I was asked by a friend yesterday if I could offer basic tips about comic paneling. As it turns out, I have a lot to say on the matter! I tried breaking down the art of paneling using the principles of art and design, and I hope it helps you out!
EDIT: uh uh there are a lot of people reblogging this, so i figure i may as well append this now while i can lol
This whole thing was very much cranked out in a few hours so I had a visual to talk about with a friend! If this gives you a base understanding of paneling, that's awesome! Continue to pull in studies from the comics you see and what other artists do well and don't do well! You can tell paneling is doing well when the action is flowing around in its intended reading format.
Here's the link to the globalcomix article from which I pulled the images about panel staggering! Someone sent in a reblog that it wasn't totally clear that the 7th slide mostly covers what NOT to do in regards to staggering, and that is my mistake!
I saw in a tag that someone was surprised I used MamaYuyu too, and I don't blame them lol. If I had given myself more than a couple hours maybe I would have added something else on, I just really admire MamaYuyu's paneling personally.
uh uh, final append: I am by no means a renowned master of paneling, so if you find anything off base here, by all means, counter it with your own knowledge and ways you can build upon from here! Art is always a sum knowledge of everything we find. πͺ
Hikarina- The Alshaljilan Bloodline and the Tear of the Eclipsed Sun
During the establishment of Hikarina, one of the surviving Solarians' descendants happened to maintain ownership of the Tear of the Eclipsed Sun, an old artifact created during the peak of the Cycelian Empires era that meant to embody the might of Solaris. Inside of it was bits of power from every Solarian that was alive during the time. So they're a descendant of the artifact keepers of that era that were entrusted to keep documents of everything powerful created in the kingdom and also protect those items, but the only thing that their ancestor in particular managed to keep ahold of was the Tear The Tear is powerful enough to allow more sunlight to pierce through the sky filled with debris and more shit starts to fall from the sky, and is also strong enough to create a barrier around the new kingdom of Hikarina to leave it in eternal day. Become of that individual holding control over the Tear, they ended up becoming the leader of the new Hikarinans and would build a central cathedral in what'd come to be known as Arenlia to house the Tear. This individual would also establish the Alshaljilan bloodline, which was the previous ruling bloodline of Hikarina. So that bloodline disappeared during the years right before the Warring Era, with every last one of the 10 members that existed at the time having mysteriously just vanished This created a massive power vacuum of different noble families fighting(not a war just a lot of arguing and bribery) over which would become the next ruling bloodline, and in a century the kingdom went through 5 different families. Eventually the Falisthena bloodline arose out of nowhere(literally no one had ever heard of them) and people got sick of the chaos so the majority of the population ended up following them. The ones that didn't were either threatened to accept the new leadership by others or vanished without a trace
The Falisthena bloodline doesn't suck at leadership so for now they've remained in power and not a lot of people complain about them politically
Jivankova-
Nothing really happens here, but when the Urthalisans came across them, they found the Urthalisans interesting and let them stay, with some people adopting the Urthalisan culture over time. Since then, the Urthalisan culture has changed a lot, but the original Jivankira Elthir culture has endured
Lustarise- The War of Shattered Ruby
This was in the Ember War post but giving a bit more detail
So the Geintori are Lustariseans that absorbed a shard of the core of a crystal elemental by either accidentally touching one thinking it was just a regular crystal on the ground or having a dying crystal elemental assimilate itself to a Lustarisean through merging its core with their heart
When Geintori started becoming a thing, the Lustarisean population basically went from viewing them as regular members of society to something to be researched Some Geintori didn't mind because they were hoping there'd be a way to reverse the process, some felt their personhood(elvenhood?) was violated by the research protocols One of the Geintori that was part of the latter group was Kougyuku-rub(formerly Enshoukei Kougyuku), the brother of the Shin'nyo Apolis'Asuremant at the time Enshoukei Riebuno, with both of them being ruby Lustariseans The Geintori of course got very sick of this very soon and planned a whole revolt to gain some sort of sovereignty to they wouldn't have to deal with this if they didn't want to, so Kougyuku used his leverage as Riebuno's brother to convince the team of researchers on him to let him loose and then went on a spree of freeing Geintori on the research centers A war broke out very quickly in some of the cave chambers and a plot to assassinate Riebuno was created, with Kougyuku volunteering himself to take on the task Riebuno heard of this very soon and turned up at the front lines closest to the capital to duel Kougyuku, with the terms being if Kougyuku wins then Lustarise will allow the Geintori to become a sovereign kingdom, but if he wins then Lustarise will not hesitate to quell the Geintori population with a sound based weapon that'd shatter them all as he had been lenient with them initially The duel happened and it turned out to be a draw, with Riebuno taking a large crystal spear to the heart from Kougyuku's power and Kougyuku shattering into glittering dust and ruby shards from taking on a blast of Riebuno's power point blank(he was not the High Asuremancer for no reason) Honoring the duel's terms but also recognizing that this was a tie, Lustarise would agree to let the Geintori gain partial sovereignty as a sub-kingdom rather than a whole separate kingdom, but threatened that if another war broke out then they'd use the aforementioned sound-based weapon The Geintori would accept as this was better than nothing and would gain part of the Lustarisean cave system to claim as their territory, calling the new sub-kingdom Geintora The war would be named the War of Shattered Ruby in honour of Kougyuku and Riebuno, as agreed by both sides Some shards of Kougyuku still exist, but the amount of him turned to dust means he cannot be reformed and using substitute pieces to replace his missing parts would end up creating an entirely different person. These shards and a fragment of Riebuno's crest are stored in the central building of Geintora and Kangasaki Kyusen respectively
Walekria-
N/A shit doesn't really happen there
Yukiosa- The Tale of the Brood of Orvalak
Read here
YΕ«regina-
N/A shit doesn't really happen there that's worth noting and hasn't been said already
Zodiana-
N/A shit doesn't really happen there
This shit is being split in half(actually half this time not into 3 parts) Technically it's two eras, being the Warring Era and Era of the Orders, but EO is where the world is currently so I won't be counting anything about it under lore. The Warring Era was a period of time that has a fair amount of detail, but is pretty distinctly split into the Minor Wars and Ember War, so they're getting separate posts. I'll probably create a post with some notes for the history of individual kingdoms where it's notable, titled something like 'Part 4, Kingdom History'(working title). Maybe will do external universal lore at some point that'll be labeled Universal Lore and have 4 parts in a more storytelling style, but only one is actually complete and survived the minor revisions of a few months ago. The other three parts don't exist yet lmao, I have to compile and create new info for them because I don't usually think too much about the Eternaveilans. Realm lore outside of the Eternaveilans is a big fat maybe leaning on the unlikely side because there's not much to them, and even I have no idea what to write for two of the realms because they're mostly irrelevant and kinda just exist as gaps in the universe order.
No post this weekend unless someone wants to suggest a topic, my mind is blank right now lmao
Organizations of the realms in the Elvaria Universe
Boriasonde is crossed out since it collapsed(refer to Voiskanan lore)
Unfortunately for me, carrd did not let me make my own portfolio site because of the 50-asset limit. Fortunately for you guys, I have about 29 short stories planned and some rewrites, so maybe this account will come back to life but that highly depends on my life and motivation.
I'll likely also be posting on Ao3 when my account is approved. I'll make an update post with my username when that happens.
Don't know if anyone will see this, but if you previously followed me, thanks for sticking around :)
My taglists are pretty much dead in the water now and I don't want people randomly seeing pings after a year of silence, so if you'd like to join, please DM me.
Fandom Problem # 4074
The following two opinions can and should coexist:
"No one owes a fanartist/fanfic author/other fancontent creator comments/reblogs."
AND
"If no one leaves positive comments/reblogs on fanart/fanfic/other fancontent, they shouldn't be surprised if the fanartist/fanfic author/other fancontent creator slows their updates or even stops publishing content all together."
And yes, the phrase "positive comments" is important here. If the only comments are flames or demands for more content without otherwise complimenting the fancontent, they'll do the same amount of good as zero comments, if not worse.
Before the creation of this existence, there were four beings of immense power that dwelled in the vast darkness.
The first was named Tilisnet, who was born in the previous existence, being reborn every five cycles. He had power over the flow of time, able to bend and shape it to his whims, and he could repair or halt its flow as he wished.
The second was named Seclir, who was born near when the previous existence had ended, being reborn every eight cycles. He had power over the fabric of space, weaving the energies within it to create stable planes and quell chaos.
The third was named Avaas, who was born during the start of the first cycle and existence, and was far older than Tilisnet and Seclir. He had power over worlds and realms, able to travel between them as he wished, ensuring that the cycles could continue without issue.
The fourth had no permanent name, as he was reborn at the start of every cycle, and thus was referred to as Nix, meaning 'nothing' in a long lost tongue. He was the void and abyss, his death and rebirth ending and continuing cycles, creating a nothingness for time and space to turn into something. Without Nix, the flow of time cannot exist and space will be torn apart.
Normally, Nix would have been found by Avaas, as it was how it went all the other cycles, but this time, Avaas had chosen not to search. He believed that Nix would fare fine alone, as Tilisnet and Seclir were able to control their powers and prepare for the birth of a new existence. Nix, at first, found this to be odd, but let it be, as he assumed that Avaas would look for him at a later time. Though as more and more chaos was muted and turned into peace, he felt betrayed, believing that Avaas had chosen to ignore him despite Avaas having searched for him in every other cycle. These feelings of betrayal festered into anger as more time went by and the existence was created, developing an anger towards the light of the young stars that now flooded the skies, thinking that Avaas wanted to destroy the nothingness of Nix in this cycle.
In retaliation, Nix created an ultimate nothingness that became a hidden realm that even Avaas couldn't travel to, located far beyond the reach of the light of the stars, and there he learnt to turn his nothingness into something, with the something being the embodiment of his anger and feelings of betrayal, infusing this something with the chaotic energies of nothingness. These energies would come to be known as abyssal energies, and this hidden realm would be known as the Civalthax, the Abyss.
Nix continued to tamper with his abilities and the abyssal energies, learning to condense them into shapes and bending the energies to his will. He wielded them as Tilisnet would with the flow of time and as skillfully as Seclir would weave the other energies of space, and yet still avoided the eternally watchful gaze of Avaas, whom he still felt resentment towards. With the combination of the abyssal energies and his emotions, he created Nythokra, the first of the beings of the abyss.
Nythokra was a being of pure darkness, its appearance being a twisted image of Nix's own self. Nix was horrified of Nythokra, fearing that if he continued further down his path of anger and went on to destroy the light, everything else would fall along with it, leaving only him and his horrid creation. However, a little whisper from within the depths of his mind assured his doubts, as it was either destroy all or be destroyed, and he didn't want to disappear and be forgotten, unable to be reborn in the next cycle.
His hidden realm of Civalthax kept expanding as the millenniums passed by, the abyssal energies inside of it slowly twisting themselves into corporeal forms that eventually came close to being "living" beings, of which Nix named Abyssal Lords, while in the new existence, which had developed and grown considerably, the creation of worlds that could harbour life begun.
Nix watched one world in particular with great interest, one that was entirely dry but still seemed habitable, even after it had sustained three asteroid impacts. He envied that Tilisnet and Seclir could create such worlds and allow them to have life, and so he used his own few powers to create a small seed, infusing it with the tiniest bit of abyssal energies, and sent it to the planet, hoping that he would be able to create proper life or at least influence its evolution.*ΒΉ
Nythokra watched this alongside Nix and spoke for the first time, asking Nix if there were other ways for life to be created, and if true life could exist in Civalthax. Nix had no answer, and he did not know, but it left a single thought in his head: "Can I make life?" As he continued to watch the development of the planet and observed the evolution of its life, he began to obsess over creating similar, but perfect beings, wanting to spread his influence and gain the ability to create something directly from his nothingness.
Nythokra, being a twisted image of Nix and the reflection of his emotions, was compelled to aid Nix in the process, gathering the Abyssal Lords to find a way to make more pure beings that had solid forms and were alive. Though, they struggled, as they did not fully understand how life worked, and neither did Nix, who was only able to observe living beings from afar in all of his lives, and he, Avaas, Tilisnet, and Seclir were embodiments of the aspects of the Laws of Order, thus not making them able to be considered living.
Regardless of the many failures, they still continued, destroying and creating over and over, using abyssal energies and manipulating nothingness, even resorting to having to steal some of the energies Tilisnet and Seclir constantly created.
Eventually, they succeeded, creating the first living being of the abyss by forming the combined spatial energies into a solid being and making one of the Abyssal Lords mate with it, as was observed with the life on the planet. An unstable lifeform it was, but still a lifeform nonetheless. Though the being was corrupted in the process, it gave birth to a being that lived and breathed and could grow, and so, Nix named the being Voiska, though the being of spatial energies died. When Voiska was considered an adult- or at least based on the guessing of Nix, Nythokra, and the Abyssal Lords- they were given the chance to choose a mate in order to create more living beings in Civalthax. Voiska chose an Abyssal Lord named Kazilv, and with gender being nonexistent among the Abyssal Lords, the mating was successful once more, and this time, twins were conceived.
Nythokra and Nix decided to steal more of the spatial energies that Tilisnet and Seclir created, but found that they had both created their own realms and their own living beings using their energies, leading them to channel their energies to the realms directly rather than let it flow throughout the existence.
Nix was ambitious, determined to create more life like Voiska, and decided that he should make use of the instability that the flow of time constantly had, redirecting small channels of the energies in Tilisnet's realm of Boriasonde to Civalthax.*Β³ Going unnoticed by Tilisnet, he deemed his plan to be a success and created more beings of spatial energies for the Abyssal Lords be mated with, leading to more life like Voiska being born.
Nythokra named the elf-like beings Voiskanans after Voiska, and Nix established a kingdom for Voiska to rule, which would come to be known as Voiskana, the kingdom of the Abyss. However, seeing the life that so easily was created by Tilisnet and Seclir made Nix envious, reminding him of why he had started all of this, and he felt spite and anger towards Avaas once more, leading him to start using the Voiskanans to achieve his goal of destroying all of the light in existence, wanting to leave only him and his creations to roam around in his reclaimed nothingness.
This desire for the return of nothingness still burns within Nix to this day, fueled by his fear of being destroyed and by his thoughts that he had been betrayed and abandoned, with the Voiskanans having conquered and destroyed many worlds and stars in his name.
Now, Voiskana has opened rifts into the world Nix had long observed, named Elvaria, slowly planning to corrupt it from the inside out.
But, only time will tell what the fate of this existence will be, and one can only hope that Nix will see reason somedayβ¦
--------------------
ΒΉ- This seed did indeed influence the evolution of life on Elvaria, but not in the way Nix intended. It instead led to the growth of the ancient druidic race the Partoa Elva fought near the end of the Dust Era.
Β²- The kingdoms of Solaris, Lunaris, and Urthalis have by then been established.
Β³- The redirecting of the energies was the major influence that lead to the collapse of Boriasonde, unbeknownst to most including Nix.
When observing the order of realms in this existence, it is fair to say that the High Realms are roughly in the same level as The Realm of Endless White, but most denizens of either will never encounter the other.
This realm is, as it is aptly named, pure white. There is no civilization there, and when first entering it may seem that there is simply nothing there at all. It is simply a realm of expansive ground that has no variation in topography- but there is "life", or rather the remnants of life.
To explain the Realm of Endless White, you must first know of the Realm of Skybeasts, where all dead from the Lower Planes must pass through first before they reach the White.
Whether they have sinned or were gracious in life, or were mere children or elderly before their deaths, all life of the Lower Planes is sent here and enters through a doorway known as Telvorshei Ermelorisk, or "From Where We Emerged". No living being*ΒΉ has ever crossed through this entryway or has gazed through it to describe its appearance- but for those nearing death and those who have already died, on both ways there is only a white light within the doorway. High Realms races are unaware of the existence of this realm and none have ever entered it*Β².
The doorway is located in a fixed spot within the Realm of Skybeasts, but whether the entry into a realm of death is a peaceful or horrifying ordeal is a matter of your own luck. As anyone who has died would quickly find out, the Realm of Skybeasts, also known as The Plateau, is filled with strange beasts known as skybeasts, and the vast majority of them are incredibly aggressive and possess a great many ways to kill a soul, including various venoms, spikes, and teeth.
If a soul did not get mauled by a skybeast as soon as they emerged, they will very quickly also realize that in contrast with the inviting clouds that create the ground of the realm, there are a great many eyes that dot the sky in all sorts of colours and forms that a mortal never would've thought existed. On a calm period, these eyes are inactive and appear to not be present(thought if you look closely they are closed). On an active period, they will randomly emit blasts of energy that can disintegrate any soul they land on. In the distance there is also a giant gaping maw that opens during these active periods and vacuums up souls that happen to be near it.
If you manage to survive this and travel in any direction away from the maw, you will come across rudimentary shelters and outposts surrounded by fences made of various Skybeast parts.
These are the only major signs of civilization and a souls' best chance of making it to the Realm of Endless White.
The outposts are roughly the size of a town and they have very simplistic names, with the inhabitants are a mix of races from across the Lower Planes. There is no major language barrier as souls appear knowing a common language along with whatever is their native tongue, but abstract ideas that are unique to specific worlds are not automatically learned by souls from worlds without them.
As for the condition of the people and whether or not they can die, people who die at the age of adulthood for their kind will appear in the Plateau at their peak strength in life and with whatever they had on their person when they died(if they were stabbed or shot they carry the thing that was stuck into them too), but are incapable of learning new spells from other souls. Children and adolescents will appear at the age they died but will be able to grow up to the age their species considers as mature and can learn new spells. The only ways to permanently die in the realm are to be consumed by the maw, be completely eaten by a skybeast, or be blasted into smithereens by the Eyes. Souls that suffer a temporary death may slowly regenerate if a part of them remains or will reappear at Telvorshei Ermelorisk.
Life in these settlements is considered somewhat tribal, with the main concerns being food(appetites are significantly slower than in life), shelter, hunting and resource gathering, and weapon crafting. Some settlements that are close to each other will choose to specialize in weapon crafting, some in building, and some in medicine. Souls that are known to have a violent nature that cannot be persuaded to become skybeast hunters are kicked out of the settlements and left to fend for themselves.
Banditry does exist in the Plateau but is rare as some settlements may have domesticated the more tame skybeasts. Whether or not a settlement is raided also depends on the actual species(plural) in the settlement and what kind of technology the people have, so a bandit group composed of species without magic would not try to go against a settlement composed of species with magic or with technology sufficient enough to compensate for a lack of magic.
Now, the Plateau does have a sort of leadership, albeit very distant from the regular souls.
The beings are not of any race among the souls of the Plateau, so souls that have encountered them before(and have the concept of divinity on their world) view them as strange gods. Those from races without the concept of divinity have two different views, one being that they are of a long extinct race and have evolved after spending many uncountable years in the Plateau, and the second that they are actually native to the Plateau but evolved to become more intelligent than the skybeasts.
The leaders themselves are known as the 7 Elders by souls and are split into two groups: The Supreme Ones and The Fragments.
From what little souls have heard about them, their names have the prefix "The Elder of" and are something akin to Many Eyes, Many Arms, Many Legs, Fragmented Life, Fragmented Death, Fragmented Time, and Fragmented Space. The maw in the land and the eyes in the sky are part of what used to be an 8th Elder known as Many Mouths, according to souls that have been in the realm from the first few thousand deaths in existence. Now, the 8th is known as The Devourer of the Plateau.
The Elders live in a very out of place citadel with geometric patterning and a large central chamber that few have ever seen, and it is generally accepted that the Elders are strange in that they have never left the Plateau.
Souls are able to leave the Plateau whenever they hit a kill quota of skybeasts, and this number tends to be higher for those that have committed something their society considers to be negative and lower for younger souls that couldn't actually commit anything considered a crime, but it isn't uncommon for souls to have quotas that are unreasonable for what they have done in life.
The Elders, though, have been present for as long as anyone knows, unable to pass on or perhaps unwilling, as the Devourer has consumed some trillions of skybeasts but has yet to disappear.
And so the focus must return to the Realm of Endless White, also known as The White or The Expanse, to complete this description.
When a soul has reached their kill quota in the Plateau, they will appear in The White in simple garb considered to be casual or sleepwear from the species they came from. In The White there is no need to eat or sleep, only to just exist. Desires such as lust or greed do not exist, and so the personalities of the souls that make it there are very watered down. Some souls choose to lay down and sleep until the end of everything, and some others choose to travel around and learn of the many races in existence with there being no skybeasts to fear anymore.
Curiously, some Altersaeans, Spaelculans, and Tilemgians have appeared in this realm before, but not many of them.
Now, the only way to permanently kill a High Realms being is to slay them in their home realm under specific circumstances and methods, which will lead to two outcomes for them: one is two simply cease to exist, the other is to appear in The White. Due to The Tearing, there are a fair amount of Tilemgians there, but all the High Realms races that appear will lose their connection to their creators and thus their abilities, with some also facing severe memory loss.
Voiskanans are believed to also follow these outcomes, however what few Voiskanans that are seen to make it to The White only maintain their existence for a few seconds before fading into nothingness, as their souls will always be incomplete and thus return to their origins.
--------------------
ΒΉ- The most immediately noticeable case is with YΕ«regian undead, which are technically not alive but also aren't fully dead. A YΕ«regian necromancer can raise a body if it's intact enough, but on the soul end, the closer a YΕ«regian soul gets to reaching the quota, the harder it is to raise them into undeath. If the soul manages to meet the quota, they can no longer be raised as The White fully severs the connection between the Lower Planes and Realms of Death. However, this almost never happens as necromancers are fast acting enough to prevent a soul from being in the Plateau for more than a week. As to whether the necromancers know of the Plateau, the memories of it are wiped from the undead individual and are restored temporarily each time they return to it.
Β²- Tilemgians may become the first exception to this as they are now semi-mortal after the Tearing of Boriasonde, so it's possible that a few that don't end up ceasing to exist after death will end up in the Plateau. Alternatively, the descendant races of them that are scattered throughout existence could reach total mortality close enough that at some point they'd be admitted to the realm as any other mortal race would.
There will be a short story posted at some point that will explain the origins of the Elders, so look out for it! This post will be linked to it too.
--------------------
Taglist for writing-
@aneci
If anyone else would like to join the taglist, feel free to DM me or send in an ask! I will also have a separate taglist for art posts.
@cilil Thank you for tagging! I haven't posted in a while because I'm missing a lot of schoolwork so this is probably going to be my only post until the weekend where I'll hopefully be able to post again
1. Are you named after anyone?
As far as I know, I don't think so? My name is a mishmash of Chinese words badly Latinized(probably not the right term) and I have bore the cure of the resulting uncommon name. My actual Chinese name though, I don't think it came from someone else.
2. When was the last time you cried?
Cried from life problems, probably last week. Cried from a game, today(Honkai has me crrying whenever Elysia is brought up)
3. Do you have kids?
No, I will die alone with 7 cats and absolutely no one can stop me.
4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?
Yeah, more than I really should. A lot of my humour is satire.
5. Whatβs the first thing you notice about people?
Clothes, I don't like looking at faces more than I have to
6. Whatβs your eye colour?
Dark brown leaning into mahogany.
7. Scary movies or happy endings?
Either depending on my mood and if the writing is good. If a happy ending needed necessary and tragic sacrifices to reach it, even better.
8. Any special talents?
Uhhh I wouldn't say they're very special, but I can play clarinet and rudimentary guitar, write, draw(stuck on that point where I'm not seeing any improvement though), and design.
9. Where were you born?
Four words- oil and ranch sauce
10. What are your hobbies?
Gaming, drawing, writing, sleeping, procrastinating on homework too.
11. Have you any pets?
1 cat, 10 years old and with the density of a black hole.
12. What sports do you play/have played?
Used to do karate and swimming, then some archery. Nowadays just tennis.
13. How tall are you?
Tall for my ethnicity and gender but short for most western nations.
14. Favorite subject in school?
Tie between history and life science.
15. Dream job?
I have no idea lmao the economy is crumbling and everything I want to do will leave me in crippling student loan debt. But excluding everything being on fire and the current limits of what we know about existence, definitely a xenobiologist or xenovirologist. Anything with aliens.
Obligatory tags for future victims willing participants(sorry if you've done this already)- @aneci @jlilycorbie @chandra-chamak @melkors-big-tits @hmdeath @mirrorofagony @ourfutureorigins @theblackbookofarkera
A fantasy worldbuilding project focusing mainly on elves. This account has been retired, my posting account is now @ilisteria
99 posts