✨USEFUL ART RESOURCES✨

Mermay 2023 - #09 Modern - HTTYD Hiccup and Astrid

@comfortable-dragon

Hiccup never would have thought Gobber's stories about mermaids were true, yet here he is staring one in the face.

Twitter thread by Melissa Caruso about a labyrinthine magical bookstore in Syracuse, NY. Link to the first tweet in the thread; most pictures have image descriptions! Now here are the screenshots of that thread:

And then a hero of the labyrinthine magical bookstores of the world put all the bookstores that people listed in the replies on a map! (Google Maps link)

They start war, we win war, they complain, we get human rights allegations, repeat.

Jew here with a friendly reminder that:

Criticizing Isreal ≠ antisemetic

Supporting Palestine ≠ antisemitic

Believing in the Free Palestine cause ≠ antisemitic

BUT ALSO

A random ass Jew just living their life oceans away has nothing to do with the Isreal-Palestine conflict

Palestinian Jews exist

Jews that support Palestine exist (I am one of them)

Calling out ACTUAL antisemitism ≠ supporting Isreal

Slowly realizing that I was taught twice as much about the bubonic plague than I was about the shoah. I feel like that's telling. We never learned anything about the shoah specifically, just that the axis and allied powers existed, that Pearl Harbor happened, and we won. Because those are, apparently, the only important parts of WWII

60 Awesome Search Engines for Serious Writers

I’ll never forget when someone I considered to be a close friend said I was racist for stating that Palestinian children are brainwashed into hating Jews at very young ages.

And, yknow what, I think it’s time I address that because it’s been making my blood boil for that past few months. 

What about Tomorrow’s Pioneers?

What about this puzzle right here?

What about the fact that Hamas uses child soldiers to kill Israelis and Jews?

What about Hamas’s ‘summer camps’?

What about the fact that a large majority of Palestinian adults hold antisemitic values, meaning they are bound to teach those same ideologies to their children?

What about the fact that Hamas openly supports the Nazi Party while also being extremely involved and tyrannical in their civilian’s lives, meaning they very much could have, oh, I don’t know, taught it to their civilians? HELL, KIDS IN PALESTINE AREN’T EVEN TAUGHT ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST IN SCHOOLS.

It’s not ‘racism’, it’s fact. Stop infantilizing Palestinians. 

Condemn Hamas while also acknowledging that their civilians hold many of their ideologies. It’s ok to feel bad for the citizens, but it is not ok to purposely stay in the dark because you don’t like the truth.

My entire life, my mother has taught me about my honor. How I should never let anyone besmirch my name, including myself. One time my mom was accused of doing something inappropriate in work when she had not. 

My mom was upset because her honor had been violated by lies about her character. And I thought my best friend would know me better than that. She lied about my character and who I am as a person.

i will never not find it funny that the watermelon began as a symbol of Jewish self determination and Israeli nationhood in the 1940s. every time i see a self important goy comment a bunch of watermelon emojis on a post of a Jewish person existing I think “do they know they are using a symbol of Jewish indigineity and socialist/labor Zionism?”

a really fun recent commission: this custom bookplate for the curator of Judaica at the Museum of the Bible! it's based on a variety of texts that describe (at least some) sheydim as observantly Jewish - especially the Talmudic stories of Yosef Sheyda, a demonic scholar or possibly even a rabbi himself. the quote in the window is from Psalm 24, "the earth is the Lord's, and everything in it" which is often written above an owner's name in Jewish books, but provides double meaning here for the fact that sheydim too are divinely created. Jesse shares my love for sheydim as transgressive, marginalized figures who are nevertheless deeply Jewish, so this was an ideal collaboration & a delight to make!

also done entirely in Procreate, inked with True Grit Texture Supply's "Rusty Nib" engraver brushes - totally in love with this new process & the relative ease of accomplishing this type/level of hatching vs. traditional media (giving me added respect for the 17th century printmakers I've been studying). i will always love working traditionally but adding more digital techniques to my repertoire has been super useful.

I'm currently trying to world build a magical school for my fantasy realm. I'm having a hard time finding sources online. Any general advice for fantasy schools?

For starters, you want to have your magic system fleshed out really thoroughly. What good is teaching a bunch of kids how to use a magic system that you, the author, don't really know how it works, right!? If you haven't done this, you might check out my Brainstorming posts Here (Part 1) and Here (Part 2) to get started.

Beyond that, you need to think about some school basics:

Are all children educated in magic? Or only the most talented, the richest, or the poorest?

How does society at large feel about magic education and how does that impact the freedom and funds of the school?

(Related:) What kind of teachers are employed at the school? The best and brightest or the shlufs who couldn't make it in a "real" school? How does that affect the education of the students?

How does general education play into the lives of the students? Do they go to primary school first where they learn to read and write etc. or is that part of the their magic school curriculum?

How much danger is there in the day-to-day of the school? Is the magic difficult to use and therefore generally not a risk? Is it ubiquitous and therefore maintains some inherent balance? Is it difficult to use and therefore volatile and unpredictable?

What is the purpose of receiving a magic education and what do its students aspire to do after completing school?

I hope these help you out little bit. :)

Happy building!