"I'm Going Through Changes"

In which the one year anniversary of Bowie's death is upon her, but Arielle still feels the blade between her ribs like it was not so very long ago. Arielle's life is going through all types of changes. She lost her SSI, and if it's not bad enough...owes $10k to the federal government because even though she had already exceeded the legal amount of money entitled (despite not being told there was a cut off either) the government kept sending her SSI...but now wants the money back. Arielle doesn't have this money. The world feels lonely and cold.

It's been a long time since I've made an entry.

Life has a way of obstructing progress just when you think you've got everything under control...and what's worse...the beginning of June is the anniversary of Bowie's death. I don't think I'm getting another animal any time soon either...which honestly feels really bad...but what can I do? I wonder how much harder it's going to be to get a job as an autistic woman in these next few years? Somehow it seems to be the least of my worries while simultaneously being the crux of it. I've been told; my skin color might save me...since I don't look like I'm of native Mexican decent...which I suppose is a small [twisted] blessing in these times...but it feels beyond terrible. All of my life..., as a mixed race individual...I've always been guided by older people to fully embrace 'being white', given looks or attitude whenever I disagreed and said I identified myself based on my grandparents who practically raised me, who immigrated legally to the US from Durango, Mexico so many years ago. I don't want to 'whitewash', the way Ive been guided to by those older than myself. I want to grow to be whatever it is I was meant to be or have come to be...but the world feels like it is going backwards. I really thought I had left some of these mixed-race issues behind me, what with social progress in recent years...but now adays...I don't even recognize the backsliding as anything I've truly seen in my lifetime in the past, like it came from a time far older than even myself. I'm afraid and I feel alone/unwanted and disliked for reasons beyond my control and reasons that ultimately are stupid and limiting and hurtful even to those who dared utter such things to me.

Now with those ear/brain worms gotten out of the way...I have been working all this time on "Project X", the working title for my ecological world building project. I've done a great deal of work, but it looks like I haven't...since I have only recently started sketching out some of the ideas and preliminary draw studies.

When I create creatures, I usually start with a Biome I want to create the creatures for. Then I'll form a vague idea and name of what I want to create...such as "Wolf" or "Unicorn". Those names may ultimately not describe the finished creature...but it is the jumping off point and something to call the overall idea. I'll gather images that encompass the name but then specialize to a specific species or breed of animal. I'll find animals with similar body types and study those. For creatures that I plan to have look more chimeric, I will also look at 'accent animals' so that I can figure out how to connect bones and muscles in a realistic looking way with characteristics from all animals I wish to amalgam. I will study things like skeletons, growth patterns of hair/scales/feathers, sexual dimorphisms, sub-species differences, colorations, etc. I will compile these images so I can begin to sketch them and configure its features. Once I've gained some drawing muscle memory for the shapes of the base animal, I can then draw the creature in many different poses and configurations.

That is the part I am now just finally starting to hit upon. It seems like a lot of time taken just to find pictures, but I believe the more research and visuals you can find to aid you in the front end of the creation process.... the faster and unhindered the actual creation process will be.

So now I can introduce you to some of the ideas I'm working on. My chosen biome to work with...was some sort of wetland, heavily leaning into the idea of a mangrove forest. I studied many different types of Wetlands as well as other unique bodies of water:

I then began constructing a list of creatures that either interested me or could be found in a wetland environment....and I settled on five animals that I believed would help show off the ecology of the location I was creating in my mind....Hoatzin/Cockatrice, Eel-like Fish, Rodent/Unicorn, Otter/Weasel, Springtail/Isopod. I proceeded to take an insane amount of time studying different species and 'accent species', making sure to grab skeletons and muscle configs when I could find them for each species. At the time I started this wetland project I was watching Dungeon Meshi, so I also gathered illuminated manuscript Bestiary images to help as well. The entire file is huge...zooming out more and more, the only thing I haven't completely researched at this point is the Springtail/Isopod, but my image reference file is starting to be quite the amoeba. There is too much here to go into specifics...so here are a bunch of images taken during the research phase:

The past few weeks, I decided I needed something more to show, maybe some initial sketches so I did an initial silhouette and some random sketches playing with certain aspects of parts of the body. This is what I have so far for the Hoatzin/Cockatrice:

As for what I'm going to be working on moving forward, more sketches for the 5 different animals, maybe even a finalize sketch if the inspiration comes! This really depends on outside forces, but hopefully more to come!