Every Time…

How Intimidating Am I?

Send 🐹 for “You? Intimidating? Hell no.”

Send 🐰 for barely intimidating

Send 🐭 for slightly intimidating

Send 🐱 for moderately intimidating

Send 🦊 for fairly intimidating

Send 🐯 for very intimidating

Send 🐻 for “MOTHER OF GOD PLEASE DON’T EAT ME–”

hello writers.

I kinda hate how it feels like 95% of new fantasy novels nowadays are either Romantasy, LitRPG, Progression Fantasy, or smut.

Couldn't agree more!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

@queen-of-hobgobblers

I’ve been silent for too long and can no longer bear to keep this inside: @queen-of-hobgobblers is a good person and deserves many good things.

@deadandgaysetanta @queen-of-hobgobblers

Ooooh epic girlies (mostly on TikTok) I am BEGGING you to learn the mythology because no. No no no Circe and Calypso are not girlboss. No you do not want to ship the with Odysseus.

Girl I am begging you. Do not call original Odysseus a cheater I am still saying it. Don’t go down this bath girl. Hold my hand and we will read the myths together so you understand

You all voted and the most popular was... By decision of a random name generator due to a three way tie... ADIRA AKELDAMA!

WARNING!!! LONG POST AHEAD!!! PROCEED WITH CAUTION AND TIME!!!

Adira is the queen of the Syren Born Fae. She grew up with her triplets Ethan and Seraphina in the woods near Amalraum. She is close friends with Kaimanas Aurelius, though she'd rather Florentine, Kaimana's brother, die in a rather gruesomely violent manner.

When she was 10, she left with Ethan, her brother, to go to royal training in their respective kingdoms. She became the military leader and Queen of the Syren Queendom, Azura. Her brother went on to become King of the Dustborn kingdom, the Laurel Valley.

She resents Florentine and Zephyre for killing her sister. In fact, about three years after Seraphina's passing, she declared war on Amalraum. The only reason this war didn't come into fruition was because Kaimana asked her oh so nicely.

She is currently single.

Her most precious item is a black opal seraphina found for her when they were kids. Ethan set it into her Signet ring.

She was born on May 16th.

She's always losing her trident, she's a vegetarian, and she loves listening to classical music, whale songs, opera, and some death metal(but only Scandinavian and Indian).

Her deepest fears are harpoons, drowning, and losing the people closest to her.

She is 27 years old.

Below is her profiles⬇️

@deadandgaysetanta @queen-of-hobgobblers @redkarmakai @sherikookami

So, I saw this image on Facebook, and it was supposedly showing what Queen Nefertiti would have looked like in real life:

Now, I thought this AI generated garbage was just truly terrible on a number of levels; first off, she looks wayyyyyy too modern - her makeup is very “Hollywood glamour”, she looks airbrushed and de-aged, and as far as I’m aware, Ancient Egyptians didn’t have mascara, glitter-based eyeshadows and lip gloss. Secondly, her features are exceptionally whitewashed in every sense - this is pretty standard for AI as racial bias is prevalent in feeding AI algorithms, but I genuinely thought a depiction of such a known individual would not exhibit such euro-centric features. Thirdly, the outfit was massively desaturated and didn’t take pigment loss into consideration, and while I *do* like the look of the neck attire, it's not at all accurate (plus, again, AI confusion on the detailing is evident).

So, this inspired me to alter the image on the left to be more accurate based off the sculpture’s features. I looked into Ancient Egyptian makeup and looked at references for kohl eyeliner and clay-based facial pigment (rouge was used on cheeks, charcoal-based powder/paste was used to darken and elongate eyebrows), and I looked at pre-existing images of Nefertiti, both her mummy and other reconstructions. While doing this, I found photos of a 3D scanned sculpture made by scientists at the University of Bristol and chose to collage the neck jewellery over the painting (and edited the lighting and shadows as best as I could).

Something I see a lot of in facial recreations of mummies is maintaining the elongated and skinny facial features as seen on preserved bodies - however, fat, muscle and cartilage shrink/disappear post mortem, regardless of preservation quality; Queen Nefertiti had art created of her in life, and these pieces are invaluable to developing an accurate portrayal of her, whether stylistic or realistic in nature.

And hey, while I don't think my adjustments are perfect (especially the neck area), I *do* believe it is a huge improvement to the original image I chose to work on top of.

I really liked working on this project for the last few days, and I think I may continue to work on it further to perfect it. But, until then, I hope you enjoy!

Remember, likes don't help artists but reblogs do!