schenanigans

A big fat congrats AND thank you to birdz and adrak for our pretty new cave additions, I absolutely love them and cannot wait to be able to collect more next year. And the extra art is so lovely, I always enjoy getting to see big art pieces of breeds 😭 I am also grateful for everyone's enjoyment of this year's event! I am in absolute awe over the unique and fun creations everyone has been coming up with, and I love to see what people have been sharing. There are so many combinations and tricks I never even would have thought of! I wanted to post a bit of a credits list as this was a pretty big event with a relatively small team able to work on it this year, and it took a lot! Just be warned that there are some spoilers for people that haven't completed day 4 yet

It is a brumous hatchie

Thank you everyone for the kind words!! Mousai (romanized version of the Greek word for muses) started as a thought-child around 2021, around the same time I was designing the Xocoatls. They were immediately sentimental to me, something that I wanted to represent a story that my partner had written for me a few years prior. I was set on it matching the mood of the story and wanted it to be bittersweet, and, per my notes, "almost depressing." I knew I wanted them to be black and red, maybe with some gold, but aside from those notes I had nothing concrete. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself that they had to be perfect, and thus, nothing ever came from it. I didn't think they'd ever see the light of day, not even as a sketch in my notebook. In December, I thought of these fellas again on a whim after collaborating with Bambi on something else, as these were something mildly connected to her personally as well. I had nothing at all aside from the name and one line leftover from my old notes: "inspires expressions of love in writing and art; very charismatic" Bambi was enthusiastic and immediately began working on conceptual elements, which ultimately helped me nail down a design that we both liked. Initially we were borrowing ideas from pisces, but the two tails are the only remnant of that. This, combined with the muses sometimes being considered water nymphs, led to the decision to play with them as a leviathan. I am so grateful she put so much joy and energy into this concept, it was such a fun collaboration to work on! They're almost the exact opposite of how I originally conceived them - they're happy and bright, extroverted and boisterous. They love to put on performances or create gifts, and engaging in artistic endeavors is their own form of passion. Mousai are known to be incredibly supportive, even if someone else's form of expression (not necessarily to do with the arts!) differs from their own. I hope we conveyed their fun and beautiful nature well.

Since I know some people enjoy these kinds of things, this is the sprite sketch after Kama and I decided on a pose~

These are so fun! Love the concept. The s1 hatchies are so unique too! A huge congrats to @ZontarZon, @Munin, and @seventeendeer on the release! Thank you for sharing your lovely Bobs with us

Neat! EVENT CREDITS Story & Writing bambi ParticleSoup Shiny Hazard Sign Art & Assets Announcement Image - Shiny Hazard Sign Badge - SkyWolf25 Character Busts - LadyLyzar Painted Scenes - Schenanigans, seventeendeer (intro); Munin, seventeendeer, Shiny Hazard Sign (endings) Teaser - Schenanigans, seventeendeer Tombstone - Mewtie Candles - JOTB Coins - Schenanigans Crystals - Mewtie Flowers - Hawaiianbabidoll Food & Food Bowl- Schenanigans, Shiny Hazard Sign Gems - Munin Herbs & Funeral Bouquet - Schenanigans, Shiny Hazard Sign Incense - Mewtie Pinwheels - Schenanigans, Shiny Hazard Sign Ribbons & Bows - seventeendeer Statuettes - seventeendeer Windchimes - Schenanigans, Shiny Hazard Sign Other - Mewtie (Vilvoor plush), Schenanigans (staff, book, necklace), Shiny Hazard Sign (book)

Wooh!

My guess is it's similar to the way Terraes work: If you don't have them completely unlocked, even if the pictures show up in the encyclopedia, they could still not have the breed name on the view page. That's because even the adults seem to remember which egg they came from, and even though they don't show different sequences, you have to "unlock" each sequence from each egg properly for ALL the Terraes to show their breed link. TJ's may grow up directly into the new alts, and so we can't see the breed link because we haven't "unlocked" the full sequence, even though the sprites are the same. But the encyclopedia shows us that the S2 hatchies are the same, otherwise as MissK. said they would just be shadows. This is just my assumption for the why we can't see the encyclo link on his - his may grow normal and he has to manually set them or use copy anyway, but I imagine the S2s will be the same based on the encyclopedia we have. Time will tell.

Spoiler for Hunters:

I saw mention in the discords that at least the glittering egg looked like a Winter Holiday, and they were indeed created as such for 2022 I only submitted them the one time though, and submitted them instead as a normal with a small description tweak, as they honestly just feel too small of a sprite for a holiday to me and I was not happy with my attempts to upscale them. However, they work perfectly in size for a normal, so I am glad to see them now~ Here was the very first sketch I ever made of them, but I quickly refined the design to include a longer tail with the glowing crystal concept and removed the gold markings. The diamond like marks on the shoulder were removed once I started spriting, and the glittering star marks on the adult was a finishing touch ^.^

I liek turtle

I REALLY love the car, it's so cute!! Mine -

I understand the excitement @Cinnamonear but dragons you don't own should not be shared - spatio could have shared them here herself. Lovely adults, cannot wait for next year to hoard these floofy children. Thank you to everyone involved with the new dragon (and congrats!) And thank you for the fun event, as well!

This is our first Valentine wyrm. We've only had 4 total Holiday wyrms, ever, with this release. So, not sure why the frustration at a wyrm. But people will find something to be upset about every release xD I am very excited to see a wyrm, I have wanted one for Vday for a while 😄 I also see a tiny bit of green in there, that's very exciting 👀

Happy Valentine's day \o/

Haze keeps trying to get by without sharing this but it's one of my favorite sketches, so I'm not going to let that fly 😤 (shared with permission of course)

Just because this has come up a few times now - Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead was indeed one of the many Iridichi inspirations. However, DOTD is not the only cultural holiday that has to do with both the living and the dead & the veil in between, which is the crux of Iridichi lore. Iridichi are representative of many cultures, holidays, and concepts in that regard.

Teeth are actually really difficult to get on such a small scale; they're supposed to be long and needle-like so wouldn't be as pronounced as normal dragon teeth (and also not as pronounced as my concept sketch that Valid linked, technically), so it didn't feel right to wedge them in - it would likely have only been one or two that would fit in the female's mouth anyway. Plus I just really like the silhouette and clean look of her mouth, and felt it showed off the funky cheek holes better this way 😄

Okay I normally ignore a lot of negativity because I understand not everything will be everyone's cup of tea. But this is rude, and not just to me (which I can shrug off) - but it's really rude to my conceptors, both for the Iridichis and now the Abyss Watchers, as well as all of my fellow artists (in cave and aspiring!) who submitted dragons this year. I can wholeheartedly appreciate people wanting more traditional things for ween (though I do laugh because of the hatred "traditional" valentine dragons get! xD). Halloween is my favorite holiday and I LOVE all the gimmicky stuff that comes along with it more than any other holiday or time of year. But saying we're "running out of ideas" when the same Halloween ideas are thrown into our face every single year IRL is just... Wrong? To put it into perspective, I submitted multiple Halloween submissions this year after I was approached for several collaborations. Of those concepts, this was the only "non-traditional" one (which as a concept is also several years old now), and it's the one that got picked. As munin and others have stated, y'all get a glimpse of ONE dragon per holiday each year. I'm certain I could have done things to make Iridichis and Abyss Watchers "spookier" or more traditional visually. But I have made the two people who came up with and envisioned them incredibly happy and I wouldn't change that for the world. All that being said, I hope this negativity doesn't discourage other people from exploring more "non-traditional" concepts for holidays. Variety is the spice of life. Something one person hates with a passion can drive another person into a frenzy of excitement.

I also had a notebook page of some sketches that I whipped up into a quick little reference~ Thank you to everyone for their support and critiques, I can't wait to see the beautiful lineages made with them

[In case people have not seen it yet, the encyclopedia has been updated with notes, including a note with "official" names for the variants. We decided to keep it simple, and in order on TJ's post, those names are Lime, Brown, Tan, Green, Teal, Pink, Blue, Black, and White, based on their body colors. Hopefully that helps both with trading and with those having issues identifying them!] I am so glad everyone seems to be enjoying themselves as they discover the mysteries of the Astrael Dragon 👀 These fellas were initially conceived in December 2020/January 2021 as a Valentine submission, and looked a decent bit different! They were a gold and red wyvern, similar to the Lime variant. As they were created during the height of the pandemic, small bits of their lore was not only influenced by the need for social distancing, but also for those geographically separated from their loved ones, which was something that struck a personal chord with me. Our 2021 Valentine submission looked like this: We actually struggled to settle on colors, as we were inspired by so many different flowers and combinations. Even before submitting them for the holiday, we knew that if they were not selected we were absolutely going to do a floral breeding mechanic with them. We began the process of finalizing the breeding plans and started planning colors, and even offered them as an option for the 2021 birthday before work on other bday breeds had started, but that didn't pan out. Schen & Spatio planning Astrael colorations and breeding, circa 2021, colorized. We ultimately decided to give them one more chance as a Valentine submission, and changed them into Westerns and adjusted the coloration of the body to be a bright green, which is the Lime Astrael (the "OG") that you see today! The Blue Astrael was originally intended to be Spatio's Spriter's Alt. My Spriter's Alt didn't make the cut, instead having 2 different variations spun off from it. Canonically, Astrael Dragons cover a wide range of colorations. There have not been any documented cases of Astrael Dragons sharing the same exact coloration between 2 or more individuals, though hatchlings will often have a very similar color to the adult Astrael that has spent the most time tending to their egg. Rumors of abnormally multicolored individuals have been spread, but proof has been hard to come by.... As players, we endeavored to make these something that would be fun, satisfying, and still cater (at least a little bit) to various different playstyles. We really wanted to provide a unique new lineage addition to spice things up a bit. I hope we have achieved that, and that you enjoy exploring the rest of the options provided by the Astrael Dragons.

We actually didn't have anything in mind for official names 😅 Canonically they're all slightly different in coloration and variation, with [hidden lore that must be unlocked.] I also fear that by the time we provide names for them, they'd mostly be only available here/on the wiki, as it may take a while for an encyclopedia update to provide that information on site. That being said, we will explore names for them to hopefully help those with these issues you mentioned, and will share here when we do

The Arrakymas were such a fun project, and I'm super appreciative that @spatio roped me into doing them ^.^ While they are a more direct reference to Dune's sandworms, they do take some artistic liberties and design choices from other famous Sci-Fi worms, such as Tremors. But spatio is the mastermind behind most of their design elements so I'll leave her to speak about her artistic magic... :3 The Arrakyma name is indeed a play off the planet Arrakis, but we combined it with Greek "Kyma" for cymatics. I originally was playing with other Arabic languages for their name, as that is where "Shai-Hulud" comes from, but once we stumbled upon this idea and combination it just felt perfect. We also could not decide on a singular color palette, so opted for a bit of a dramatic dimorphic difference in coloration. Collectively, the colors are inspired by a lot of the old concept art for Dune's sandworms, mainly the vibrant pops of color amidst a more drab, sandy backdrop. While the theme and inspo is definitely the classic, it was our mutual love of the new Dune movie that brought these beasties to life 😂

Such a great release! I love the Occulri portraits and that tail feather sprite is chef's kiss, thank you for sharing Mewtie! Congrats & thank you to the writers and artists

I'm so sorry y'all I am the type of pixel artist that is terribly afraid of large scale art I'm so excited to finally be able to share these guys with everyone! I wish I could say I was the creative one who came up with their name, but sadly I cannot - I was discussing the history of chocolate with some dear friends and one shared a fun fact that "xocoatl/xocolatl" (the x pronounced with a sh sound) was mesoamerican hot chocolate, and I knew immediately what their name needed to be! Though as Lantean_Pegasus originally pointed out, the drink was not sweet - it was brewed with additives such as chili peppers, and was actually quite bitter. It could also be enjoyed hot OR cold! These fellas were actually originally inspired by the Resplendent Quetzal. I have always wanted to see a green Valentine dragon, and the beautiful iridescent emerald coloration of these birds alongside their brilliant red chests were fundamental elements I wanted to add to the original design. The heart chest mark is admittedly quite on the nose, but that was an intended design element from the start. Graceful long feathers and extravagant tails were the final design element I borrowed from these gorgeous birds. And of course, I couldn't make something quetzal-like without taking inspiration from Quetzalcoatl, too Lantean_Pegasus also hit the nail on the head with this one! Now some fun facts! » These dragons are absolute chocolate fiends. Hatchlings prefer the sweeter varieties, but as they age their tastes also change, and adults often enjoy the more bitter variations of this treat » They are absolutely useless in the romance department. If you ask a Xocoatl for advice on love affairs, they're just going to give you a quizzical look and tell you something along the lines of just follow your heart or some other generic nonsense » Their plumage is often seen as a sign of a good spring to come, and not only are their presences welcomed in settlements, they are also welcomed by farmers, with feathers being a good luck charm » They are easily frightened but hard to anger; if you anger one you will know it, though, as they make the most horrendous shrieking sound when you do. For the sake of your neighbors, please don't do... that. » Though shy and are typically quite introverted, they most definitely enjoy their spring time spotlight. But this likely contributes to their reclusiveness for the rest of the year...