Erimude Portal

The rear portal to House Erimude is dominated by the small but powerful Taratixia organ. The instrument’s case is a late example of parochial Cering Tass, or ‘free florid sculpture’ — it ‘follows the stone’, as its quasi-Fleurian proponents say, making only desultory attempts at regularity. The madly exuberant, painstakingly crafted exteriors typical of the Cering Tass movement are seldom declared finished. Youthful members of the cams they belong to are often seen chipping at them as a summer craft assignment, and it is not uncommon for whole facades to be torn and melted down three to four generations later, and something entirely new begun in their place.

contact: <tiang.pong@gmail.com> 

Welcome to my overview feed.

I’m pledged to Wonder, and the hope that the aesthetic traditions we’ve inherited from the past will have a place in our future.

The collection below is broadly indicative of my body of personal work. Some of the content has been drawn from other galleries on the site; I have retained captions as they may prove useful.

*** THIS PAGE IS OUTDATED. FOR MORE RECENT WORK, CLICK ON THE BUTTONS ABOVE TO ACCESS MY PROJECT PAGES. ***

TIE ARQUIS'A fine place to spend a thoughtful morning,’ wrote Master Hall. ‘Seen from the air, it is typical of the quieter, more provincial side of Middle Calais — that great lush belt between Primi Calla and the periphery, where most of the city r…

TIE ARQUIS

'A fine place to spend a thoughtful morning,’ wrote Master Hall. ‘Seen from the air, it is typical of the quieter, more provincial side of Middle Calais — that great lush belt between Primi Calla and the periphery, where most of the city resides, and most of the produce is grown.’

The flow of water through this area is part natural, part directed. Calais is a honeycombed drainage basin sloping down toward its centre; this provides for some complex and curious terrain when viewed from above.

‘We floated past Plianth haven late last evening — we'd followed the Calle Ceras out on patrol — and I managed to get the tripod out for a quick but fuzzy shot. Morgaff sightings have been intensifying as autumn progresses, but it would seem that at least some boaters will not submit to have their evenings spoilt.

'I've come into possession of some plans for the haven in question (courtesy of the Rooms), and will be occupying myself with my backlog of illustration for much of the week to follow. I shall be glad of it; the nights are quiet and long, and though I never mind being out in Calais, I tire sometimes of the chill that is in the air.’

~ A. HALL.

You reach sometimes for lost worlds you know, but cannot find.

From my lifelong project Finding Calais.

'At a very proper 9:00 we set out on the collapsible, Emgi pulling hard on the oars against the swells. It seemed the closer we got to shore, the harder he fought; as we knew he had the strength of five Peas and four Fausts and a half, I set the oars aside and saw to the stores, that the violent lurching would not tip them overboard; it having been so calm moments before that neither Pea nor I had thought to apply the fine schooling we had received on the twenty types. We made landfall without incident, and the site had been as Paths described yester-day. Pea and I stared at the VAST dark trees, and the fog churning from behind them, and the organick light flashes, until Emgi got bored and sat down, and pulled a sprig of mint from a bulging pocket to chew. Pea had decided to forget his killing jar, and we spent the rest of the morning doing the ‘preliminary usual’, as he called it - walking up to the treeline, spreading canvas, then beating (gingerly) at the branches above it with a hiking stick. Some of our quarry dropped like stones and sat there as if sulking. Others leapt right off, crashing audibly back into the undergrowth. Most dispersed in an airborne cloud.. Pea got bolder quickly enough, and dove gamely after the sturdier, angrier ones. We detained them in a shallow cloth bin with a lid of fine mesh — we really, really tried to pick out the predatory ones as quickly as we could, but it warn’t always easy to tell, and we ended up losing a fair few of the smaller...'

(~ Material attributed to the natural history locus aboard the CR Hollander. The content is amateur but nonetheless earnest and reliable public education.~)

CALAIS: The ‘Woodland’ Oegel — L. Rowe Fleury’s last masterpiece (or abomination, critics howl). Never in Cayden memory has a single architect been the subject of so much divisive controversy. Himself Fleury would shrug and say, I like plants, and draw back into his sketchbook. At any rate the ‘Woodland’ oegel has preserved well. It has never gone silent. Four centuries later it continues to play softly through the night, stopping only when dawn mists begin to curl about the more ‘becoming’, symmetrical, pillared regularity of civic edifices across the river Eiste. It has limited defensive utility, possessing no stops mighty enough to deter the Morgaff on its more spirited nights. Those in the vicinity unable to sleep at night find it nevertheless a reassuring presence. The town that has spring up within, above, and around it is heartily involved in its upkeep and municipal musicmaking. There are generally recitals both lunch- and dinner-time, after which the scholars hook it to the automaton for ‘lullaby’ watch.

`The eight domes of the Octan Palace cluster over the cold waters of its eponymous vale. There are notes of salt in the air, mist from the fountains, the echoing of footsteps in halls curtained from sight. To our sensibilities the impossibly complex facades before us seem to flit, with each subtle change of the light, constantly between the beautiful and the macabre. O, the wild, exuberant extent of their ornament! Great fronts of cloud are passing overhead, and when they blot the sun the gloom under the glittering eaves appears to writhe with dark life. But of course the complex must serve, in a fashion, to intimidate. We are told that it houses a martial pipe organ of respectable size; that, when its most genial ranks thrum subtly to life each evening, it is firm cue for promenaders to leave. When the Morgaff concert has thundered its last, the lullabies of Calais will begin to call gently and sweetly from the municipal stops, and the palace will become a refuge for the sleepless. The library (replete with shelters that resist the worst of the martial infrasound) never closes. Its warm lights shine bravely against the hours of night.’
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The Octan Palace straddles the last run of the Tixia cascades. Principal architect Erin Bold (a student of the famously controversial L. Rowe Fleury) was inspired by the filterfeeding crustacean stygofauna that regularly swarm in the pools at its feet. There the cold waters from the cascades meet warm, mineral-heavy jets from vents and geysers, leading to explosions of planktonic life.

Take a breather, don’t miss the marvels on the way? :)

Sidescroller

Produced for the project’s instagram. A fun side-scroller featuring a slightly monumental but otherwise typical commune in peripheral Middle Calais.

Middle Calais, eight stations from Rial. This close to the periphery the fissures trellising the land have broadened discernibly. It is dryer as well, the rock faces red and harsh, the green sparser. Even here the ranks of infrasound organ pipe continue their outward march. Over the centuries the taps beneath some of them have lapsed into dormancy; when this happens the city decommissions them in quiet ceremonies and (excepting the occasional survey) leaves them to wear gently and grandly into the dusts.

Middle Calais. If you’ve followed the beacons (and the waters) this far, you’ll mark that it gets rather lusher here.

Middle Calais. If you’ve followed the beacons (and the waters) this far, you’ll mark that it gets rather lusher here.

CALAIS: The waters that course around Os Tepin (Celin) are bound straight for the maw of one of the largest and steepest cave openings in the region. It is a dark pastime of the two hundred forty residents here to lounge and picnic on the Boardwalk while fine spray from that abyssal spectacle swirls past them. In dryer seasons the waters slow to a trickle, and the vicinity becomes deathly quiet.

The last beacon of Iara keeps staid vigil from its pedestal atop the husk of a Rothalgan air temple. Above it survey ships tarry, borne lofty by winds from Carentan. Where they go, few can follow.

Home for the Evening

The double ridge of the Crucian peaks look to Malendar from across some eighty leagues of shrouded wastes. These are the Guild havens, and for all of the next century their rigids will be the only conveyances permitted (de jure, at any rate) to leave Iaran longitudes for the far side of the world.

MIDDLE CALAIS: Qentin Doras (Quentin transit-hall) sends clattering ‘Canton Cars’ over the Welbern Sinkhole, and retrieves them the next morning. The terrain around Welbern is somewhat gentler than the rule (though still dominated by the rifts, fissures, and scarps that make the entire basin such a challenge to traverse). It is also unusual for being largely and often permanently submerged in tidal ‘dark’ water.

OOC: This piece was part of a two-part experiment examining design differences between my two ‘worlds’ FINDING CALAIS and PASTEL SKYCUBES.

Here’s ILUSIA WELMISLEY in Middle Calais. Its two hundred and four residents have found home in a high place: a sheer-sided rock rising a mile out of the steam of the Talimore fissures. In contrast to the monumental scale of the engines and edifices lurking in the depths of these parts, building styles here are quaint and reminescent of peripheral communes like Rial and Denquien. Daytime visitors are common, being typically drawn by such things as the view, the quiet terrace cafes, the winsome, chill air, and the small but ornate terrariums. These last specialise in the curation and conservation of highland invertebrates unique to these parts. Ilusia Welmisley is also a famed stopping point for the annual migration of several species of Carentan swift. The birds unsurprisingly arrive with the onset of the autumnal ‘moth season’, when lazy white clouds of wanly fluttering pearl moths take to the air and catch the sun in explosions of iridescent colour.

TO COLD MISTS

Today's cold afternoon has lapsed into chill dusk. Light shows add colour and life to the geysers and falls so common in the heavily fissured basin of Calais: the Lost City Found. Around them ranks of great infrasound pipes shudder and hum atop their vents, they have stood for generations against the hours of murk. But an age has dawned, now, when they will no longer be needed.

You crest the last rise, and bask in home's amber glow. Today's evening post has dropped in to cinch; it won't tarry long, and if you hurry you might make it in time to procure something interesting from its store. Gasjacks these days are an enterprising lot.

The roofs of Denquien (Cortin) are instantly recognisable for their blue slate. A peripheral scion of Calais, Denquien possesses the capacity for agrarian self-sufficiency at a pinch. It also taps its neighbourhood’s maze of rapids, rivulets, and falls for much of its power, rosters its own sentries, and runs two of its own oegels — thus needing very little from the Citadel. Accessing Denquien’s gondola station — its only link to the civic grid, save for some very taxing footpaths — does however mean a good half-hour of walking. Its ninety-six residents have not agitated for firmer connections to Calais proper, and seem content to light their own parallel but quaintly distinct path through the darkness of Carentan.

Arx Tallia - Tallia’s central promenade ends in a terrace with a view over the canton’s botanic gardens

Left. Calais: Renault's Lantern heralds the approach to middle Cayden - a reassuring sight for the harried sky captain. Some days the northerlies carry away the thunder of the falls; a hush descends upon the halls then, and reading and quiet conversation become possible.

Right. Croiden Falls, Calais (I think!) - 'water gate' to the southern periphery. The gazebo is a popular bandstand.

Clae Feldoune, ‘Dragon Chaser’, patrols the deepest, darkest parts of old Calais

Malendar - afternoon

Malendar's urban fissures can be a manifest impossibility for large airships to traverse. Capricious weather, however, often compromises more sensible routes to the city’s ports and terminals. The spectacle of the great envelope latched to puffing locomotive is therefore a staple of any blustery or inordinately cloudy day.

Bird's approach to Malendar

~ Malendar, capital of the Iaran Federation, is a deco-esque metropolis perched atop a cluster of mesas. This is a world of some very strange topography. The planetary surface puts one in mind of a cracked riverbed — such habitable ‘land’ as exists is rent by fissures, valleys, and sinkholes plunging into a slowly turning geological morass. Less than twenty percent of it has developed into exposed bodies of water, and rivers run as often as not straight over cliff faces or slip furtively below ground into vast, abyssal realms of squirming lightlessness.

Malendar: Twilight at the edge of pier country

Gas Station

Road Home

The florid ‘Crab’ Gate stands guard over the ancestral halls of Tilay.

TP_PAGW_9CTS.jpg
TENNERIM: A suit reads before work. The storms are returning; for a good third of the year these canals will be submerged, and the population snug (for the most part) in their great winding halls.

TENNERIM: A suit reads before work. The storms are returning; for a good third of the year these canals will be submerged, and the population snug (for the most part) in their great winding halls.

TIEN WANDA: Moth Paikor (ex-Tienmi Gigant) sets off for Tomp City. Paikor has a hundred and sixty-three storm seasons under her crest - several thousand transits to and from the far side of the world. Her line of transports are built like forts against the tempests this world delights in casting, and cheaper to operate than their chain sub competitors. The stats dictate, however, that it is but a matter of time before one of their ilk fails to return.

Sihaca Plain (umbrella porter: 5cents)

~ Sihaca (EY-26 ‘Conservatory Station’) is one of the founding wards on the Trehting Teal Line, and straddles the Opion drainage ‘bucket’ on suitably sturdy pillars. More resort than residence, it features an indoor wildlife preserve, theme park, mall, and floor space for retail and exposition. Sihaca closes for parts of winter and summer — some two thirds of the resident population are staff, but all who live here chip in one way or another to tide the place over the worst that the seasons can throw. The ward is also partially self-sufficient, with its own hydroelectric plant and floors zoned for vegetable and poultry farming.

Like many of the more peripheral Trehting wards, though, Sihaca falls into periodic decline. It is shown here rather the worse for wear.

A view down the interior of one of Trehting’s fortified hill stations. It hasn’t seen action in three generations, and the courtyards where the howitzers used to thunder are now good for the likes of frisbee, kites, schoolyard games, and night markets.

Skytrain. You can sit on the shelf at the front if you like, you know you want to…


(~ This piece was loosely inspired by a part of Changi Airport’s Terminal 2 that has remained untouched by the periodic facelifts that sweep through the complex.)

Oniet Station: a mixed-use slice from a far corner of Pastel Skycubes. This world gets highly unoriginal!

OOC: This piece was part of a two-part experiment examining design differences between my two ‘worlds’ FINDING CALAIS and PASTEL SKYCUBES.

The floor’s non-skid! Great storms are a thing in #pastelskycubes , and it gets rough outdoors even in this shielded catchment area. P.S. I like recreational trappings :)

Can you see the fairweather monorail in the left corner? It’s full of homebound suits. A ‘chaser’ from up the line’s passing, which means a storm’s about to pass as well. Those suits may be stranded for a long time :P Let’s hope Tanir has better coffee these days!

More skytrain fantasy from #pastelskycubes :)

TRENT LANDING

The lights of this station are visible from Sihaca on a clear night. Its business is broadcast relay and hydroponics; it sees few visitors except during the summer, when its otherwise desolate squares and lower terraces host the canton's teeming vegetable market.

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Tamora Station

I like stations :) This one started out as a scrapped concept from work.

RTS Asset Demo

Haven

Hill Station

Single Room - Set

Single Room - Shot

The Bassist

Carnival Pier - overview

Spotter Boys' Annual - Freight Dirigibles, Issue #14

Spotter Boys' Annual - Freight Dirigibles, Issue #24. Another page of Freight Dirigibles from Pier Country's favourite gentleman nerdery. The Spotter Boys of Lower Malendar have gathered for themselves a most creditable stock of information on the welter of airships that ply routes to and from the Gilded City. Federate authorities have found themselves in their drawing room (under a wilderness of scale models depending from its iron-glass rotunda) when they need a shipping query answered desperately enough.

The Thresher is an excursion support ship, usually present in a cluster at the centre of any shoaled venture beyond planar Iara. They have decent payload capacity, and a concourse well stretching a good third of the envelope's length. Sundry logistics like tents and rations thus fall often within their purview. They are by no means specialised freighters, though, for they lack dedicated, reinforced floor space for true heavy lifting.

West Torak, 17-2.T.E.

A drawing of the view from the T-line elevator concourse. The station is a quieter alternative to North and Lower Torak, both of which serve far beyond capacity during peak hours.

Outpost

Beacon

Rial Commune — site overview

Shamu V rolls into town at the Far Side of the World. She is tailed by larger yard cousin Epsilon IX.

Simulated blast damage for somewhat stylized IP — 'before'.

Simulated blast damage for somewhat stylized IP — 'after'. Looks like the tinkerer of this safe-house went a little too far with the day’s prize..

Katholl's Suriname family of aerospace gunships. This promotional shows the five hull types over a six metre grid.

Clockwise from left:

Model CVA-40 the Cruiser features speed and lethal precision. Its business is the hunting of opponent ships. To that end its Linebhek railgun hurls the fastest projectiles of any Katholl unit.

Model MK-V is the shock-trooping generalist of the array, and the most numerous in any engagement. It is hardy, amply protected, and stops at nothing.

Model LMR-2X is a swift, nimble reconnaissance platform packing a decent punch for its size. It operates alone or in pairs, frequently with a CVA-40 close behind.

Model BM-H4K is a short-range butcher fielding a massive demolition gun. When employed in conventional assaults it typically motors insidiously in just behind the vanguard.

Model MB-GH8 is aptly dubbed, and the heftiest of the array. It spearheads assaults with its battering ram of a prow, and more than trebles the armament of a MK-V. It is a target of high value, and rarely spotted alone.

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