On the Lift to Ruin

On the lift
On the lift
On the lift to Ruin

What a gift
What a gift
What a gift awaits within

Outside the lift
Is it a rift?
Will I be miffed?
Is it a fifth?
Of my expectations?

On the lift
On the lift
On the lift to Ruin

What a gift
What a gift
What a gift awaits within

Outside the lift
Is it a rift?
Will I be miffed?
Is it a fifth?
Of my premonitions?

The world
Will yield
Its secrets forth to me
Not one
Concealed
Remaining mystery
If I have to break some doors
If I have to crack some floors
This sphere will bask in my eternal victory

The
Hawks the bats the oaks the roses and the skies
Can one not wonder on the hows the whats and too the whys?
To know
To see
To soar about all free
On a thermal with a raptor's piercing watchful eyes

In truth I may not be a real superpowered girl
But at the least I can still dream of giving it a whirl
You see?
You see?
How awesome I can be?
Don't know about you three but I can take anything the world can hurl

To all all creatures thousandfold possess links which extend
Of stuffs not all unlike our spirits forge a mighty blend
Of dark
Of light
Of black
Of white
Within your enemy in truth may be your greatest friend

On the lift
On the lift
On the lift to Ruin

What a gift
What a gift
What a gift awaits within

Outside the lift
Is it a rift?
Will I be miffed?
Is it a fifth?
Of my expectations?

On the lift
On the lift
On the lift to Ruin

What a shift
What a shift
What a shift will soon begin?

Outside the lift
What sort of drift
Is it a gift?
Is it a grift?
Beyond the lift to Ruin

Stablehand scrap update: 11/11~12/29

It's that time again. Time for another Stablehand scrap update! I was putting out stuff kind of fast in the past couple of months, such that I didn't really have time to update this blog, but now's the time to fix that.

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Meet my new hat.

It's felt, repels water, and came with a silly booklet filled with random stuff about hats. (Like, seriously, there was a teeny bit of maybe useful care information, but then the rest of it was all snippets of historical trivia and etymologies of various expressions involving "hat". ...Um, what?)

Anyway I finally have a hat that looks like my personaish character's hat, which I can use as a reference, and also just to look awesome.

So that's good.

WIP of my new Destiny Attribute poster!

It's looking a bit crowded right now...

Finally I tried to make some colour palettes for the Destiny attributes! [sic]

They're pretty tentative, especially Esteem (I wanted two of the colours to be "hexart colours" but I need to figure out what those would be first XD) and even when this chart is done these exact hex colours probably won't be the "de facto" colour used for the attributes all the time because I like to change things up sometimes.

The swan thing I coloured with each of the palettes was just a really ad hoc thing I drew specifically for that purpose; I don't plan to actually use it in Stablehand but if you really like it for some weird reason it's under the same licence.

In this one I drew Lance, Kate, Kris, and Jinfèng in a more Total Drama-like fashion after having a weird dream that "maybe I should draw Lance as Mal because they're both named Lance!" (yep, I literally forgot Mike was named Mike and thought he was named Lance XD).

This is fan art technically, but... I think it's safe to say it's under the same licence as the rest of Stablehand since there aren't actually any Total Drama characters in it. Just, I guess, use at your own risk? I dunno. (Edit: I'm going with that.)

(Man, non-libre media are such a headache...)

A very rough start on the Observer.

("Pet" form; I'm going to try to make "boss" form a shape key if I can)

Stablehand scrap update: 9/04

A wyvern (which I’m tentatively calling Nycopteryx), and the Prince of Eggs.

You need no further explanation.

I have no idea what this thing even is, but I just kind of had it appear in my head when one of my friends said “Looks like John was the blue thing after all”, and then I had to draw it.

It might actually end up being a transformation for somebody in Stablehand or something, though I can’t imagine who just yet.

Two different things were happening on these pages: first, I was trying to draw the main characters/design their outfits a while back (while experimenting with perspective on Kate), and second, just today I was trying to design logos for the characters. JF: birdy. Kris: quartz crystals. Kate: dino wing thing, which didn't quite satisfy me. Lance: flaming blood puddle. Hughes: sprout. Ariana (character I haven’t designed or told you about yet): pouncing cat.

On a subconscious impulse, I also found myself imagining the logos sliding in from the side and the sounds they'd make as they did that, and tried to write those down. I really can't tell whether that was just a trope I picked up from TV and video games or yet another sign I may be synaesthetic.

Okay, there was another thing going on too: the reason Lance was drawn in ballpoint was that on the day I drew that, I was procrastinating on finishing my homework to submit online when suddenly there was a fire drill and because I didn't think to bring my homework or much of anything out with me, I was forced to sit and watch the deadline approach while unable to accomplish anything whatsoever. Nervously, I hunted up a piece of paper and a ballpoint pen and tried to draw Lance in order to calm myself. (In retrospect I think I did surprisingly well for not being able to erase AT ALL, being nervous, and not having any references.)

Oh, and I was also trying to design Grævonian newspaper stuff. So I guess four things were going on with these pages? That's... a lot of things.

And lastly, we have these. As I said, I forget what exactly gave me the impulse to draw them, but once I got it, I absolutely couldn't stop myself because the idea was just too funny.

As you can see, my ideas of Stablehand PSAs have somewhat evolved since the first time I drew an idea for one; the first time, I was just thinking about the general biology of hexarts, and not at all about what the government thought about them.

I plan to make more polished colour versions of these at a later date, though I don't know exactly when.

How to pronounce "Jinfèng"

Just in case any of you happen to be getting confused by plain old everyday Mandarin Chinese...

Stablehand: Jinfèng's Theme

Jinfèng's theme!

Finally! I finally arranged Jinfèng’s theme.

At first I was just going to do it as a straight strings song, but then I got the random idea to put techno sounds in it and it became about twice as good.

I did an unusual amount of chord arrangement in this song to the point I probably actually learned a little bit about playing the piano instead of just using it to find notes.

The style I did it in was vaguely inspired by music from various Pacific Moon artists.

Lyrics will arrive shortly.

Stablehand: Dà Jinhuáng

Dà Jinhuáng, a great golden firebird of legend (hence the name) held to be a god-like figure and a kind of embodiment of fate and "The Tao" where Jinfèng comes from.

Few have actually seen Jinhuáng, but for some reason she appeared to Jinfèng, causing others around her to think that she might some day hold a great significance for her country and maybe even the world.

And actually, they could be right.