Comic Cancelled, Moon And Fog Live At The Ranch Now

🌍 and ✍️!

-Direclan

i'm gonna put some of this under a readmore because it got SO long hahaha

🌍 What are some of your irl inspirations for the lore/worldbuilding of your comic?

hmm! this is tough, i'm not sure if this includes media (but if it does i'm going to include it later because i'm in a rambly sort of mood, haha).

so as far as the kitty cats go, i definitely take a lot of inspiration from my own dreams. i am very bad at taking my medications at the correct time and i currently take one where the first withdrawal symptom that makes me definitely aware i forgot to take it is that i have really vivid, sometimes very scary dreams. i kind of seek to depict these vivid dreams, so i will likely be doing a lot of experimentation during future dream sequences to capture that feeling of dreamlike unreality.

i also have a small document that includes a list of common foliage in the alaska wilderness. i so far have not taken a whole lot of time to depict it in my art but the chugach mountain range has been a particular focus of mine when i do research about shrubbery and tree diversity. i was a dual ecology & math major in college, so if there's anythign i'm kind of determined to get at least sort of correct it's the environment. (that said, there are tidepools on the coast of this setting where reefclan hunts, so take it with a massive grain of salt. it's fantasy)

my partner's d&d campaign has also had a massive (and i really do mean massive) impact on just like. how i create and how i conceptualize characters, symbolism, colors, and the rest of the works. we've been playing a 1-20 campaign since 2017 and we're in the end-game right now--it's a world-spanning, time-spanning adventure and i am NOT the same person i was coming out as i was going in. half of that is other life stuff but the other half is just that it's made a very profound impact on me as a person, and i consistently seek to emulate the sheer depth of the world he has built, the decades of thought he put into it, the strength of even the most convoluted mechanics and stories. it's rock solid. i'm normal. i'm so normal I PROMISE.

and, as far as media goes, i've definitely taken a lot of inspiration from the lore and worldbuilding of the destiny duology. it's kind of hard to get a handle on the story, but once you do, it really opens up into this incredible saga and some of the worldbuilding is just, SO sick. the idea that you could use conway's game of life as the origin myth for a whole universe really gets me so good. i said this earlier but i have a degree in applied math and i NEVER looked at any numbers or proofs and thought "i could make an origin myth out of that" and it's just SOOOOO cool to me that someone did do that. also it's like sword and sorcery with guns. which rules.

there might be some visible star trek (tng/ds9 specifically), bloodborne, nier automata, pokemon, ffxiv, and hollow knight, but it might be a bit of a challenge to point to anything directly. i think it corresponds to what i've made playlists for, really, hahaha.

✍️ What inspired you to make your clangen comic/ other media?

i've been wanting to publish a comic for a really long time! i've always been hesitant to because i have a really hard time sticking with anything long-term--i tend to cycle between several activities, where i do one or two very intensely for a few weeks to a few months and then switch. not something i do consciously, it's just naturally how my interests tend to manifest. you can actually see my first attempt @/starclan-clangen, which............................. i plan to return to eventually but lost the file for hahaha.

but i never wanted to do a comic sort of half-interested that way--i always wanted to make something that was good, that i could be proud of. it wasn't until i saw other folks making clangen comics that it clicked for me that a comic doesn't have to be my magnum opus and that i can just have fun with it if i want to. folks like @/ranchclan, @/direclan (hehe, thats you), @/nimbusclan, @/cutieclan, @/fallenclan, @/splinterclan, @/sporeclan, @/juniperclan, and @/vaporclan helped me realize i could just... do it, that i didn't have to wait until my art or my writing were more honed in order to like. make something i liked and have fun with it. there are SO many more that i haven't listed here that i love very dearly. the clangen community in general has been such a wonderful galvanizing force for me.

other inspirations that aren't clangen-related include my friend earthtonequeen on comicfury, who does more short story comic work. they've been making comics for a long time and their work is such a huge inspiration to me--i love the stories they tell.

@/jumalanpelko, WOW. the style is so gorgeous, their color work is absolutely phenomenal, and i love love love the worldbuilding.

@/whatlurksbean, what lurks beneath was HUGE for me in the past year or so. i found them after there were already like 500 pages and binged the entire comic. they write characters with such skill, it's incredible to see a story where there's such nuance to each player.

@/thewhalesheart is such a beautiful comic. i love the way they draw lambpaw, it's influenced how i differentiate characters!

@/milosfromhome is a HUGE inspiration to me. this is one of the comics that helped me really decide that comics were what i really actually wanted from my art, and helped me realize that seeing someone's improvement throughout a comic is actually really sick, so i just gotta hit the ground running. huge, huge inspiration for sure hahaha.

the comic "i didn't know" on comicfury has also been a recent but huge inspiration, it addresses real-life issues in a very nuanced way with kitty cats and i'm a huge fan.

@/caemidraws has been an inspiration to me as an artist in general and recently she's started her own comic so i recommend checking her out too! her compositions and general symbology are SO cool.

if i think of further inspirations i may come back and add them but off the top of my head, those are the ones i've been checking back with regularly recently! thank you so much for the ask, i love your work! <3

Howdy friend how’s it going, hope you’re having a good week 🧡

🎨 Favorite Hobbies? For both moon and fog please!

🎆What do omens/messages from StarClan look like to your cats? I’d love to just expand this to how do Starclan or the dark forest interact with the physical

🪵 What natural resources does your clan collect for tools, rituals, decoration, etc?

🌀Out of context spoilers/WIP?

🌍 What are some of your irl inspirations for the lore/worldbuilding of your comic?

Hello my friend!! My week has been fantastic, actually, I hope yours has been just as good!

🎨 Favorite Hobbies? - Answered here!

🎆 What do omens/messages from StarClan look like to your cats? - Omens can be interpreted by medicine cats (or others, if they assume what they're interpreting is an omen) and can be just about anything! Clouds rolling quickly across the sky, discarded bug parts found in an uncommon area, a gathering of birds in the branches of a barren tree - it can really be anything! The expanded version of the question was answered here!

🪵 What natural resources does your clan collect for tools, rituals, decoration, etc.? -This question was answered here!

🌀 Out of context spoilers/WIP? -Here's an upcoming snippet from the next arc!

“Alpinepaw, what are you talking about? You’re being scary.” “It’s called the Chasm. That’s where bad cats go when they die. They say it goes so far down, not even the lights of Silverpelt reach. Their evil souls are thrown into the Chasm by StarClan, and become Chasm-Cursed.” “That’s not true! You’re making this up!” Alpinepaw shrugs, trying not to let his smile show. “That’s what Fogfreckle told me.”

🌍 What are some of your irl inspirations for the lore/worldbuilding of your comic? -I'm an avid fan of hiking, so my biggest inspiration is probably just the landscape of the northeast! I'm a huge outdoorsy nerd and I love to explore, so writing a story about a big journey just made sense! Also, Moonstar and Fogfreckle being siblings is directly inspired by two cats that I catsit for - Hans and Dominic! They're brothers, and I'm fully obsessed with the pair of them. I decided to make a siblings-focused ClanGen run because of them!

RIP to a real one. Also Hazel scaring children in death just like she did in life~

(Mintclan cats are top to bottom: Mistswirl, Shystar, and Sunstorm)

Moon 0

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moonstar boutta crash out after the last update

SCREECHING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS lookit him!!!! my boy!!!! his lil cloud spots are SOOOO CUTE i'm going to pass away

ive been meaning to do fanart for other clangen blogs for a WHILE but i never got around to it until now.

it was really fun to transfer these characters into my style fr, anyway here's the blogs I drew characters from, go check them out bc they're all super cool

Fogfreckle from @nimbusclan i love ur character designs and expressions so so much omg

Ripplepaw from @salt-clangen which I binge read in one day and it is such a good read

Mothleaf from @nettleclan-clangen i love her design, words cannot express

Weed from @loudclan-clangen who I dearly miss already 😔

and then Moonpaw from @splinterclan i would both kill and die for this gal and I love her arc so far

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Moon 3 - Part 3

you take a load off, annie (and you put the load right on me)

Start / Back / Next

Skykestrel! And poor Clove, they did not ask for this…

Wonder what Brackenleaf wants to warn Oakspider about.

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six clangen characters meme except i did 7 and ALMOST did another one but i ran out of steam hahaha so hopefully a doodle of my fursona in the empty space suffices.

left to right, up to down, we've got:

dr. frecklesmoke from @uss-echo-clangen

blizzardfawn from @direclan

zinniaspirit from @sapling-clangen

moorsnow from @splinterclan

iciclepaw from @a-song-upon-the-waves-wishclan

ospreystorm from @the-tale-of-stingrayclan

shadowdive from @salt-clangen

thank you to everyone who made suggestions!! i had so much fun drawing these characters!