caught between the moon and magnolia porter

This was meant to be a study of what is considered the “typical” or even “ideal” Dambel man’s face…. I’m not sure how I feel about it though

I thought they’d all have warm golden eyes but I’m realizing it looks sort of… um, devilish??? And…. “devilish black man” is definitely not what I’m going for….

I’m happy with the dark coppery hair though.

I wonder if I should make the people of each nation look more alien, even? But they are, for all intents and purposes, human and I guess there’s no reason for them not to look it. 

Anyway I gotta go to work now, lates

more eight nations worldbuilding stuff. the basic concept for Dambel is “precolonial africa/ancient rome/postwar 40’s-50’s american fashion”. originally i was just going to have their clothing be classy 50’s-style suits with, for lack of a better word, “african-y” patterns on it. but i decided that was dumb and it should be more unique and more of a fusion, while still communicating those influences strongly. i also decided to try to make the shape and cut of the clothing for the different nations as unique as possible

so my current idea is that the “suit and tie” part would be communicated via a colorful neckpiece featuring a strongly geometric pattern that would resemble a tie, collar and those neck-flappy things. and then the rest would… well for this I was looking at the clothing that masai people wear. i tried to make this look like a smoother, more tailored version of that. so sort of having material hang in the same way, but looking crisp and buttoned-up and whatnot.

still not sure what to do about sleeves and pants and etcetera. Dambel is the largest nation, with the most powerful military and the most influence on the rest of the world. so its gotta look SNAPPY

okay I lied, one more. Here’s how a peasant from the lower levels would dress. It’s mostly simple hand-woven slip-ons and whatnot. Also notice that the tattoos are less numerous and more crude because they have to do it themselves and cant afford to hire an artist to make it look nice.

I think I shouldve made him look a little more like a tough guy, because the idea is supposed to be that the lower you get the more desperate and dangerous the people are, and the more violence and crime there is (even though the whole culture is pretty violent because one of the only ways to change your position is to murder somebody and then you legally get his stuff)

but anyway. why did i choose green and purple? those are ugly Barney colors. oh well

These notes are mainly for myself and I have more thoughts about it but that’s all for tonight I think. I sure hope this uploads at a readable size. I hope you guys are interested in this stuff. For those asking, its not really for anything, its just a worldbuilding project I work on in my spare time for fun/practice.

Here is a pretty fancy Barziquan prostitute. Perhaps even the personal prostitute of some important rich guy. Sadly this is the best possible scenario that could possibly be hoped for, for a woman in Barzique, because shit sucks there.

(I have also made up places where women have power and equality and one of them is even a straight-up matriarchy thing so don’t worry)

A young upper-class man from Barzique, which is an plutocracy. As well as demonstrating the typical fashions of a wealthy Barziquan, he also displays some physical features which are typical of most Barzique people (lack of eyebrows, angular facial structure, pale sallow skin, dark curly hair, intricate body tattoos etc). Native Barziquans from back in the day had a slightly darker, “coffee” skin tone, but years of living mostly underground with artificial light changed that. Perhaps more of this stuff later???

The flags and colors of the Eight Nations. Just a rough drawing for funs because I got a shit ton of work done this morning, thank God.

this is what magic looks like in the eight nations, you sort of tease it out objects that have intense spirit connection to your homeland. i realized recently this is basically “bending” and not as cool-looking and original as i thought >:[

this girl is from cherryrock, the cowboy/inuit/australia nation that i almost did a comic about!

you people seem to like this stuff! so here’s kids from another one of the nations, known to the world as Miroly but known to them as Greybeach.

its this dreary little peninsula populated by big clans of people. very family and relgiion oriented. the religion they practice is like hardcore old italian catholicism mixed with Egyptian preoccupation with honoring dead spirits and stuff. they all have little home-mausoleums and its very very morbid but in a lively old-country Italian way. the whole country is pretty poor, but self-sustained.

this nation is basically italy/egypt but is mainly inspired by the movie 8 and half, specifically the Saraghina scene. I was very struck by the image of little italian kids, all in somber black, running all over the beach unatttended, like wild kids. so i made a whole made-up country of that.