Of elves and worlds

Today is the two year anniversary of the character design of Miriel, in a sense also marking the beginning of the Yon project. At this point I can confidently say this was the best thing I've ever done for my art and a shockingly impactful influence on my life in general. It'll require me to get a little personal and emotional, but I want to talk about why.

Prior to this project I didn't think of myself as a storyteller. My conscious reasoning behind an artwork would often begin and end with "this is a visual idea I find beautiful / interesting". I would say things like "I don't really have any stories I want to tell" and "I'm more interested in technique than content". (In hindsight, my best works from this era always had some small fun story to tell.) When I saw other artists obsess over their OCs or furries roleplay as their fursonas, I'd be confused, failing to see the appeal. To be completely honest, sometimes I'd look down on them, seeing this kind of attachment to fiction as frivolous.

It took time for me to shed this attitude. It began when I started reading books for fun again — for a long time I had been so focused on theory and technique in all things that I would only ever read to study. It was when I studied the political ideas of anarchism and David Graeber's work in anthropology that I began to realize how much I enjoy imagining different worlds and ways of living. I started reading speculative fiction by great worldbuilders such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Adrian Tchaikovsky, finding a wealth of inspiration in their stories. Eventually my imagination meandered into a niche that felt novel, inspiring, and most importantly fun, sandwiched between the genres of solarpunk and fantasy, becoming what I now call Yon.

This immediately dispelled one unconscious belief I had before: that storytelling required some kind of spontaneity, a natural proclivity towards novel thoughts. It's not that I actually believe in "natural talent" or whatever — I firmly believe all skills are an inevitable result of the right kind of practice — stories just don't come to me unbidden, and I didn't know where to start if I wanted to come up with one on purpose. But now that I had an idea I cared about, inventing details was a simple act of problem-solving just like drawing, or writing, or programming or mathematics: start with an idea and see what the language at your disposal can say about it. How would a typical fantasy elf live in a technologically advanced, ecologically thriving world of decentralized co-operation? How about a mermaid, or a dwarf? It almost felt like these questions answered themselves.

A simple practical consequence of this project is that in the past two years I have never once been out of ideas. Blank page syndrome is a thing of the past. All I have to do to come up with a month's worth of artwork ideas is to pick a character and think about how they live their life for five minutes. And since I'm no longer designing a new character for every artwork like I used to, I get to have much more detailed and lifelike characters while taking less effort per piece. This has made art easier and more fun, motivating me to practice more and improve my craft at an unprecedented rate. It's also much easier to come up with informed and informative visual designs having thought deeply about the story and context surrounding them. This alone I could describe as revolutionary, but if you'll allow me to get more personal, there's much more to say.

The main character of this drama is the aforementioned Miriel, whose birthday we celebrate today. All of my characters have come to life in my mind in a way I never expected, and I can now fully relate with the "OC artists" who can't shut up about their beloved blorbos (I can shut up about them myself but only because I'm a very quiet person), but Miriel is extra special.

I chose Miriel as my first character to design thinking it was just because I find elves beautiful and their lifestyle in Yon especially interesting. Her real significance took a long time to dawn on me. I can't recall the exact timeline of discoveries anymore — it was a creeping realization, not a sudden one — but the truth I now understand is that this character is me. She only looks very vaguely like me, and her life is very different from mine, but there's no mistaking that her personality is entirely a remixed view of mine and her activities a glimpse into my dreams. She's a quiet loner who loves nature and doing things with her hands, practical and somewhat athletic, but also a curious and playful person who likes to dress up and look pretty. My mind's eye is looking at itself in a not-so-very-distorted funhouse mirror.

This is the crux of how this project became an avenue for self-discovery. I've learned a lot about myself from my other characters too — imagining their life and examining how I feel about it can be very illuminating even if I don't identify my whole self with the character — but there's nothing more powerful than inventing a story for Miriel and thinking "now which part of me is this?". I'll give two particularly impactful examples.

You might already have guessed that as a more or less masculine-presenting person assigned male at birth, identifying this strongly with a woman is cause for some Gender Thoughts. Those dresses Miriel loves so much, I don't just like looking at them, I want to try them on too! It's far from the first time I've thought about this, and it continues to be complicated, but Miriel has clarified something for me. Perhaps a little surprisingly, I'm now confident I'm not a trans woman. Instead, I recognize that I have a strong feminine aspect that I want to express more, represented in Miriel, but also that it's not all of me. I'm not entirely comfortable being called a man, but I'm not a woman either. Hence, I've recently come to publicly identify as nonbinary.

The second big revelation is about romance. I've never been in a romantic relationship myself, and I've been afraid to approach the topic in art, feeling ill-equipped to depict it in a believable and respectful way. For a long time I thought of myself as aromantic; that it's an experience I simply cannot have or relate with. This changed rather abruptly when I came up with Miriel's love interest Salma. I was forced to admit to myself that I do in fact yearn for the gentle touch and reassuring presence of a companion. I've merely repressed these feelings to the point of believing they're not there because I don't know how to do anything else with them. And honestly, it's been painful — I've never felt as viscerally, hopelessly lonely as I sometimes do now — but I think knowing myself better is probably worth it in the end. In any case, it's great to be able to make art about something I've previously been too afraid to touch.

On a similar note, I've also become more confident including sexual themes in my art — when I draw a pin-up of a character I truly relate and identify with, I find it much easier to gauge whether the depiction feels respectful, whether I'm displaying the character's own sexuality or imposing someone else's. And making sexy drawings is a lot of fun! (But if my drawings ever feel disempowering or male-gazey to you, please don't be afraid to let me know! I'm always still learning.) This is all to say that my art is now more confidently and authentically my own than ever before, as is my entire sense of self, and it (mostly) rocks.

And that's why it's not much of an exaggeration to say this project has changed my life. Happy birthday to Miriel (and coincidentally, in two days' time, to me), thanks to everyone following along on Mastodon or otherwise, and I look forward to sharing more of this world in my head!