It was a street, just like the many Kaelan had seen in movies and series, though this one was barren of rushing cars. It stretched beyond what his eyes could catch, going into hiding amidst the fog. From large cracks surfaced all sorts of greenery, completely ignorant of the faded yellow divider lines in the highway. As an appealing landing strip, Kae dipped down from the sky, unfurling his rounded tail and lowering his legs. He braced for the landing, and despite his care to not go too fast, he still felt his right wing crashing with something, putting him out of equilibrium and sending him skidding along the pavement.

A moment for recovery was enough to have him up and going again. He looked up, eyes widening at the creaking sound behind him. He turned, the cacophony of groaning metal and wood making his feathers stand on end, even more so with the tapping rain. A power line lazily angled down, every degree accompanied by the horrible whining. It finally came to rest on the bushery of one of many trees that lined the street. Kaelan sighed, glad to not have broken anything himself, and just hoped he hadn’t cut the electricity to some distant town.

------

Ok, about time I start posting some stuff here I guess :P

------

Artwork, story & characters belong to @akaiitori

Reposting, distribution, commercial or non-commercial use of this work is strictly prohibited.

Back at it again with another sketchy deity illustration! Maybe this will become a series though no promises sorry
(The second slide is the original design from 2019)

This time it's Dimitri (name to be changed, I just dont know to what) Deity of Life, Nature/Wilderness, Fertility and Birth, Forests and Plains and Harvest. They are also in charge of the seasons.

Dimitri is genderless and uses exclusively they/them pronouns. They reside in the mortal realm in a sacred forest located on a remote island. This forest is rich with wildlife and plants of all kinds, some exclusively found there. There are gigantic trees and enormous plants, strange magic fruits and herbs but none of it is to be harvested by mortals without the resident deity's permission. Mortals aren't even allowed to set foot on the island unless they want a grand boon and even then they must bring a grand sacrifice in return. The smallest of these boons that can be requested are the unique fruits, herbs and vegetables that grow there to use as powerful magic potion ingredients that can restore fertility in soil and people. The biggest boon that can be asked for is one of the golden apples that grow on Dimitri's antlers. These fruits can heal any deadly disease and any injury that would be deadly. As long as the person who eats the fruit still has a sliver of life left they will make a full recovery. However Dimitri isn't keen on giving these fruits up willy nilly. Something of great value must be sacrificed to them. What that is im not sure.

Dimitri is wary of mortals. They don't hate them or feel ill will against them but they don't fully trust them either. They can sense that some mortals are hurting nature in their greed for more riches and they aren't too fond of it. So they mostly just keep to themselves, rarely appearing or providing much boons. Though some respectful communities have been honored with their appearance at harvest festivals in their honor but even for those it's rare.

Like other deities, Dimitri has access to spirits. They mostly use these spirits to watch the world for them and do most of the interaction with mortals.

Dimitri is most worshipped by small village farmers, hunters and expecting and planning parents.

The big cities have mostly forgotten about them...

Continuing my Long Rest/Recovery with some loose play/experimenting in my sketchbook

Pink sticky note tab, micron, India ink, alcohol marker, acrylic marker

FINALLY!!! I completed the reference sheet of my boy, Kyro Lumbre.

This redesign of Kyro and his mate Aurora has taken me over a year since I started making their line drawings in August 2021. The countless hours drawing them and going back and forth with various iterations and then working on rendering each individual shot by adding textures, shadows, highlights, and undertones.

I created Kyro around the same time as Aurora in February 2013. 10 years ago! Can’t believe it’s been a decade since then and how far they have come. They started out as feral, quadruped dragons at first, but then I changed them to an anthropomorphic dragon. Kyro initially had yellow glow marks on him before I removed them. This was the most significant redesign of my OCs that I made. I had wanted to complete both ref sheets at the same time; however, I was really busy working on Aurora and finishing her for her 10-year mark in February 2023. Afterward, I started right away on Kyro and rendering his shots, but something major happened that had to take priority. My family was in a car accident in mid-March on their way back on the highway at night. The car was totaled and my mom had a fractured wrist, but thankfully they made it home alive and I did everything I could to help her around the house and to cover her at work. She’s doing better today and can move her wrist a little, but there’s still more for her recovery. All this time, the only way I could relieve the stress that I felt in the past 4 months was to draw.

Now that I finished with Kyro and Aurora, I can take a rest for now before moving on to making art of them together. Thank you to everyone who watches here! I really appreciate that you like my art. It really means the world to me as I try to get back into drawing and posting and expanding on other platforms. Let me know what you think about this piece, I’d really appreciate the feedback.

--Aurora Alpha Dragon--

Twitter

https://twitter.com/AuroraAlphaDerg

FurAffinity

https://www.furaffinity.net/user/aurora-alpha-dragon/

DeviantArt

https://www.deviantart.com/aurora-alpha-dragon

I just realized something weird that I would never think of sharing, especially here, because it's completely unrelated to InkBlot.

I realized that I'm not actually turned on by hypno stories one bit. Often times, they involve an unwilling subject being forced into a situation they didn't consent to, then their minds end up fractured beyond recovery, and later in some cases, they're taken to another location unable to return physically or mentally.

I would be fine with a hypno story if the subject actually agreed to the hypnosis without expressing resistance at any point, like an actual magic show where hypnosis only works with volunteers because of placebo. But to start with a subject that visually *doesn't* want it, it just stops being sexy the moment it's forced on them, and I lose interest in the upcoming scenes.

It's a similar thing I feel about characters being petrified against their will. It would be an entirely different situation if they *chose* to become stone.

This doesn't include confidence tricks mind you, because that would benefit the deceiver at their victim's expense, which is about as bad as lacking consent.

This is not to say that I'm against hypno toons, because I can see it be done right and tasteful, like a dream sequence after a friendly meeting.

A gift to wish Mek a fast recovery.

----

Character(s) ©

[mekvyper](https://www.furaffinity.net/user/mekvyper)

This is the first picture of Daz I got, I think. Once a promising football star, a terrible injury took him out of the running, quite literally, to go professional. Fortunately, with a pair of academics as parents, he had also been raised with a brain. During recovery, he applied himself to his studies as hard as he had on the field, and entered the field of selling books. Specifically, he deals in used and rare books, most of which he gets from estate sales or finds for those who request them.

Before passing them on, though, he reads through them for anything interesting, and has picked up quite a few skills as a result.

Art by Hogswild

I was sick these days so to celebrate my recovery here my oc x canon ship

Wastrel: This character was the local drunk or junkie and has worn out their welcome. While they might have come from a good family, some calamity, betrayal, or criminal act on either their part, or committed against them, saw them fall into despair and oblivion. Prior to game play, this person’s priority in life centered on the booze bottle, drug pipe, or handful of mutant narcotics.
Besides being the local drunk or addict, this character was also likely a petty criminal, prostitute, or compulsive gambler and card cheat. The amount of trouble this troublemaker caused in their home town — and is still likely to cause should the chance arise to make a big score, splurge their earnings on hookers, drugs, alcohol and cards — is 67% likely to have followed them into their new life as a digger, mercenary or other profession.

Ink art from page 19 of The Mutant Epoch (TME) Expansion Rules Book using the Outland System Game Mechanic. See a PDF sample here: https://www.outlandarts.com/expansionrules.htm

#wastrel #drunk #stoner #addict #downandout #bum #homeless #narcotics #streetperson #loser #hasbeen #recovery #recovering #recover #getclean #newlife #addiction #clean #fix #rpg #ttrpg #caste  #mutantepoch #postapocalyptic

A doodle of Dyla after recovery from defeat in backstory, around over a decade before her present appearance. Artwork and character © artemismarama

Well, I made this a year ago, I'm not in much better of a position now, burnout is a real condition, a physical condition, its your bodies systems collapsing after being in a state of high stress for too long, fight or flight constantly being revved up in the background as you try to work your way through life.
Recovery can take years of actual rest, but todays world doesn't allow that, so recovery seems infintesimally slow.


What I said a year ago still stands fairly firmly:
"I posted this a while ago on twitter, if you want to keep more up to date with me and hear/see my random musings go follow me over there https://twitter.com/Olivitree

Burnout is a strange phenomenon that has been noted over the past few years. I wonder if it was something that was documented as something else (or not at all) or has become far more prevalent with more social pressure to skill up and work-eat-sleep-repeat.

I'm feeling it more keenly now than ever, which is interesting as I'm not taking on any more art work commissions but still I find myself layering on the work load in other areas. It's such a weird thing, it doesn't seem to matter how much I need to rest and, ACTUALLY rest, rather than worrying about everything I should be doing, I can't do it.
I feel like I've worn myself down to a nub and I'm still scraping away at it regardless.

Human condition, perhaps, this is what we are trained to do in the education system (I missed half of it and I still had this "work until your dead" mentality imprinted on me) so we can survive in this awful work-life balanced capitalist world."

Back to drawing after a long recovery.