably do one a day for this whole week.

Starting with my character's race (cause favoritism). My character is a fae, starting off with physical characteristics. From mythology across the world I've gathered that they are often portrayed as small creatures of varying age. In more recent media they are portrayed with wings, though originally they flew without them through magical means. Often they are associated with elemental magic. I'm going to use some of these attributes. I don't want them to be cookie cutter stereotypes so the details will be what I'll really flush out.
Appearance:
-short (average height is 4.8ft)

Appearance is influenced by magic, because fae evolved from humans when humans first discovered magic and tried to use it directly. Fae are closely linked to magic because of this. The more magic a character has the more it will influence their appearance.

-I want them to have short pointed ears (because fantasy tropes)
-Skin color varies, paler skin tones carry hints of purple and green, with darker tones appearing pink or orangy
-hair color and eye color can be anything, a characters wings and magic will influence their hair and eye color.
-they have mainly human features anatomy wise, lacking reproductive organs through.
-male wings, similarly to peacocks, are very aesthetic, shiny, and colorful
-female wings are very rugged, appear darker, and are duller in color.
-some fae don't have wings, these fae will have especially weak magic and won't be able to fly without the use of magic.
-wingless fae will be abandoned at birth, most die.
-wing sizing varies with magic capacity, though the size only minimally influences flight.
-age to appearance
               -are born at the size of a toddler (around 2)
               -at 10 appear 6
               -at 20 appear 8
               -at 30 appear 10
               -at 40 appear 12
               -at 50 appear 14
               -at 100 appear 20
               -at 500 appear 25
               -at 1000 appear 30
               -at 2000 appear 35
               -at 3000 appear 40
               -at 4000 appear 45
               -at 5000 appear 50
               -at 6000 appear 60

Fae wings start to deteriorate at around 5000, losing the ability to reproduce with their wings.  Most fae will reproduce or die in battle before they reach 2000. At most they can live to about 6000 so that's where I set the cap. I wanted fae to be able to live longer than elves, though their culture encourages dying before their prime ends. I felt like it would work well if they aged faster in their early years then it slowed in later years. This similar to humans who in their younger years are developing quickly then it slows with age. However with fae it's at a much more extreme point.

When it comes to reproduction, if they did reproduce like normal humans A: they wouldn't have enough differences from humans. B: the fae population would be huge due to the long life spans. So, I made the reproduction system painful, debilitating, and a one time deal. To reproduce a fae will rip off their wings, and cover them in the sap of a certain type of tree. After, they roast the wings, and plant and seal them in the same tree they got the sap from. The fae will then usually inform someone where the tree is and disappear to die. Often their familiar will guard the tree until they die. After a year the tree will split open revealing the child or in some cases children. If any of the children are born wingless they are left to die. If not they are taken in by a teacher to be taught everything the mentor knows.

Now we're done with physical appearance and attributes. I found a website while researching race creation and it has a pretty good list of things to develop. I've crossed out ones that have already been done.

1. History
2. Religion
3. Society structures of hierarchies
4. Common attitudes
5. Language
6. Opinions about other races
7. Laws or rules
8. Culture

The history of the fae was developed already by my friend. Who's also working on this story with me, so I'm not going to worry about that. I might make references to it when explaining how certain things were influenced by it.

I'm out of time for today so I'll continue this tomorrow. Starting probably with societal structures.

December 20th, 2018. Focus: Concept Art & World Building. Final Post!!

The last 3 weeks have probably been my favorite for this blog. Concept art and world building is super fun. I get to be creative and learn a ton of cool and varied facts at the same time. But this month is over so now it's time for a recap.

I started off by developing my worlds airships. I drew a pretty cool concept piece with a completely different drawing style than I was used to. I used an editing program to make my first speed paint. I set up the ins and outs of how the ships work. With magical functions, security, how the ships space would be used, I researched real planes, I estimated the size, figured out the occupancy of the ship, and set an estimate for traveling in my world.

After setting up airships, I worked on my worlds magic system. I started by clarifying how it was categorized into principal and physical magic types. Going through the base rules for each. I set the rule that souls are magic's power source, how that influences specialties, and magic levels. Which I defined and explained.

Branching off from magic, I went into what creatures live in the world. Going through multiple online lists, deciding which once would work in the setting, and cutting out any that were unnecessary. The list ended up being...

-animals with heightened features

         -increased size                                            -additional teeth, limbs, ect

         -amalgamations of multiple animals          -ect

-Camazotz

-spirits

         -daemons          -aetherals

         -wraiths

-dragons, wyverns

-golems

-regular animals

-elementals

I went through the details of all of them, and drew concepts for the ones that needed them. Learning a ton about mythology and trying new art styles as I went.

 I learned a lot about world building this month and I intend to continue learning about it in January.

December 17th, 2018. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

So I've decided to only draw a concept for the Golems. Dragons and Wyverns are already well known enough in appearance that drawing them would be pointless. I should hope everyone can already imagine a regular animal. As well I already have an image of Lina I can use for Elementals. So yeah, I'm going to draw a Golem. My character, Esen, owns a few tiny Golems so I'll be drawing one of them. Firstly I'm going to sketch it in my sketch book like I did last time.

I just kind of rolled with what I doodled so it just kind of happened. Sometimes that's the best way to draw, instead of defining a shape or basis you just draw. I named him Scotty Botty because Esen would definitely chose a goofy name for a Golem. I'm going to make him look metallic but rusty. I've never really done a metal or rust drawing so that's going to be a challenge.

I created a slide show of my drawing process for Scotty Botty.


That's all for this post. The next post I'll probably do on the worlds humanoid creatures.

December 14th, 2018. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

The video is still loading, so onto the rest of the creatures.

-mythical birds
-dragons, wyverns
-golems
-regular animals
-elementals

Starting on mythical birds, there are a lot of different legends about magic birds so I'm going to find a list. I did not find a list. To clarify I didn't find a lot of mythical birds other than the usual Phoenix and Thunderbird myths. So I've decided to not include mythical birds in my world, there isn't enough variation to separate it from creatures such as elementals. So mythical birds are being scraped.

Onto Dragons and Wyverns, firstly I'll clarify that there is a difference. I learned this while looking into the dragons in Skyrim. The dragons in Skyrim are actually Wyverns, they have two legs, plus wings. Dragons have four legs, plus wings. The only other difference I found between the two is that Wyverns are apparently smaller. So I'll be working with that as a basis for their appearances, as well as having smaller Dragons and Wyverns be weaker at magic. I'm going to have both creatures live in mountainous regions due to historical references and their ability to thrive in said environments. Dragon and Wyverns, similarly to humanoids in the world can use any type of magic, depending on their souls and magic capacity. Which ranges in the levels between 6 and 26, I wanted there to be a lot of variation in dragons. That includes personality as well, I want Dragons and Wyverns to be equal in mental capacity as humanoids, maybe even smarter in general. As for social structures, I think dragons would be more likely to live separately or in small communities of two or three. Wyverns would mostly live in groups, with weaker Wyverns banding together in large packs of 20-30.

Golems are different from the other creatures in the world, being unnaturally brought to life through magic. A lot of how they would work would depend on who in the world made them. Such as a character with weaker magic wouldn't be able to create a Golem that has a personality or the ability to use magic. Golems are basically the magical equivalent of programmable robots. So I'm just going to play loosely with Golems in the story, basing their abilities on the character who created them.

Just going to sneak in between, the video has finished loading so now I'm waiting for it to upload to YouTube. Back to work on creatures...

Regular animals are regular animals, same as real life. Though that does raise the question, how do regular animals survive with such powerful predators living in the same environment? Answer to that is population growth ratios. Regular animals would reproduce more often than the other creatures, like how rabbits do in comparison to wolves.

Last but definitely not least, these are my favorites actually, Elementals. Elementals, unlike Aetherals, are physical animals. With their magic linked to a single element each. Though due to their physical forms their magic is weaker than Aetherals, they can directly interact with the world. Appearance wise they would be influenced by their individual elements. Using Lina, my character's familiar, an air elemental ferret as an example. She has a light blue and white tint to her fur, and weighs very little in comparison to a regular ferret. They would have levels between 17-23, with rare ones reaching levels 24-26. their personalities would depend on their elements but would also be distinct from it, having their own force of will. They would live close to their elements, depending on the animal and element whether or not the live in groups.

So that's all the non-humanoid creatures in the world, I'll do concept pieces for these creatures in my next post. I'm not finished with this post just yet though, the speedpaint is finished uploading so here's that...


Now I'm done.

December 13th, 2018. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

Okay, now to draw wraiths, I have an Idea for how I want these to look, but no clue how to get there. I'm going to be experimenting a lot. I think for this one I'm going to draw it in my sketch book first.

I started off by loosely sketching the shape. Then I drew in the details, I didn't like how the face looked so I changed it to a gaping face thing. I want the cloak to look like it's falling apart into the wind. As well, I want the crown to look rusted and dull.

Now, to draw it on my computer I'll be uploading it into Clip and tracing over it.

So I did the initial sketch, but since I'm trying to do a completely different style than usual. I figured instead of explaining step by step, I'd do another speedpaint. So I'll record my work as I go, wish me luck.

Alright so I recorded the whole thing, around an hour and 10 minutes of work. The final image looks really cool, almost exactly what I was going for. So now I'll be using the same program as last time to edit the clips together, speed them up, and add music.

Alrighty, I'm finished the editing, now I just have to wait for it to export. I had a bit of trouble with speeding the video up, for a bit it wasn't registering that the speed had changed. It kept on listing the times as the same as they were originally. I fiddled around with it for a bit and found that while the clip will list as the original speed, the sequence of clips will register as the sped up times. The rest was easy, the video was just a minute longer than all the audio files. So I just staggered them so that there would be 30 seconds at the beginning and end of the video.

I'm going to end this post here. The video should be finished exporting by tomorrow, once it is I can upload it to YouTube. While I wait for that to load I can go through the other creatures like I've been putting off for the past couple of posts.

December 12th, 2018. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

Alright I'm going to draw the concept art for the creatures I've already explained.

I had drawn a sketch for the Camazotz already, so I just did the fine line work for that and just colored it in. In the original sketch of it had been mostly just a regular bat based on the reference photo I used. However, in the final line work I added another set of wings and made the ears bigger. Even with these changes it looks a lot like a regular bat so I might edit the design later. I do like the gradient I did on the wings though. I did one dark to light grey gradient, then in another layer above it I did a blue to transparent gradient. On the top one I lowered the opacity to tint the grey below. I did this separately on both the wing structure and membranes  (had to google the names of the different wing parts.)   I also added a leather like text to the wing membrane. Normally bats are a light brown color. I made the Camazotz grey and black, with blue tints, to have them fit more with the representations of death and darkness.

Now to start on the concept art for aetherals. One of the characters in the story has a wolf aetheral as a familiar (I'll do the world building for familiars another time). I decided to draw it for this concept piece, thing is, I've never drawn a wolf before. So I just googled "wolf" and picked an image I liked to use as a reference. I ended up just tracing the image. Well actually that's wrong, I started off by roughly tracing the shape. Then I used the airbrush tool and filled in and slightly around the sketch. I blurred the sketch and reduced the opacity on the airbrush layer. Next I did a finer line layer, followed by a layer of brightened lines that highlighted it. Finally, to show the color differential in the fur. I added a rough layer of color of over where the hair should be darker. I did this using a pencil tool I downloaded recently, because of how it inconsistently spreads. To finish it off I deleted the reference wolf image.


I'm out of time for today, so tomorrow I'll draw a concept for wraiths and finish defining the other creatures.

December 11th, 2018. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

Alright so now to actually set up the details for the worlds creatures. I'm going to start at the top of the list and work down.

I just realized while writing that ↑↑↑ that I should actually specify what I need to define for the creatures. That being...

-appearance                                -in world name
-location                                     -affinity for magic
-mental characteristics               -anything else I think of along the way

That's what I'll work with for now, onto the defining...

-animals with heightened features

         -increased size                                            -additional teeth, limbs, ect

         -amalgamations of multiple animals          -ect

-Camazotz

-spirits

         -daemons          -aethrials

         -wraiths

-mythical birds

-dragons, wyverns

-golems

-regular animals

-elementals

So starting with the top of the list we have animals with heightened features. Appearance is pretty simple, just imagine regular animals but with extra features or bigger sizing. I won't draw a concept art fr this one because of the simplicity. I'm going to have them called animals in the world, because there isn't any real differentials between them and regular animals. In regards to location in the world they would exist all over depending on the species of animal. They wouldn't have any magic capacity, being like regular animals. Mentally they would be the same as regular animals as well.

Next we have Camazotz, basically giant bat monsters. I only have a rough sketch of the Camazotz for now. I'll finish the concept art for this later, that will define the general appearance. I'm going to keep the name as Camazotz in the world, I think it will be a fun little thing for anyone who reads the story to research. Location wise, I think I'll have them live in hot, high altitude locations. The Mayan's associated the Camazotz with the night, death, and sacrifice, so I'll be using that as a basis for their magic affinity, making Camazotz more likely to have an affinity towards shadow and death magic. All Camazotz would be between the magic levels of 17 to 26. I'm setting it as a rule that magic creatures do not require a catalyst to use magic. Finally mental characteristics, they would be extremely violent and dangerous, attacking anything that comes into their territory. I also think they would be smart and cunning, stalking their prey before pouncing.

Onto spirits, spirits would be incorporeal beings, existing closely with magic. Their appearance would depend on what type of spirit they are. Since they are incorporeal they could exist anywhere in the world. Though their magic affinity would have an influence on where they might live individually.

I just had an epiphany while writing that last sentence. How would the creature's social dynamics work with others of their kind? With animals it would be similar to the real life counter parts. With the Camazotz, I think they would be pack creatures, just like real bats. Spirits would be more likely to live away from others of their kind or in small groups.

Back to spirits, since they aren't limited by physical forms they would have more powerful magic levels. More likely to be in the levels 24-26, but with some in the upper high tier levels. Mental characteristics would depend on the type of spirit. Onto the different types...

                  Starting with Daemons, I don't think they would have an appearance. With exception to when they are possessing something. In the world I want to have them be called Daemons, and no I am not misspelling demon. Daemons are the Greek origin of demons. Instead of servants of hell they are depicted as in common media and Christianity. Daemons were viewed more like ghosts or guardian spirits. They serve and protect humans from beyond the grave, bringing good fortune to those they follow. I'm calling them daemons in my stories world so to not associate them with negative connotations. I don't intend for Daemons to be wholly benevolent creatures either though. In the world they can range between good and bad depending on the Daemon. Daemons would have the ability to possess or be summoned into objects or creatures similar to demons. This would be an ability reserved for Daemons. Daemons would be more likely to have an affinity for life and mind magic.

                  Aetherals are impossible for me to explain the origin for because even I don't really know where I got my interpretation from. I will explain my idea of Aetherals, Aethrals are spirits linked to the elements. They take the appearance of transparent animals, and while physically incorporeal they can influence the world around them with their magic. I'll draw a concept art piece for them later. They would only be able to use elemental magic, and only one element per Aetheral. Aetherals would embody their given elements, being more a force of nature than an actual creature. Being so tied to their elements, Aetherals would be extremely powerful with magic.

                  Finally, we have Wraiths. Wraiths are violent spirits that devour the magical energy of others to sustain themselves. They look like black human silhouettes, with piercing, bright white eyes. I'll draw a concept for this later as well.

To explain wraiths I have to go into my worlds history for a bit. At the start of the worlds history humans where the only race. After using magic though they evolved into the other races. Using magic directly influences humanoids, due to the fact they weren't meant to use it directly at all. In this time humans who used magic could be devoured by it. Using up all the energy stored in their souls, this is what creates Wraiths.

A Wraiths only goal is to seek out and devour the souls of others. They are very similar to wraiths on this page. They don't have a magic affinity, due to lacking an energy source to use magic.

I'm going to stop here for today. I'll probably draw the concept art for the creatures mention in this post and go through the rest of the creatures tomorrow.

December 10th, 2018. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

Alright I've decided to start with the types of living things in the world. After I do that I can tailor the catalyst system to function with that in mind.

Firstly listing the humanoids in the world, since I already had that finished. We've got humans, elves, fae, vampires, and the sub species of vampires, revenants. My friends and I decided the humanoids at the very beginning of writing this story. We just picked random ones we liked personally. Originally we were going to also have automatons as a race. However it didn't fit into the world we were creating, so we cut them out. So a lesson to learn about world building is to cut what you don't need.

Now onto non humanoid races, to do that I'm going to find a couple of online lists of mythical creatures. 

So I found this one list, claiming to be the "ultimate list of mythical creatures", it was pretty short so I'm looking for another one... And I found these two lists...

https://www.mythical-creatures-and-beasts.com/mythical-creatures.html

https://www.mythical-creatures-and-beasts.com/undead.html

So off of these two lists I noted down all the ones that suit my needs. While some creatures stood on their own, some were of similar characteristics or basis so I combined them. Here's the current list of potential creatures...

-Ogres, Trolls, or Bigfoot type cryptids

-animals with heightened features

         -increased size

         -additional teeth, limbs, ect

         -amalgamations of multiple animals

         -ect

-Camazotz

-spirits

         -daemons

         -aethrals

         -ghosts

         -wraithes

-mythical birds

-dragons, wyverns

-golems

-gremlins, goblins

-shape shifters

-Loch Ness Monster, Morgawr, Ogopogo

-Boogeyman, Shades, Blackdog

-regular animals

-elementals

I also added some creature that I know that weren't on the list. Now, I'll take the list I created, get rid of any that I don't really need, and define the ones I'll use. I'll mark the ones I don't need in red.

-Ogres, Trolls, or Bigfoot type cryptids

-animals with heightened features

         -increased size

         -additional teeth, limbs, ect

         -amalgamations of multiple animals

         -ect

-Camazotz

-spirits

         -daemons

         -aethrals

         -ghosts

         -wraiths

-mythical birds

-dragons, wyverns

-golems

-gremlins, goblins

-shape shifters

-Loch Ness Monster, Morgawr, Ogopogo

-Boogeyman, Shades, Blackdog

-regular animals

-elementals

I'm going to set down what each creature is specifically tomorrow. As well as possibly going through how different types of creatures can use magic and their affinity for it. 

December 7th, 2018. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

Alrighty, continuing where I left off, we have mid tiers.

Mid tiers are levels 6-16. I gave the most amount of levels to the mid tiers because I wanted mid tiers to have the most variation in magic potential. With any level over 6 being able to use their specialty proficiency. As well as level 6s being able to weakly use any type of magic with a catalyst. Level 16s would be able to use any type of magic with a catalyst and be proficient with magic types suited to them.

Levels 17 through 23, high tiers, would be proficient with all types of magic with a catalyst and have mastery of their specialty.

The last 3 levels would be impossible for a humanoid creature to be categorized in. Creatures at this level would be able to use most if not all types of magic without a catalyst. I created these levels because in the story world, mythical creatures such as elementals, chimeras, and wraiths exist, to name a few. I'll go through the different types of creatures in the world in a later post.

In the lower and higher tiers I gave less levels because there would be less variation in those levels of magic capacity. where as I gave more levels in the mid tiers for more variants in capacity.

I left a lot of things about the system open for my own freedom. Such as what qualifies as proficient and the complete details of each specific level. I didn't think this was necessary to outline, because A: It will never be mentioned in the story, and B: It's always good to leave yourself some freedom when writing a story. The purpose of doing world building is to keep from falling into plotholes when writing. Not to limit yourself in what you can write.

I have yet to mention the research I did into magic systems before designing mine. I have watched and read about a lot of other magic systems over the years from reading and watching fantasy. I learned a lot from just paying attention to other works. I also watched videos about it online, while I won't go through everything in the videos, I'll embed them here...







That's all I have for today, in the next post I'll go into either catalysts or the types of creatures in the world.

December 6th, 2018. Focus: Concept Art & World Building

In regards to the magic system, I have the base types of magic that can be used. As well as the idea for how it can be activated. Not much more though, so I got to thinking about what I need to expand on. What I concluded was I need to develop...

-what magic uses as a source
-how catalysts actually function
-how the magic leveling system works
-what influences how a person can use magic
-what types of beings in the world can use magic (humans, fae, animals, elementals, ect)
-ect

I think first I'll go through the magic I have and how specialties are decided. When I first started deciding what types of magic there would be, I had trouble with the huge amount of possibilities. So I set 2 categories of magic in the world: physical and principal. Physical Magic is all magic that affects physical substances in the world: water magic, light magic, solar or planetary magic, ect. Principal magic is magic that affects the laws and nonphysical aspects of the world: gravity magic, necromancy, memory magic, ect. With those 2 categories I went through multiple lists of magic on the internet and used anything that was applicable with the types. From that I got the following list.

Magic:

Physical: Principal:

-material manipulation -cycle

-alchemy -animancy(life)

-construction -necromancy(death)

-destruction -time

-corrosion -chaos

-elemental -order

-air -luck
-smoke -mind

-vacuum -moral manipulation
-earth -dream

-crystal -emotion

-dust -information

-glass -memory

-lava -sensory manipulation
-metal -sleep

-mineral -space

-mud -dimension

-sand -gate

-wood -void

-plant -sense

-electricity -illusion

-light -precognition
-color -dowsing
-laser -soul sight
-shadow -Magnetism
-vibration -temperature
-sound -inscription
-water -enchantment
-bubble -enhancement
-ice -technomagic
-snow -force
-vapor -weight
-weather -motion
-fire -inertia
-heat -purification
-explosion -quantum
-plasma -contract

-solar

-environmental

-paper

So onto specialties. They are a magic type that a person can use naturally, without a catalyst or relic. A specialty is decided by what their soul color and personality, that's why the list of magic is color coded. The soul colors are...

-blue light dark

-green light dark

-yellow

-orange

-red dark

-pink

-purple

What color a character's soul is depends on their personality. This is where I answered my first problem, the energy source for magic, I'm going the easy route and saying it's powered by energy in the soul. People who have smaller souls have weaker magic, where as bigger souls means stronger magic. That's all the info I need for energy sources, since in the book it won't need or make sense to have an in depth explanation of the magic's source, it would be unnecessary exposition.

That leads into the question of the magic's leveling system. Since the ability to use magic and how well you can use magic is variable. If I don't define power levels it will leave the story open to plot holes. My friends and I picked 26 at random to be the level cap, so levels will range from 0-26 in magic capacity.

Starting at 0, these would be people with no ability to use magic. They wouldn't have a specialty, and they wouldn't be able to use catalysts. These people would be classified as non magical.

People through levels 1-5 would have weak magic abilities. Ranging from 1s, able only to barely use their specialty. To 5s, able to use their specialty, and with a catalyst use other abilities suited to them (the same color as their soul). These people would be classified as low tier magic users.

I'm going to stop their because I'm out of time for today, I'll continue tomorrow.