hello! I'm Rax and this is my blog for everything creative that I do: art, photography, and writing

these are my blorbos, in their carefully climate-controlled blorbo tanks. warning, I rarely update posts so they might well not be canon!

Infinisea

a world spread across an endless ocean. mostly, this tag is currently about Myfanwy and Morgan's story, tentatively titled 'The Ballad of Morgan Howell'. it's about a girl who loses her brother to the sea... and then sets out to get him back - before her own growing magic can destroy her

Wynstan the Wondrous

about a young walrus named Wynstan, who is studying to become a wizard; his friends that he meets at The Place of Learning, a sort of university for the magically inclined; and of course we wouldn't dream of forgetting his brother Wally!

hopefully more to come...someday. it's all in my head!

photography

basically nothing but nature at the moment. usually it's of things in Surrey, UK, but occasionally I go somewhere else

art

all my non-photographic art

other tags of interest:

Owl, pokemon, kirby, abstract, writing, worldbuilding

other platforms:

I'm definitely not leaving tumblr until I'm absolutely forced to, but here are some other places you can find me

bsky: I'm here too but I don't like it half as much as tumblr

toyhou.se: profiles of (some of) my ocs. needs a LOT of work!

cara: using as a portfolio (that I really need to update)

art fight: sadly can't participate this year :(

a little picture for my friend @eisly! an imagined scene of his charming ferrets, Wally and Hoot

I drew @gross-galaxy's characters, Fatimah and Henri Charmolipi, for a cosy little art exchange organised by @squidknees. these two are siblings, originally from the Ottoman Empire, now resident in Paris in an alternate past where the Commune de Paris became a fixture, and also there's werewolves and stuff. a cool setting!

the flowers that Fatimah is arranging are oleander and Henri is in the honey-covering stage of making baklava, both of which are native to the Gaziantep area that they come from originally. I love painting clothing and leaves and loathe and abhor painting tables

my art vs. artist for 2025! it's frankly been a horrible, horrible year for me, and I didn't get anything like as much done as I wanted, for either art or writing. but maybe 2026 will finally turn the corner? I hope so anyway, and I hope it's better for you too

Owl is hoping for some chocolate mice in his stocking, because he has been extremely hootiful all year!

I hope you all have a good day, whether you're celebrating anything or not :)

stacking things is so satisfying, isn't it?

the matching new ref for Morgan, which I also plan to add more outfits to at some point in the future where I have the ability and time (if that ever occurs)

Guelder rose (Viburnum opulus) and Bramble (Rubus fruticosus), putting on a late show of berries!

Surrey, UK, November 2025

Hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna (probably), covered in big red haws (the fruit)

Surrey, UK, November 2025

new Myfanwy ref for a winter exchange I'm in! I'm going to add more outfits for her at some point but it might be a while off

The landscape is starting to look very wintery! Surrey, UK, November 2025

sorry for the poor pickings recently, my illness gets worse in winter. here is a reference sheet for Wobble Dee! he's travelled all the way from Rainbow River to make his fortune as an acrobat, performing in front of packed audiences in a touring circus! yeah, how's that going for you, Wobble Dee? uh... Wobble Dee? hello??

Garden shrub with beautiful red berries, possibly a Skimmia? EDIT: likely to be either Skimmia japonica, or a hybrid between S. anquetilia & japonica (thanks @plantnerderyallday!)

Surrey, UK, November 2025

so. uh, back in the dawn of time, I used to run a homestuck ask blog for the salamanders of the land of wind and shade (@asksalamanders). I got out of homestuck definitively when the alpha trolls flash walking around game dropped (FOR SOME REASON...) but I still do love these guys, and more importantly so does my mum, who has supported me so much. and she missed seeing them, so here they are, doing a cake dance. sorry for homestuck on main!

A common (or ring-necked) pheasant, Phasianus colchicus. This species is naturalised, but the numbers are boosted by artificial releases every autumn in preparation for a lot of jolly shooting. I sincerely hope this fine fellow escapes! Surrey, UK, November 2025

The leaves all blew down a couple of days ago, but I managed to get a few photos first

Surrey, UK, November 2025

I've been sketching all the important walrus characters from Wynstan the Wondrous. (From left to right: Wynstan, Wally, Chou-Chou, Aurora, Grace, Nerisse)

Missing from the picture is the walrus animus Aruk, who has decided that walruses are "falling behind" across the many worlds and the way to raise their impact is to mould them more into the profile of the most successful (in his opinion) inhabitants - like humans. Thus, on the world most similar to our earth, walruses in the wild and in captivity have been very rapidly "evolving". Some changes happen during a single lifetime! The closer the walruses are to humans (or another species similar to humans in various sorts of intelligence and communication), the faster this magic evolution happens.

Aurora and Grace were living in an aquarium, after being stranded as infants. They are genetically unrelated, but think of themselves as sisters. The changes hit them as they grew to adulthood, and when Wynstan and Wally were stranded as infants themselves many years later, they had mastered language to the point that they could communicate their desire to help raise the children (which they did).

Wynstan and Wally had already decided they were blood brothers while they were in the ICU, and therefore they developed a confusing brother/cousin situation when Aurora adopted Wally, and Grace adopted Wynstan.

They still live together in the aquarium, in private housing. Wally and Wynstan travel each day to a school for walruses, until Wynstan is offered board and tuition at The Place Of Learning at age 14, where he meets Chou-Chou. (Don't worry about Wally, he goes to sports college.)

Chou-Chou (and her mother Nerisse) grew up on a world where a newly expanded walrus society was deliberately invited into the world from outside, as part of a peculiar sideways play in the 4D-chess-cold-war between two entirely different complex civilisations. One of them was for the most part oceanic and aquatic, and the other was amphibious in shallower water, mostly on or around land. Between these two, the walruses cautiously made their home.

(this is all subject to change. I make no promises!)