Posts Tagged Taaq

[partim] Taaq.

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In those days, the world above the water was full of monsters, and all the people had to have either places of refuge or habitation below the water, where the monsters couldn’t go.

I’ve since learned that monsters like these have been known on many worlds.  In ours, we remember them as faceless creatures with fearsome talons, and massive fins by which they could swim through the air—which probably means what you would call wings.

Anyway—the monsters hunted our cubs, and many were either consumed in desolate places, or drowned in the sea attempting to escape.

[scrap] Taaq.

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I said there wasn’t much my mother could tell me about the history of the world.  There was one story though, which may as well have been myth for all I’d really believed it, but the diarists had put it in their preface anyway.

I’d been a little cub when first I’d heard it; I’d heard that off-worlders could see all sorts of things in the sky—suns, moons, stars, and how much of the time the whole thing might be lit up in blue or pink or whatever… and I asked her why our sky was just black.

And she told me the story of Bαkhfikeιννᴥi, which the diarists had translated as “Frontarius”.  I thought it really ought to be “Frontier,” since it was the same as our name for the planet, but I guess “Frontier” isn’t a manly name in their language.

Anyway, Frontarius was a king of icebears back in ancient times…

[scrap] Taaq.

It wasn’t long after I’d gotten up that the message came through—that annoying, steady, high-pitched beep in my head was probably one of the things I hate most about the network these days.

When I was younger, I’d learned that our great-grandparents didn’t have the network in their heads—it was something the Lunars and the Martians brought in from off-world. Back then, I still thought being connected to planets and planets full of aliens and strange sights was a great thing; these times I’d gladly give it up, but I have an obligation now.

The message was a reminder of that obligation. It wasn’t another little human from Earth wanting me interviewed for a school paper—it was an update from the diarists.

Usually it was just a reminder they were still working: “168 hours recorded, ready to process.”

Always “Ready to process.” They’d said I wouldn’t see much in the way of finished product from them during my lifetime—mostly it takes a finished life to tell the big picture, and recording me and my thoughts all the time takes a lot of time to work through anyway.

I turned out my lamp and rolled over on my back to watch what the alien diarists had put together. Off-worlders always just close their eyes to read the network, but the sky of Frontier is a dark enough background for me.

What they’d sent was basically a preface—for all the people who don’t know about Frontier, it was kind of a history or introduction to the world. But of course since it was for off-worlders, it started with the colonization of our world. I’d hoped there’d be more icebear history to survive—but I knew there wouldn’t be, not really. When I’d sat in the stifling hot classrooms in my youth, they’d not had anything before themselves. My mother’d taught me what she could, but she didn’t have anything past her own grandparents. Before that, I guess, we all lived solitary lives on the ocean.

Hah, the classrooms! I hadn’t thought about those in ages. The off-worlders all came, or at least originated, from Earth, a warmer and a brighter world. I don’t think any of them could actually survive on Frontier without all those superheated buildings of theirs, and the bulky clothing—I had to wear some of that, even in the heat—

The last icebear.

Sorry for the delay in posting. Had a week or so where I didn’t have anything to post, and fell out of the habit. (It’s that easy!)

Anyway, I finished the picture of Taaq Ulluriittuq:

Click to embiggen

I think it came out about right, even though it’s ridiculously permeated by my style.

The description I posted elsewhere with this pic:

ᑖᖅ ᐅᓪᓗᕇᑦᑐᖅ (Taaq Ulluriittuq) out on an iceberg, watching the starless dark.

He usually goes by ‘Starless’ since his given name tends to give others trouble. He lives in Nother in the 28th century, and is the last one of his kind on record. They offered to revive icebearkind by cloning from him, but he didn’t see the point to it—”other folk live just as well as we did”. He moved to a frontier planet and spends most of his nights out on the sea, watching the empty sky.

I suppose that’s not a natural iceberg. It’s probably motorized.

I know it’d be an interesting frontier that would not have a view of any stars… There’s probably some kind of physical barrier to letting the light through, like the dust cloud around Krikkit.

WIP – Taaq

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2009-12-08-taaq

Puttin’ in some more work on the lines.  Trying it a different way, though I don’t know how much the difference will be notable—I guess we’ll see.

WIP – Taaq.

Starting to work on the inking and coloring of this guy.  I still need more practice at producing more interesting linework, but I’ll be working on it.

2009-10-20-taaq

WIP – Taaq

And here’s the result of the scheduled work on the icebear I did this week.  Unless someone points out something horrible, this’ll probably be the last pencil version, and I’ll start coloring from here.

Taaq WIP as of 2009-08-25

WIP – Taaq

I did some unscheduled work on this at the Aurora furmeet on Saturday night, just ’cause it’d been a while.   Worked on the shading a bit, and am trying to get the iceberg to resolve some—I know already that it’s too pointy along the top; that’ll be the next thing in need of work.

Taaq as of 2009-08-24I really like this guy, hehe.  Hopin’ it turns out well.

On a more general note, I’ve decided once a week is a little too infrequently to post here, so instead I’m going to try and post a couple of things every few days.

WIP – Taaq the Icebear.

All right, guys, this week I was slackin’ off a bunch on the getting things done front, in arts and elsewhere. It may take me a while to get the hang of doing this, so be patient with me. Decided it’d make the most sense to post each piece I’ve been working on in separate posts, even if it means a little mini-flood every week.

So, the first thing I’m posting today is one some of you have already seen, which is the picture of IcebearMuke. He’s the bear I’ve been playing on Sundays. Well, I say IcebearMuke. The characters I play online tend to acquire counterparts in my worlds, and this guy is really more in that element than mine. He’s kind of slotted into Nother, around Kohath’s timeframe. Not sure what planet he lives on. His name is Taaq Ulluriittuq (á‘–á–… ᐅᓪᓗᕇᑦᑐᖅ) which is supposed to be Inuktitut for ‘the dark is starless’. Not many polar bears left in those days.

He fishes.  And of course he’s chubby. ;)

Taaq