Pau's Dump Site

This is gonna be the designated thread for my art, I guess-- Will probably be adding to it frequently, so stay tuned! :0

First off, concept sketch for NH Simma:



In this universe, she's an illegal immigrant from Nepal. She fled to New Helix in the hopes of transitioning to female, but ran into so much financial hardship that it was impossible to manage on her own. So she was taken in by a man in Helix Heights who paid for her surgery and HRT, and basically supports her financially, in exchange for her "company". He is married, so he keeps her in a separate house in Upper Westside, where he visits her. Despite that she lives apart from him, he still manages to be extremely controlling and abusive towards her, physically, emotionally, and sexually. She's too afraid to leave, though, because she doesn't think she can make it on her own, and he's convinced her that she's obligated to stay because of the money he's spent on her. Plus, she worries that if she makes him angry, he'll have her deported.

For someone who grew up in such a pacifistic culture/religion, being physically abused is an extreme foreign concept that she can't deal with, emotionally, so she tends to cope by blocking out the pain with food. She's not a chef in this universe, but she still spends all of her time in restaurants and markets, or at home watching cooking shows, and she devotes all of her thoughts to recipes and the culinary arts. She also tends to turn to food for comfort and stress relief (emotional eating), causing her to struggle with her weight, which incites more abuse, which stresses her out even more. It's a vicious cycle. Personality-wise, she tends to come off as someone who's kind of oblivious/tends to have their head in the clouds, but it's just her method of pretending that everything is okay.


WHO WILL BE HER KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR, GRACE?

AL-HILAL NOTES
^{For anyone who wants them...}

(First off, notes I already posted before, just in case anyone wants them as a ref:)

Rigel's old gang. Was based within NH's worst neighborhood, where Rigel grew up. The gang was comprised entirely of Mu'mins, which is both a religious and cultural multiethnic group hailing from the Middle East, and parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe. (Read: 'Muslims') Al-Hilal represented and protected the interests of the small Mu'min enclave in NH, and was very closely tied to that community and its families.

Six years ago, Murat attempted to bring Al-Hilal into the fold of the Watch. Al-Hilal saw this as an attempt to encroach on Mu'min businesses and territory, and considered it a threat to their immigrant culture, which they felt they could only protect by eschewing outside influences.

When pressured by Murat to comply, they retaliated by initiating "The Struggle": a both violent and non-violent series of protests against the Watch. In response, Murat recruited the help of Remus (this was the event that brought him into the Watch), who began delivering propaganda-saturated sermons that demonized Al-Hilal and rallied neighborhood support against this 'religious extremist' gang.

In the end, not only was Al-Hilal destroyed by the Watch in physical terms, but they also suffered harassment and prejudice from the neighborhood's brainwashed non-Mu'min population. For those Mu'mins living in the neighborhood who were not gang members, they were faced with three options: join The Struggle and be crushed, flee from the neighborhood, or renounce Al-Hilal and deny any ties to it.

Many families, including Rigel's, disowned their children and abandoned them to fate, in order to save themselves from the witch hunt. Others joined the casualty count for fighting back. The rest, along with the few Al-Hilal members who survived (like Rigel), left the neighborhood in a mass exodus to other parts of the city. They are no longer able to go back to their former homes, out of fear.


(AND NOW, NEW NOTES:)

First off, they were a pretty small gang, and their main objective was protecting the Mu'min enclave of Downtown Eastside, which they considered their territory. So they vaguely resembled the Watch in the sense that they claimed to serve their community... (Which is perhaps part of the reason why Murat was willing to try and incorporate them into the Watch, rather than get rid of them entirely, despite being a gang? Need to confirm this--) However, unlike the Watch, they were an actual gang, and didn't hide the fact that they functioned entirely as one.

They probably didn't actively recruit members, but if someone who shared their religion (or was at least "culturally" Mu'min) wanted to join, they'd accept them. I imagine the Mu'mins as being a pretty small minority in the city, so there's the sense that their community has to stick together and be protected from outside threats and influences, which is precisely why they didn't appreciate Murat trying to bring them into his sphere of power.

As far as how Al-Hilal functioned and what it did, crime-wise, their religion definitely came first, which meant they didn't get involved in the drug or sex trade. Members wouldn't necessarily be harassed or banished for partaking in intoxicating substances or (as in Rigel's case) extramarital sex, but they would have to get the 'fajir' tattoo on their left shoulder, if they did. More on tattoos in a sec. So with hookers and blow off the table, all that was left to them was some low-level sale of illegal arms (which they would get smuggled in via the Free Traders), theft, vandalism, and general violence. Again, they were a relatively small group, so on the whole they weren't involved in anything major, and mostly kept to their own community. As a result, they didn't have many allies, but also not a lot of rivals.


TATTOOS:

All members are required to have certain tattoos on their left hand, and, in some cases, on the back of the left shoulder. Any other tattoos are optional.



Required tats:

@ = same for all members
# = will vary by person

1. @ Back of the hand: the gang's symbol; first tattoo that an initiate will receive.

2. @ Thumb: symbolizes member's devotion, that they are willing to commit certain sins for the gang.

3. # First finger: symbol representing what the member was named after. Could simply be Arabic (or whatever language their name is in) script, or a pictorial symbol. (In the case of Rigel, everyone in his family has names that are astronomy-related, so his is an astrological symbol. Al-Hilal's boss had the symbol for Leo, in the comic I did that featured him.)

4. # Middle finger: symbols depicting ethnicity and/or nationality. Mu'mins are a multiethnic group, so this is how members distinguish where other members come from. (Rigel's family is from both Saudi and Egypt, Al-Hilal's boss was just from Saudi Arabia.)

5. # Ring finger: symbols for main crimes they committed and whether or not they have been incarcerated. (Like Rigel, the boss had the ring and the evil eye, but also had an Egyptian crook and flail, symbolizing that he was a criminal authority.)

6. @ Pinky: rub el hizb; the last mandatory tattoo that a member will get, symbolizes the completion of their initiation/full devotion to the gang.



Fajir/Kafir tats: only required if a member transgresses the rules of their faith. Members that are only "culturally" Mu'min would have the "kafir" (كافر; female: كافرة) tattoo.




Optional: many members would get other tats like these that fit in with the culture of Al-Hilal, but are more personalized.


ONE LAST NOTE: Members were not required to speak Arabic, but many did, and one would certainly begin to pick up on the language after being a member for some time.

Gotta go to bed right the fuck now, but some highly important Lupe doodles before I do:

Xénia needs to see this omg-- Her chibi form is so CUTE
Don't worry Lupe, flowers or not, I'm sure people will still piss themselves when they see you coming at them with a bat-- :'''^)

ANGRY CACTUS : D


i couldn't resist and i don't regret it

CRIES MY SMALL WIFE I LOVE HER.

@Vlad: NGL she was the first person I showed these to, LMAO-- And if anything, they make Lupe even more dangerous...bc you bet your ass if you even *look* at her flowers the wrong way, she'll fuck your shit up even worse than she was already going to. BI /SHOT

@Adora & Ryllis: HUHUHUHU~ B)))))))))

Part 1 of several things I said I wanted to do-- B'|

btw, if you've never looked up pictures of Mexican revolutionary women, then you need to find Google RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.

SHRIEKS YOU DREW IT ; o ; <3 <3 <3 <3 He's so scruffy ehehehe (B Shhh, one of them is obv a time traveler /SHOT

Pls destroy me, Lupe :'|||| You make me wanna draw her in the Book of Life style--JUST LIKE ONE OF THE ADELITA/SCARDELITA TWIN BABES

Heheheheh~ B) <3 <3 <3 He's related to my people, he has no choice but to be scruffy--/SHOT

OH MY GOD I WOULD BE FOREVER INDEBTED TO YOU--

TOLD YOU I WOULD TRADE YOU, AMI-- Altho maybe I would've drawn this of my own volition, anyway, ngl as soon as you said she was Peruvian, I wanted to doodle Cherri. B'lc

NSFW:

I just spent the whole evening compiling artistic nudes for...research...purposes, and it made me want to draw ladies. B'|

SHRIEKS OHH!!!!!!!!!!! OOOOOHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GORGEOUS GOAT WIFE, BEAUTIFUL EGG DAUGHTER

I'm grinning like a fool right now omg CRIES <3<3<3<3<3

HURRHURRHURR~~ B))))) <3 <3 <3 <3

Lee doodle with the polyvore set that Vlad made for him~ B))))))))

Random doodles... #1 goal for TE2.0 = bringing Sarv back. B'|