Happy birthday to the United States of America <3

Sadly, I don't have any new artwork to share today, but I'm still chipping away at the big one. In the meantime, here's a little historical rambling from me:

Technically, the USA was realized on July 2nd, 1776, when the Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution which declared the independence of the colonies as sovereign states. July 4th is considered the honorific anniversary since that is the day that the Declaration of Independence was adopted, signed, and published by the Continental Congress. John Adams believed that July 2nd should have been the day marked for celebration, but the founding fathers proclaimed July 4th to be such because most of them had surprisingly forgotten the anniversary until July 3rd of the next year.

Adams’ Federalists and Jefferson’s Anti-Federalists would continue to fight over how the country’s anniversary should be celebrated, and both men would pass away on July 4th in the same year of 1826. Jefferson wrote a letter just two days before reminiscing on the importance of the day, how it should stand to refresh our memories of the sacrifices made by our forebears to earn the rights we protect now. In reflecting this, we may better understand what it takes to do the same for ourselves and for our future generations.

Here's something a little more conservative: Armada and her party's favorite foods.

• Armada: Often walking the frontier, Armada largely maintains a humble, if lean, diet of simple foods such as apples, nuts, ash cakes, and crackers --- things which keep well and can be eaten with little to no preparation. If she is to partake in more complex dishes, her favorites include chicken fricassee with herbed biscuits and apple pie.

• Willow: It's a common misconception that since Dryads are anthropomorphic plants, they do not need to eat food like the other races and can simply photosynthesize their energy; on the contrary, since photosynthesis alone would not generate enough energy for proper ambulation, Dryads have evolved to become a species of carnivorous plants possessing internal digestive glands. This takes the form of an organ in their stomach that resembles a pitcher plant (which, consequently, gives their "breath" a faint floral scent). The gland generates within itself a chemical pool of acids, enzymes, and proteins which break down the material they consume to later absorb the released compounds, much like a normal stomach. That being said, Willow herself is still markedly vegetarian. One of her favorite things to eat is the fruit of the ghostline plant, which tastes like what we would consider to be blue raspberry candy.

• Baltimore: A worker through and through, Baltimore likes anything warm and filling (also, preferably cheap). His favorite is a large helping of honey-glazed grits, though he’s never had a bowl as good as his mom used to make.

• Wisp: Wisp’s favorite food is the ordinary sugar cake, which she holds symbolically as the first luxury she ever earned for herself after escaping from slavery. She copied the recipe from a cookbook she once borrowed from Whitelocke’s lending library, and she keeps the copy in her Hertha (the Phylianist holy book).

• Cyrus: Coming from a family of new wealth, Cyrus grew up in relative comfort in the colonial city of Blackwridge. His favorite meal, cream of mushroom soup, dates back to his childhood, when he and his father would look for mushrooms in the chilly woods near their estate. Cyrus somewhat ironically considers these mushroom hunts as having planted the seed for his later interest in detective work.

• Vivian: Vivian holds a scientifically organized diet, although her recent ventures into the frontier under Armada’s leadership have given her cause to expand her palate and eating times. She is mostly vegetarian, only choosing to eat meat when nutritionally necessary, and will prefer her meals to consist of a simple spread of bread, milk, vegetables (especially cauliflower), a soup, and red wine — the last of which is her favorite part. To Vivian, red wine is not only an essential health supplement, but also an important religious custom as a Nocrothian.

• Su: An avid survivalist, Su most enjoys the food he hunts and gathers himself. He especially prides himself on his bear-meat stew, of which he digs up the carrots and potatoes for after the fated kill — of course, this meal is only rarely made. In his heart, however, Su’s favorite meal is baked haddock. This stems from his boyhood memories of his father teaching him to fish on the east coast near Port Hopeful, whereafter they would cook anything he was fortunate enough to catch.

• Lucius: Having grown up in the Bloodied Barrens, Lucius is intimately familiar with all the different ways to preserve food. As such, cured, salted meat is a staple in his diet, and his favorite cut of all is smoked bacon. It’s a breakfast tradition to him, and what he doesn’t eat is usually incorporated into his meals later in the day.

• Phineas: One may be surprised to learn that the favorite food of the monstrous Captain Phineas Flavo is not the flesh of men, but instead apple jack cookies. This love comes as an extension of the love he once held for a particular woman he had met by chance in his journeys as a sailor, his time before becoming infected with the Deep One disease. His fondest memories of her are marked by the apple jack cookies she would bake for him whenever they met. She was different from all the other women Phineas would leave behind for the high seas, and to him, the cookies are just as much a fragment of a pleasant memory as they are a reminder of what he has lost.

• Elizabeth: Despite her questionable stability, Elizabeth is a remarkable cook. Her skill had been originally fostered by her mother, who hoped that doing so would help to domesticate her and curb her violent behaviors. Even though much of Elizabeth’s culinary knowledge stems from more refined Hrenish cuisine, her personal favorite meal is shepherd’s pie topped with garlic and Huramom cheese (comparable to Parmesan). She prefers it burnt, much like all of her cooking. Burning her food better reduces it to simple carbon which, in turn, better feeds her internal fire (plus, she likes the crunch). However, she is keenly aware that most people don’t like their food blackened. If she serves you shepherd’s pie with burnt ingredients, it is either because it is her birthday and/or she doesn’t like you.

• Colette: The Niami are physically large enough to consume solid foods, but due to their evolutionary lineage, much of their historic cuisine is liquid-based. Although Colette has fairly firmly established herself within Hrenish colonial society, she still practices many Niamian customs (partly to maintain an exotic persona among her clientele), which includes what she eats. Her favorite meal is called Veljaví, a kind of soup primarily made from Laelamani silkfowl stock, watercress, and, most importantly, lightly beaten egg mixed with lemon juice. The dish is peppery with a bright citrus backnote, and exhibits a slightly thick and almost fluffy consistency similar to egg drop soup.

Vaidonians do not possess the proper anatomical structure (nor magical structure, as is the case with Dryads) to enunciate words in the same way that other sapient species on Embre do. Instead of a larynx, Vaidonians poses a syrinx akin to many species of birds, utilizing muscles on the walls of the lower part of the trachea to facilitate esophageal speech. This process allows them to simulate different sounds at a much greater range than the other races.

Among fellow Vaidonians, they will usually communicate through a series of whistles, clicks, and hums. The exact meaning of these sounds will vary depending on the tribal affiliation of the individual Vaidonian, but it is generally comparable to an advanced form of verbal Morse code. When communicating with other sapient species’, they will use their unique biology to simulate words that they have heard from members of that species, similar to the way parrots talk; however, unlike birds, Vaidonians possess the intelligence to understand the meaning of the words they mimic.

Nevertheless, even if a Vaidonian were to read and understand a word in another language, it is difficult for them to formulate its pronunciation without having heard it before. Because of the methods they use to vocalize these other languages, Vaidonians won’t necessarily have their own voice, but will rather mimic the voices of others that they have heard before. Some will choose to copy from the person they have heard the given language spoken from the most, some may copy from a close friend, some may copy the voice of whomever they are currently speaking to, and some may randomly select a voice from their memory.

Vaidonians are customarily excellent at imitating sounds, their brains wired to remember specific contact calls to discern members of their own tribe from outsiders; nonetheless, their physiology prohibits a flawless imitation. Vaidonian vocalizations sound almost electronic, similar to the European starling but at a lower pitch, like this or this.

Is there a phobia that leaves the individual afraid of people knowing their identity? I'm thinking there could have been a Consul (essentially a Saint) in the Church of the Suffering Grace who suffered from such a phobia so intensely, they covered themselves head to toe in garments to hide from people knowing who they are.

Consuls of the Church are constituted from those who put themselves through anguish seemingly by instinct, for to do so demonstrates an innate, yearning desire to repay the Debt of Existence. As such, the fear this person suffers from would be reinterpreted as a form of great penance by the Church. They would die without anyone knowing who they truly were.

The closest phobia I can find that relates to this of scopophobia, the fear of being looked at. The thing that separates this individual from that, however, is their desire to block out *every* aspect of themselves. Name, sex, voice, etc.

I’m trying to work out how Vivian's electric saber could plausibly work. The furthest into fantasy I would prefer to take it is the usage of a cosmic substratum to generate electricity -- in this case zehrisite, a cosmic mineral which produces an electric charge the faster it moves. The main issue I'm running into is that the technology of Freeland is mostly analogous to the late 18th century, so materials such as rubber or copper wiring nor mechanisms like the engine don't exist yet. I know I want Vivian to have electric weapons -- she's an incredibly important character to the scientific development of Freeland in this regard -- but I'm struggling to think of a way in which we could have a proto battery or electric motor when those concepts are still far into the setting's future.

I'm thinking of attaching a kind of primitive tumbler-battery to the hilt that uses a pull cord to spin it, and the centrifugal force maintains the spin so that the zehrisite continues to produce an electric charge inside the tumbler for several seconds. A metal rod encased in porcelain (the main form of insulation for this thing) runs from inside the tumbler and connects the blade, electrifying the metal so long as the zehrisite core is spinning. This will probably need some tweaking. I'm wanting the thing to be primitive in some ways to illustrate how fledgling the science of electrical engineering is in the setting, but not so flawed as to be ineffective.

Another possibility is to change the action needed for zehrisite to produce electricity, but I wouldn't want to specialize it too much so that it could still be used in other applications. It should hopefully be easy to replicate in illustration, as well.

Also, this is the design I've got for her so far (version without the tech on her):

The two most difficult parts of creating her design both stem from the principle that New Unity is most closely comparable to the 18th century in terms of cultural and scientific development. There wasn’t much in the way of an outfit that screamed ‘scientist’ back then — practitioners instead mostly just dressed like any other aristocrat. The other thing that’s proving especially challenging is designing electrical devices in the style of a time period which didn’t have them.

She also used to be a Siva, or a Daughter of Thorns in the Church of the Suffering Grace (kind of like a nun or a bhikkhunī), so I'd want to incorporate a tiny bit of that religious background into the design as well. I think she may wear the gloves to hide the scars on her hands. Daughters of Thorns often wear bands woven from barbed olive branches, usually bound around their wrists, hands, and ankles. When a person's body is observed to bear such intentionally arranged scarring, it is generally taken to mean that they are a Nocrothian. Seeing as how Vivian is attempting to immigrate into Hrenish society, it would be understandable for her to repress any notion that she once belonged to the Church of the Suffering Grace.

I'm thinking that most psychics choose not to smoke since nicotine can act as a depressant, which lowers neural transmissions and thus stifles their psychic ability. However, since Kira's Deviation is Pathos, meaning her psychic ability is influenced by her emotions, her telepathy becomes increasingly difficult to manage when she becomes stressed. She starts to read the minds of everyone in her vicinity, forming a cacophony of innermost pains that only she can hear, and at worst she could unwittingly hurt people nearby in a telepathic feedback loop or by unwittingly commanding them to harm her, themselves, or whatever else. She may choose to smoke as a coping mechanism against this, since the depressants in nicotine help to dull the stress and muzzle her psychic power until she can calm down. Plus, it would make sense for the time period.

Of course, she could choose not to smoke for a similar reason to her cooperatives. GUNS-BLAZING doesn't smoke, not because of the way it affects his psychic abilities, but also because he's a public-facing celebrity with an especial appeal to young viewers. He adopts a He-Man/Hulk Hogan-esque persona (he's a good actor, but in reality the "persona" is only about 2% different from his actual personality) and promotes healthy habits to his young viewers. "Winners Don't Use Drugs" and all that.

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to put something out to make it clear that I'm still active on the site, and I still plan to post my artwork as often as I can. I never wanted to skip Independence Day this year, but personal obligations (work, college, etc.) have been doing a lot to keep me away from my drawing tablet.

At the very least, I hope I'll be able to get what I wanted to do on July 4th out by October 27th instead since it's the birthday of someone really special; there is also something I have been working on as often as I can ever since March of this year, and I hope to get that out even sooner, but I can't say for certain when that will be.

I expect as I get used to this new routine of mine, I'll be able to find some more regular time to draw, and I'm happy to post whenever I can. Just know that I haven't given up on Freeland, LIVIDITY, or Propaganda, I'm just really, really occupied with the rest of my life at the moment.

- Xander

I've been hard at work for a few days on something very big for me, and now I'm finally ready to open it to the public.

Introducing my own personal website, The ApeRoom!

Visit theaperoom.com to take a look at my portfolio, contact information, and commission rates!

Thank you for your consideration, and have a great night!

- Xander

Small status update, first time using this system. I'm working on a small illustration to commemorate Independence Day, but I'm wrapping up a commission right now so I won't be able to post it the day of. Just wanted to let people know because I feel bad for not being able to get it out on time.

- Xander