I Have My Dash Set To Chronological So I Don't Miss Anybody's Updates But I Stg It Keeps Turning Itself

[ Moon 1 ] [ Newlight ] [ Part 1/2 ] [ While on patrol, ??? heard a suspicious noise. Following the sound with his nose to the ground, ??? doesn't see the blow coming. ] [ ??? got: claw-wound. ] ⊲ [ First ] | [ Previous ] | [ Next ] ⊳

Pt. 1 of @ranchclan's ask!

It's been a while since we've seen these kitties. Those who have been keeping up with the comic may recognize them 👀

Nimbus /ˈnimbəs/ A luminous cloud surrounding a supernatural being.

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The story of NimbusClan follows a pair of siblings, Moonpaw and Fogpaw, who have to make it on their own after a landslide wipes out the rest of their clan.

I’m more of a writer than an artist, but I really wanted to get in on the Clangen fun everyone has been having, so I thought it’d be fun to try a twist on the classic comic format - I’ll be writing a story alongside drawing art! I’ll post major events in classic comic form, but if you’d like the ~Full NimbusClan Experience~, there will be story posts to read!

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Feel free to sends asks to the cats or to myself!

Asks are tagged #asknimbus

Out of character will be tagged #ooc

Character references will be tagged #refs

Fanart will be tagged #nimbusfanart

All moon updates will be tagged with the relevant character(s) and the moon it takes place in, because I’m a sucker for organization. [Example: #moon 0 #moonpaw #fogpaw]

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-Mass extinction events are turned on

-Cats are allowed to breed with cats that aren't their mates

-Same-sex couples will not be able to have kits, but adoption is increased

-Cats are allowed to have kits with an unknown second parent

-Romantic interactions with cousins is turned off

-Leader will automatically choose a new deputy and cats will choose their roles on their own

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For now, I'm going to attempt to add the story portions with a read-more under the comics, but if it makes the posts too bloated or if the formatting is weird, I may try something else.

Welcome to NimbusClan!

Moon 7

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“All that’s left to do is to find some more cobwebs for you, bring you water-soaked moss, catch us both something to eat…” Moonstar ticks each item off on her claws, recounting the list in her head for the sixth time since waking. She’s been going over it since the sun rose, making sure she won’t forget anything her brother may need while she’s out. “Are you feeling okay?” She asks, reaching a paw towards his cobweb-covered flank. “Does it hurt at a–”

Fogfreckle’s tail easily flicks up between them, blocking her paw. She leaves it hanging awkwardly in the air between them for a heartbeat, confused, unable to tell if he had done that on purpose or not. “Really getting into that leader mindset, huh?” Her brother mews, and though there’s a slight smile to his mouth, his words fall flat as they reach her ears.

On purpose, then.

Moonstar blinks at him, trying to remember where her thoughts had gone before they’d been so succinctly cut off. “I’ve got to stay on top of things with my deputy out of commission, yeah?” She mews lightly. Her neck fur prickles with unease as the smile drops fully from Fogfreckle’s face.

“Yeah.” His voice is painfully blank. He turns his muzzle away from her, as if the boulders crowding in around them are somehow more interesting to look at. “S’pose so.”

Moonstar fidgets from paw to paw, unsure of the sudden tension stifling the two cats in the crammed space. She runs through her mental list yet again, turning each item over in her head like smooth pebbles to see if any of the contents could have pricked at her brother in a way she hadn’t considered. Try as she might, she can’t figure out how the term ‘water-soaked moss’ would have been able to turn his mood sour.

“You’re being really brave about this,” Moonstar starts, switching tactics. Her brother is still staring blankly into the darkness, turned away from her. “Sticking it out through the pain like this. I know it must hurt.”

She reaches out a paw once again, intending to rest it against his flick, but his ears flick backwards and he pushes himself out of reach. Her paw drops, the confusion at his attitude starting to morph into a hurt that yanks at her like brambles.

“I’m not a kit anymore, Moonstar.”

“...Yeah, I know,” Moonstar mews slowly, feeling like she’s padding on thorns. “You’re– you’re my deputy! You’re–

“Could you just leave me alone?” Fogfreckle curls into a tight ball, wrapping his tail over his nose. His shoulders are sharp in the dim light that issues from the crawlspace entrance, the fur along the back of his neck spiky and agitated. Moonstar frowns at the shape of him in the gloom.

If he doesn’t want her emotional support, fine. She swallows down the ball of hurt that is lodged in her throat like a bird bone and lets it out with a rough sigh. Screw her for trying to be helpful. He can rot, for all she cares, as long as he stays here and stays out of trouble.

She stalks towards the entrance of their makeshift den, shoulders brushing the boulder above her. “I’ll go get your moss.”

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moonstar boutta crash out after the last update

🌍 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

okay - we’re getting closer and closer to getting this show on the road! Scripts for the first five moons are done, and I just gotta get those sketches and lines done. One more question - the header! I’m trying to figure out what to draw to put there. If yall could spread this post around that would be so lovely!

Boughclan even made the pfp for the server! We'd love y'all to join and hang out with us and other creators in this community! 💖

clangen comic community discord

hi folks! @direclan, @nimbusclan, @ranchclan and i got together and created a general discord for folks in the clangen comic community. this discord isn't centered around any of our comics or around the game itself--it's for artists, writers, and fans alike to get together to hang out, make friends, and check out each other's work.

we're aiming for this to be a mutually supportive collective of folks who love clangen and the art that derives from it. if this sounds fun to you, please feel free to join us!

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

I couldn't NOT share this WIP omg I'm fiddling with a new way to do backgrounds and I'm literally so obsessed w/ this I had to share