http://www.tiangpong.com/findingcalais daily 0.75 2025-05-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559904000648-QBRWMZ4CTBANOFN4F1L4/BANNER_fc.jpg FINDING CALAIS https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559916821124-CWJG4DPC5U0833LNKH7O/DACover.jpg FINDING CALAIS The Lehasq Oegel. As is wont of the great civil pipe organs commissioned to tide a shattered people over the fall of Calleria, lofts for instrumentalists have been positioned in perfect alignment down the façade’s centre. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1609385825204-3SY7CJU9DR53ST32M4MD/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1609386522078-YRPHFMPQM3U1KDUL2TKT/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Green Coast Just walking the shores of some far green country. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1604256945463-K6GAH5XT2NMS78X33RD8/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1604856898046-PJAKG9171VKOH1CSOOMM/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Plianth Wistor ‘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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1603496114432-FEM38EIV1CZDUOSGI18W/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Old Country The ferry Red Puffin rounds a bend on a shakedown cruise. Loheirim is a pretty open country as Calais goes, and is strewn with the remnants of old fortifications. Today, Rosette era towns crust these ruins; a new dome, skylight, and beacon caps the hollowed stone hulk that is now Fost's iconic watchtower. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1594660285746-RGT97KXIS6F9ZQ0I6WPJ/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Eaves of Lampenbotania One of the grand, perennial draws of deep Calais is, that when the mists part you cannot fully know what quaint new wonders might be disclosed. Here we glimpse the edge of Lampenbotania - the cool, damp, rocky underworld that is wherever in the basin Calais farms and gardens by the light of trundling lamps. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583502770563-9A8C1Q5XJRTWXQFI68UH/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Night Patrol HIGH REIUDEN: Excursion ship Calle Qeras issues from the glinting eaves of the Sämerken. Her crew of eight are to take up the mantle of the midnight patrol. As it is each night across the basin, warmly lit facades are making a brave stand against the dark. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1585298237636-O79MU5828994ZUNOCETX/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Alte Coer (1/3) The Alte Coer is a large civic sanctuary in the neighbourhood of the Welbern Sinkhole. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1585334915981-56LJDQ6ASQ0W1VK3EKO9/Pavilion_Lowlight_rs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Alte Coer (2/3) The Alte Coer is a large civic sanctuary in the neighbourhood of the Welbern Sinkhole. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1585335111982-9ZI06GESZEL4WDI6OTQU/AlteCoer_Support.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Alte Coer (3/3) The Alte Coer is a large civic sanctuary in the neighbourhood of the Welbern Sinkhole. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1585335308436-IOTHFETP8EAZFXPU5ONU/SEQ_OV_upCont.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Sidescroller Produced for the project’s instagram. A fun side-scroller featuring a slightly monumental but otherwise typical commune in peripheral Middle Calais. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1587348290847-6RZB55ZRRGBW0W6S9M4P/Tieda_Vivarium_1.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Tieda Vivarium (1/2) Believe it or not, curatorships of vivariums like this (usually barely filled by volunteers!) became enormously sought after under the isolation orders that accompanied Calais’ last flu scare. ~~ The civic landscape of Calais is full of vivariums of all sizes. The public has a fascination with natural history, and the immense, fog-shrouded forests beleaguering the realm’s rocky perimeter is a source of enduring, titillating fascination. Excursion ships do venture out now and again, and whatever they bring back attracts vigorous study. When the academies have satisfied themselves, the societies take over; they acquire living specimens, and do all that they can to keep them comfortable, that they might perhaps yield more of their secrets. ~~ Architect: Opal Tieda https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1587348382309-61UGTUG8OMUZ09GI2ZLV/Tieda_Vivarium_2.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Tieda Vivarium (2/2) Believe it or not, curatorships of vivariums like this (usually barely filled by volunteers!) became enormously sought after under the isolation orders that accompanied Calais’ last flu scare. ~~ The civic landscape of Calais is full of vivariums of all sizes. The public has a fascination with natural history, and the immense, fog-shrouded forests beleaguering the realm’s rocky perimeter is a source of enduring, titillating fascination. Excursion ships do venture out now and again, and whatever they bring back attracts vigorous study. When the academies have satisfied themselves, the societies take over; they acquire living specimens, and do all that they can to keep them comfortable, that they might perhaps yield more of their secrets. ~~ Architect: Opal Tieda https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1587350587554-X5QEJENVOTCD5Y30UEGT/Cara_Fieyann.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Cara Feiyann - facade Justin: ‘In Finding Calais, I try my best to channel a little of the spirit of the Belle Époque: the ‘beautiful age’. For a few peaceful, touchingly optimistic decades (enough for electric bulbs to replace gas lamps, biplanes and airships to take to the skies, and the first women to get the vote) it seemed to the emerging fellowship of modern states that humanity was finally pulling out of the blinkered tumult of history as dignified, enlightened inheritors of millenia of cumulative development. Fittingly, the architecture of the Belle Époque and the great international expositions that defined it was a triumphant, misty-eyed celebration of the innumerable stories that had led up to it. The discipline and respect that designers and craftsmen of the time put into understanding and learning the traditions of their forebears showed a determination that lessons dearly bought would live on far into the future. For better or worse, modernity and two Great Wars would leave the dreams and ideals of this age in ruin.’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1587350992907-20OQ267CIOQ1F3HRB76T/Imon_Hroth.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Imon Hroth - facade Imon (or Emin) Hroth is a mid-sized 'blimp' gate in Taide, Calais. It often serves as the finish line for the certification trials of new ships and / or crews. Blimp gates in Calais are not indiscriminately placed — all airships are vulnerable to changes in wind and weather. Even on the calmest days, a low-flying airship always poses a measure of risk to property and people on the ground. The presence of a gate (or series of gates) is an indication to crews that civic authorities have, for whatever combination of reasons, thought it best to mark a route of smoothest, safest passage through a neighbourhood. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1594657973414-C6QPTQ5FADACNICGPJH6/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Forst Gate Wren Forst’s florid ‘pink gate’ features extensive rose brass ornamentation, the product of a spirited collaboration with apprentice hornmakers. The gate is the centrepiece of the largely naturalistic Taide ‘Mist’ Gardens, which neighbourhood has the distinction of being one of the busiest for aviation in Calais. Airships are constantly passing it on their lazy wind towards Primi Calla, and the challenging, shifting geothermal brume of the lower levels (balanced with the safety of relatively open, even monumental terrain) is put to good use by the largest of the city’s three gyro schools. Nursery lines of the little rotored craft catch the light in flurries of metallic winks as they dart among pillars older than Calais itself. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602071702081-H8XFSO7XXT5VFFZR62N1/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Cam Elira In Calais, the term ‘steam town’ reveals more about the town's location than its power source. Steam towns are generally located near major fumaroles, springs, and vents, and thus tend to be swathed in warm fog for as long as these geographic features are active. They often grew around machinery used to harness thermal and hydrokinetic power for the civic grid. If you're wondering what's beneath the rocky shelf the town sits on, those are lampenbotanic caverns with bioluminescent geology! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1594660696530-93YZQE5MNN8X5MMC6IQY/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Lof Piribanda Quiet mist, cold water, and fantasy architecture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602072724434-E84TB8JTXWEXNGCSNPY3/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Quet Ilnse A quaint outpost built up on the ruins of a fort older than Calais itself, Quet Ilnse features an eclectic mix of vernacular architectures. It is inaccessible even by peripheral standards. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1627714708623-6CX0VDBMKIV45Q4E1L58/2021.07.14_Bon1rs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Outcrop The city of Calais — light of Carentan — has lived out centuries of lonely, cloistered stability. The generations pass here with excruciating clarity: fail to pass the baton, and much of what one knows, loves, and understands will fade ere Aramis returns to bathe the night sky in its scintillating glow. Such continuity has facilitated civic projects that span many hundreds of years, like the safe cultivation of gigantic but slow-growing Cargai trees around vernacular architecture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1603781591528-MOCQABI7E6E4UK3NUYE7/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Caron Octa ‘Quindome sentinels lurk tonight around Caron Octa. They are slow, stable, martial — floating platforms bearing quaint and esoteric weaponry from the forges ‘behind’ Primi Calla. Morgaff are sighted regularly in these parts, especially as temperatures begin their descent toward Calais’ dark and still winters.’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602071875256-0N2I8L4RLRDDCFIJ32RW/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Loreium Sentinel, Day Day render. ‘Infrasound organ pipes are used throughout Calais to deter Morgaff. The effects of infrasound on the average human psyche are still poorly understood, but the city is constantly reviewing its list of best practices as pertains to the weapon's use. The shortest pipe to have a discernible effect against Morgaff is 64 feet (19.5 metres), although this is considered highly inadequate.’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602072160058-MZ5PATLDWRZXYBOK0NJV/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Loreium Sentinel Lowlight render. ‘Infrasound organ pipes are used throughout Calais to deter Morgaff. The effects of infrasound on the average human psyche are still poorly understood, but the city is constantly reviewing its list of best practices as pertains to the weapon's use. The shortest pipe to have a discernible effect against Morgaff is 64 feet (19.5 metres), although this is considered highly inadequate.’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1594661206211-BZGJ8P13YTAG3186O8AS/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Cayden Green ’We’ve drawn away to cool, misty, timeless realms,’ wrote Adrian. ‘I find myself on the canton cars every other day, sipping gratefully at chilled coffee as cloistered vales and fissures slide by. This is the quiet, green heart of Calais. Sheer crags drop away at times, and I am treated to fleeting vistas toward Primi Calla — the ‘Core’ — its monumental edifices pearlescent in gentle sun. I should like to spend a week, if I could, at every station of every line. So, so many possibilities, threads of wonder that tinkle and play in all directions. Yet there is also peace, and rest, and the musick of pipes and water. Peer beyond the curtains, though, perk your ears: there are plaintive notes, whispers from ages lost in time and fog. Calais has never wiped the slate clean. Its ghosts stand fast with its people.’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1662993965639-ZNSEDDK0Q8NGLQB8U4MA/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Ayleward The relay engines of Ayleward have turned for eight generations. They go largely unnoticed by the station’s residents and staff, who concern themselves mostly with its contribution to the movement and shakedown trials of airships and their crew. Ayleward’s ‘Tern’ Gate is noted for its difficulty, and the crew which puts a ship squarely through it will, in nine of ten cases, gain their license. Also of note in Ayleward station is its Cara Otalë, which lends its modest, elegant nave to the voices of the small, ascetic, but storied Cade liturgical conservatory. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1609471258033-19K5EL3J9D9JQJZSXG5X/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Facade Sketches, Vivaria (Justin, OOC): Just a few sketches of vivarium facades from Finding Calais. I'm trying to have them evoke the horticultural palaces of the grand international expositions of the belle époque. I continue to be deeply attracted to the best parts of that age — how well it balanced optimism and invention with craftsman dignity and a comfortable, respectful acknowledgement of the past and its achievements. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1620025406059-QCKJN4QQ0M3J7Q2G3ZRM/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Iun Plakat ‘Plakats are built around a bow gun typical for ships over twice their size. Since the Bluecastle Treaties many have been withdrawn from service and sold as sojourners, upon which they may be heavily modified to suit a client’s needs.’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1609474444664-DFJWJP39XM9H3CITMRBX/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Therin Proving Circle Therin Proving Circle (‘an overgrown chicken run’, grouched Maurice Mandrake, ship’s doctor) makes a pleasant — though occasionally alarming — morning stroll. Small to midsize airships enter its imposing gate, and spend up to an hour each careening uncomfortably low to the ground, as untried crew match their instincts with the vessel’s reflexes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1605288463760-3ULGUN4M0825TPEIT4T6/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Waypoint Patrol ship Calle Splenden passes her movement trials, barrelling through Tiyora Gate in a light scatter of steam and Cargai terns. The Gate is a grim, martial hulk in Reiuden (not too far from the Fort Bomm and its Water Gate), its similarly Thomasian ornamentation declining to hide its utilitarian lines. It is equal parts shelter and sentry tower, capable of sheltering a small village for months on end if the need arises. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1623327233856-JBCRQ155M20QTJBFAVG8/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Bowen Saga In this drawing, the Bowen Saga is conducting parcel manoeuvres on one of the ‘steps’ to Calenbar, the great steep-sided prow of rock upon which the union city Malendar perches. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1627714071324-SGL07IDC46TS0Q8P6OJ0/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Sielobray Hall A drawing of one of the ancient stone halls that stand unflappable above the fissures of Minden, Calais. They offer hushed, cavernous indoor spaces for dining, shelter, rest, and the general conducting of business. The people of this ward have never deserted these edifices, and each generation leaves tinkering but respectful marks of their own behind. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1607232596260-BVTJ4C0X6JWJOVO36I30/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Mail Station Depicted here is a facility for receiving mailships. Beacon, prow, winch, and the beginnings of a town perched downhill from it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1607232206619-JEI1AXM9ZMSQNGSMPSH9/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Plumb Trees A little natural history drawing from the cache of the airship Hollander. ‘Plumb’ trees (their trunks are shaped like lead weights) are not uncommon throughout the civic landscape of Calais. They grow relatively straight and true, with roots tending not to crack pavement, and their spreading canopies offer winsome shade in summer. Their thick trunks branch at middle height; there the bark is riddled with seed-retaining crevices and pores excreting nourishing compounds. In plumb tree forests, the result is a false undergrowth layer fifty feet in the air, over a lightless abyss devoid of competing plant life. There the tree roots reap the benefits of all the organic detritus that drifts down through the layers of forest. In civic gardening, however, plumb trees are typically kept apart, with the trunks of each tree often hosting appealing assortments of symbionts picked by horticulturists. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1630760767323-6RPPMPIGJNYSTNIZF97F/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Thondul Rock This civic sanctuary hugs a rock outcrop with a celebrated past. The walls of the sanctuary protect the ancient writing on its surface from erosion. The compound’s tower offers genial views of the Nareton Fissures, and doubles as an aviation beacon. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1620025304586-X1M3FWZN5VT7NRGUABRW/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Wantwell Dim afternoon, deep in the hidden world that is Calais. Fumarole steam mixes with fog drifting in from the periphery, together making the truly sunny day relatively uncommon for much of the year. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1623326622812-F9P4SP75ENCP4OF232IV/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Littoral Fauna I The Calais 'littoral' refers to the bodies of water in the city's geographical basin where streams draining in from the periphery meet tidal waters from porous regions of the planet's crust. For several hours each tidal cycle, water is 'coming up the sink', if you will — pooling up from the netherworld — and so the littoral floods, and is relatively still. Stygofauna, of course, present in cacophonous abundance; places in the basin teem with spawning, grazing, hunting, basking life. Some form delicate but profitable symbiotic relationships with species from the surface. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1662841144752-X0CG2EG7AW93AH4WIHPE/2022.AUG.21rs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Paluda Littoral - sketch In this little diorama we see some of the features that typify the darker, quieter side of Calais: a dim underworld of tidal pools, bottomless sinkholes, porous rock, architectural detritus, half-forgotten engines gently, silently turning — in places teeming with life drawn up from Tethys. ‘These depths,’ wrote Adrian, ‘they stand outside of time. They decline to be surveyed or understood. The city does not try, it is but grateful for the measure of sustenance they provide.’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602333463942-Z0ZX0MYXX2BC75V8CQVC/Irem_Tulac.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Irem Tulac In the world of Finding Calais, a great seabird (or, in exotic circumstances, a hornbill) bonds with an excursion airship for life, coming and going as it pleases but rarely disappearing for more than a few days at a time. Voyaging in the aether is a risky business, and risky businesses have their eccentricities. It is not unheard of for a docked crew to delay their departure in order to wait for the ship's 'sprite' (Archaic: A spirit, specter, or ghost.) to return. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1650870899982-388JXOZ7RTXHYFD8498K/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Arca Gates Gates of rock stand where the Tivur Arca - the 'stream' of Arcina - begins its relatively steep descent from the periphery into Middle Calais. Ships pass through them on their way home, as the light begins to fade and the call of great pipes floats over the chill air. Follow the water, the beacons, the musick.. and they'll find themselves at the threshold of Primi Calla before the skies have deepened intirely to blue. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1630760928646-KZURGTOKM46GC7H683YF/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Resupply This supply ship trades freight palettes with a monastic community once a week. They get sundry provisions, and hand over woodwind instruments they manufacture for sale. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1650869964786-RM9HLMWTQBDVFDCRA8IZ/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Hope and Freedom When I think of airships, I think freedom, and hope, and wonder at something so large so defying the trammels of gravity that it pulls and tugs at the ropes to return to the sky. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1650870156992-X4GYOTH9MI4SC5CCTHND/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Chill Morning Cold, gusty morning. This piece began as a study but I took too many liberties. I was thinking a little of Canada’s grand railway hotels. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1650871041991-SI5NGXN047K65KIWVXAS/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Study Plein sketch paint thing with some liberties, based on photographic reference. The world continues to be as curious and beautiful as it has always been. Let us look forward; let us keep hoping and dreaming. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1563173334005-RNYTZ9VZ5MWO9TJ3RZGG/SR_std_n_rs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Lost World I You reach sometimes for lost worlds you know, but cannot find. ~from Finding Calais. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1563170710312-QAHMJDS5NC1RDUZ387QD/NH2.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Notes from the Hollander: 53/2/4 '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...' (~ More material attributed to the natural history locus aboard the CR Hollander. The content is amateur but nonetheless earnest and reliable public education.~) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1563170938339-K4FUPKPVFMOE9KH0SY5H/NH1.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Notes from the Hollander: Aisa Ledactis CG-registered guildships like the Hollander were mandated to discuss their surveys with the great Iaran societies. Though scoffedly amateur by the standards of Federate academies, the most engaged natural historians aboard the itinerant airships brought back stacks of earnest and largely reliable observation. This page is from the cache of the Hollander herself, retrieved years after her crash. It is attributed to Adrian Faust, who studied under resident amateur Conrad Peabody. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1572421554172-1LR6DNJ4WRP65RPRWJ1I/QentinDoras_rs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Qentin Doras 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583212156287-K79W2NFZQVOHDUN0LUTO/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Ilusia Welmisley 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1573632710275-OKRXWWDUCROVZTG89Z80/BlackRabbit_sigrs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Archival Malendar, SN4.204 Malendar’s urban fissures are relatively shielded from buffeting winds, but larger airships are still unable to traverse them. A number of solutions to this familiar problem are in use, the most iconic one being to, well, ‘catch’ a train! The result has been the construction of an extensive system of elevated trackways plyed by locomotives that specialise in pulling these aerial giants safely through the Iaran capital’s dense cityscape. ‘ ~ Elevated transit brings a special kind of wonder to cities, doesn’t it? Such variety, dynamism, and adventure are added to the scene.’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1561400420324-XA9CDMNT2Z2YFVSJSGVA/Malendar_OVrs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Malendar - Overview Travel writer Munse Egbert wrote, ‘The prow of a mighty, steep-sided plateau rose from a gently curling sea of cloud. It spread like a Fakhlan rug before a noble crag that stood between it and the glowering banks of brume that threatened to brim and wash down over it all. But covering the rug itself, another carpet: a gleaming one of construction, bristling with proud spires. From this distance one already sees how each was tall and stately as it was massive. Each met the sun in warm hues of bronze, copper, and gold, from immersed feet to tapering tips — a half-mile high, the greater ones were, yet none made more than a trifling contribution to the scale of the Gilded City. The skyscrapers of Malendar had always reached up, up out of the welter of brick, limestone and glass, reached to outdo their neighbours for a greater share of the sun’s grandeur. And around that shimmer of countless buildings – from the shoaling, darting specks that were planes to the quiet drifting leviathans that were unmistakeably the great dirigibles – aircraft, scores of aircraft once you looked close enough, the planes jostling and diving into the mass of construction, the airships – some trailing vivid billboards that would’ve covered a city block – lounging among the spires, circling lazily in clear skies, clustering to mast wherever city dropped off into cloud. That plateau – properly a ‘mesa’ to the thriving geographical societies operating from it – that was Calenbar. Upon it, Malendar: capital of Federate Iara. When the sun slants into golden hour on a clear day, Malendar resembles a sheer-sided isle of jewels in the heavens. Sunlight, sparing nothing from the splendour of its touch, glances not only off the city, but in shades of brilliant ochre off the exposed plateau walls. Other times the cloudsea rises to engulf the city, and all its souls with it. For full days at end one might be shrouded in wet, gray, chill murk too thick to drive a cart in. There will be little colour to speak of. No plane will fly, and such airships as can will have to grab and be dragged around dim urban fissures by straining locomotives. Malendar’s legion foglights will be roused to do battle with the murk, and in the white veil that follows, pilferers and misfits will in some districts outnumber the regular publick. One must be doughty to walk the streets then; most will quite sensibly prefer not to descend at all, but to strike for as many sky bridges as one needs to board the nearest el…’ So much has been and can yet be written of the gilded city; Egbert’s is but one account. This seemingly impossible place has grown over the centuries around foundations that have had to be reworked and strengthened with each generation passed. The plateau Calenbar’s largely rocky interior, in places brittle and porous, is now a fifth steel and concrete by volume, an amount which must surely increase until less than half of the original substrate remains. Five elevators the size of ocean liners shuttle goods and sundry to and from docks a mile and a half below; there steamers ply a maze of rivers and lakes lapping wanly through the gorges and caverns that radiate wildly across and under otherwise dry, barren tracts of land. A trip on an elevator is quite the experience. You leave the chill draughts and (often enough, at least) dazzling clarity of Malendar, plunge into the mile-thick, shifting innards of beleaguering clouds, and emerge in the span of a few minutes into a dusty, yellowed, stifling warm underworld. Few people care to live or work here; it is called ‘Wastes’ or ‘Lifeless Plains’ for good reason, and is littered with dead factories, dead towns, derelict engines, and the occassional shanty. Anyhow, one cannot go very far on the waters that snake furtively about this land. Excepting the one tributary that manages only just to reach the next state Eadar, they serve only the far towns of the metropolitan region before vanishing underground. No, Malendar’s panCarigian interests are better served by rail and, better yet, by air… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1573632843550-4BJVYP1198J1JTST5B73/Stroll_Full_rs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - 104 MALENDAR: Having completed its morning run, the airbus Major Ty has been ‘clipped’ by steam tractors and pulled to a quiet neighbourhood terminal. About it a midday veil has settled diaphanous about the union city’s sprawling welter of towers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559768405625-V2H930JLI22BSFGM67W6/Thresher+Class.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Thresher-class Airship 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1576062500890-07RHCWYUNKUNWU81DJDY/Cargai_Dawn_rs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Cargai Dawn IR CARGAI: ‘The ships left to our excursion latched at the foot of one of these titanic, gnarled trees, jostled by warm drafts from the row of caves staring out from between its roots. We were tied like minnows against this heartening river of warm air. For all the night the current flagged only once, for an hour round before midnight, and then it continued to caress the hides of our vessels. We’d lit no lamps that would chance revealing our position — not even markers — and this was more to evade barnacling swarms of deranged arthropod visitors than it was for fear of being found out by Manohar, or one of the many types of large vertebrate fiend that menaced the inky Cargai night. At least there were the black lounges to retreat to, for there we kept chunky dynamo lamps blazing. Those who could not sleep lay on fraying divans in these converted freight lockers reading, writing, sorting notes, or (and this was most popular) staring into space listening with drooping eyelids to recorded radio shows. ’But before the dawn all was changed, and calls of wakening beasts began to drift through from the layers of forest above, and then by degrees we could see again. Of course we took heart, and held fast council, and while coffee was roasting in three separate drawing rooms, those rostered pulled their boots from damp vestibules and descended for a quick survey..’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583210718146-N44FQU2ZRUKJ90EVKZ0C/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - To Cold Mists (I) Cold afternoon today in the lost city of Calais. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583210540503-2DHJY4VC2BZGH131PY7I/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - To Cold Mists (II) 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. _________________________________________ Image released over two days for the instagram. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1565043236758-EADJP2516E7LPW5CC9VV/LH1F2.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Night Shift Pipe dreams on a cool night at the edge of town. Functioning pipe organs dot the Calaisian landscape. Only the largest have true defensive utility; the rest play important civic and cultural roles. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1565043923029-J9PFUHLWL2FCBI8YAFPR/LH_BWS_2b.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Sentinel Engine Ta Cephalion is a sentinel carved out of a rocky outcrop. Note the organ console; the pipes are too 'small' to scramble Morgaff sensibilities, but are nonetheless an effective deterrent. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1565043552796-3CJFH1T7K2ZZZ30HEOS4/Tanistroph_LH2.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Tanistroph Organ A drawing of the Tanistroph Organ in Tallia, Calais. Note the paired guns in the side of the landward facade. Though seldom operational, they continue to look out each night over the lake. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583212462041-TNHPSWEKVFXDSVHP2OMF/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Octan Palace `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.’ *** 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1569471805459-0LO63WFN410TZB80RN4Y/WaterDoorRS.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Water Door REIUDEN, MIDDLE CALAIS: The Thomasian ‘Water Door’ of Fort Bomm is a looming wilderness of weathered, cannon-studded ornamentation built up over five storied centuries of use. Like the many clearly martial testimonies to the region’s more turbulent past that still dot the landscape, the installation is no longer active. Barring its occasional activation as a checkpoint for airships on movement trials, it keeps only a skeletal crew tasked with ensuring its dormant innards remain potentially operable. In the words of one Maurice Mandrake, this often amounts to ‘pulling weeds off dead engines’, an uphill task which youthful volunteers from nearby communes can nonetheless be persuaded to delight in. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583243100010-HK16DP2X8XYZTNLVGH0Z/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Things (I) ‘The poor fellows, scrawled Adrian, lounging against a rock, ‘.. cannot agree on what they have found.’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583243240258-1O5ZIF5KKDM6FQ855C0I/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Things (II) ‘The poor fellows, scrawled Adrian, lounging against a rock, ‘.. cannot agree on what they have found.’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1576062782680-5KB99OTVJN9DMC83HNOX/Wender_Gate_rs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Wender Gate Airships must pass extensive certification trials before they are loosed upon the fissure-striated landscape of Calais. Requirements are strictest for the smallest classes, for they will enjoy the greatest freedom of movement. The infamous Wender Log features often in circuits for ‘sprightly little ships’ like this parcel hopper! A fun little piece for my belle epoque fantasy :) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583212950375-ULIBOIXST36FMYLOCJIY/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Elia Calayuuden The vivarium Elia Calayuuden, from the notes of A.FaustHall. He did what he could for the ship’s log on his convalescent sojourns across Calais. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583213035795-5O10CT68Z1I79JS1YLA6/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Elia Calayuuden ~ supporting note https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1576062667523-QM91077FU39FBDCBGDGK/Breather+and+Biscuit_rs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Breather and a Biscuit A light-hearted tribute to the spirit of exploration. Take a breather, don’t miss the marvels on the way? (: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583180581112-GQ1PID23K93CQ76T3AA7/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Cara Etain INNER CALAIS: Cara Etain as seen from the west. The complex presides over the somewhat hushed neighbourhood at the 'back door' of steam-shrouded Talimore. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583180066060-Z89GABE1HES5YUIC5PDW/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - Evening Road 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559745093283-CXT06OKFODK6K0WYFOCU/Home+for+the+Evening.jpg FINDING CALAIS - 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559767601547-44T1CFFYDWTS7RKSOIEG/Taldesie.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Taldesie 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559767658841-BR0SN962LMF0TP3ULLKE/Taldesie.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Cascades Middle Calais. If you’ve followed the beacons (and the waters) this far, you’ll mark that it gets rather lusher here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559767457199-LX5QE23361B84XYQ0Y2O/Woodland_OrganRS.jpg FINDING CALAIS - The 'Woodland' Organ 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559767161603-M6UOW6NVG0D7ET2YA6QG/Balloon+Academy+Hall.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Balloon Academy Hall Balloon Academy Hall, peripheral Calais. The existing facade (now a century old) was a product of the reactionarily traditionalist Ludocci school, and can be considered demonstrative of its persuasions. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559892542471-LFA9XBMO29BY7XJ6GXY5/Tepin+OsC.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Tepin Os 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559764784903-1SX2VVTO68CM70BVRPPM/Edge+of+Iara.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Edge of Iara 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. JT: This image was a breakthrough for Finding Calais, and was well-received enough for viewers to comment on it with their own takes on its context (for that I am so, so grateful — as I’ve stressed ad infinitum, the ability to connect with others who feel for the same ideas I do (no doubt in their own special, special ways) is one of the most important driving factors behind my work. ) ~ A little on my own understanding of the content: This high place is the furthest South a fellow can go over land on the Iaran continent before temperatures soar enough to fry eggs on rocks well into dusk. Be fool enough to proceed onward, and you’ll have to descend into a sweeping immensity of fissure-trellised desert. Five thousand kilometres later you’ll cross the equator, where the daily average is sixty-two degrees celsius. No vertebrate life has been documented in this band of equatorial wastes, nor is there any surface water to rely on; sans the ‘en stygia’ (subterranean) approach that riddles Malendar pulp fiction, the only reliable way to reach the other hemisphere is by air. It is no surprise, then, that this site appeals considerably to the human imagination. The air temple in the image was the spiritual home of Rothalgar, a realm which at its peak sent marches north which would cover two-thirds of the modern Federation. The temple’s husk has since 1286 housed the best-known beacon (Floor ‘Zero’) in all of Iara. Excursion ships bound on the dangerous passage South signal their departure to the beacon, and it receives them afterward by shining their way home. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559901623800-I2ME0FRQPLX2RY43PHK5/Suburbia2mEXc2.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Suburbia II 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559762948586-7V7VXYXXLF7B6EHDKQ5D/Trifamiliar_c.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Shared Residence A typical shared residence in Middle Calais. This one is built around a (largely) ornamental waterwheel. The stream tinkles inside the dome all summer, and the space passes off as a winter garden when temperatures drop. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559767217085-GMG0JD11IAMIJR8VDGR6/CoelirHaven_rs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Coelir Haven Coelir Haven’s defensive pipe organ is actually Fleury’s first. Already we see hints of the organic excesses that would, to critics at least, mark his hand. They did have a sensible end — ‘camouflage’, quoth he — but the ensuing movement would spread to the heart of Calais and yield such monumental controversies as Talcott’s Botanical Organ. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559764406832-TH3N9BD9T58FLSMY676W/2CalaisC.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Impressions *** 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559768688891-2WMF5XQVCS17T700VIN0/72.jpg FINDING CALAIS - No.72 Talimore and its environs are rent with fissures and masked with pouring steam vents. Several times a day currents borne straight and true from the periphery part the veil almost entirely, allowing some truly monumental architecture to glisten in the sun. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559765077687-5YTORPWNVAO41CM4VZM4/Clae+FeldouneEXii.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Clae Feldoune Clae Feldoune, ‘Dragon Chaser’, patrols the deepest, darkest parts of old Calais. The crew are assisted by searchlamps lancing from above. The cableways have not run in these vacated realms for decades. Perfect as Calais may sometimes seem, here the authorities think it best not to linger. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559767764549-YTUZEXJU3CPTDDAQT40R/Rial_Commune.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Rial Commune An overview of Rial, peripheral Calais. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559764826152-VJ8B4SYFL1RDE3XDW1CI/Arx+Tallia.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Arx Tallia CALAIS: Tallia’s central promenade ends in a terrace with a view over the canton’s botanic gardens. Tracts of open country are uncommon in Calais, and contribute to the area’s popularity. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559764838298-JURRE4JT30CWQ5A0O1RH/Evening.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Twilight Twilight at the edge of Tallia, Calais. Engineers have worked steadily over the generations to increase the flow of water to the falls. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559897191592-O1MF046D9YFBEDWQY2HG/Beacon.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Beacon ‘I wonder what it’ll be like to curate a kind of public vivarium. I see this particular one standing just apart from the street of a hamlet-sized scion of a large conurbation. It’ll be something the residents take pride in — not unlike a community garden. Children may hang around it after school and help with the chores. Said hamlet-place will be perched on a shelf just below the opening of a gorge or fissure, and the light in the vivarium’s tower will keep careening blimps at bay.’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1572421764611-WX707N6K552MGE2JK1R5/SpotterBoys_24rs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Spotter Boys' Annual - Freight Dirigibles, #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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559767871229-JNA8CVLKNEZIGHH4G3AN/Freight+Dirigibles.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Spotter Boys' Annual - Freight Dirigibles, #14 The Spotter Boys are a shipwatching society based in Pier Country, Malendar. These are some of the minor giants that grace the aether of that metropolis with clouds for a waterfront. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559765244717-Y8VEWWG0GSA7E6IEG12J/Carnival+Pier+and+Environs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Carnival Pier and Environs Carnival Pier is in the heart of Pier Country, Malendar. Petty thieves have a field day whenever the clouds rise up to shroud it (the promenader with acumen ducks indoors then, book and coffee in hand). ~~~ SketchUp was used to prepare this presentation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559768515279-EDE1O7VN3AKCAZ4NTNCG/West+Torak%2C+17-2.T.E..jpg FINDING CALAIS - West Torak, 17-2.T.E. MALENDAR: A drawing of the view from the T-line elevator concourse of West Torak station — a quieter alternative to North and Lower Torak, both of which serve far beyond capacity during peak hours. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559897974346-4K1SKASV0XWLTY4GCBWP/Malendar%2B-%2BPaints%2BI.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Malendar - Paints I Top: Bird's approach to Malendar *** Bottom: Twilight at the edge of pier country 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 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559898504168-NZL0A90Y1JZFM4I20ZIX/Malendar_ed2.jpg FINDING CALAIS 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1563173334005-RNYTZ9VZ5MWO9TJ3RZGG/SR_std_n_rs.jpg FINDING CALAIS - Lost World I You reach sometimes for lost worlds you know, but cannot find. ~from Finding Calais. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559745093283-CXT06OKFODK6K0WYFOCU/Home+for+the+Evening.jpg FINDING CALAIS - 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1609385825204-3SY7CJU9DR53ST32M4MD/image-asset.jpeg FINDING CALAIS - 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. http://www.tiangpong.com/overview-old daily 0.75 2024-12-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1549719301559-RNLH95IOEHPWK4TN5KJL/Taldesie_flb.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1572420325061-G2KQWKIQTE0IKMGD377T/PS1_Oniet_rs.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1490269970536-UKP1EYG42CV010K3UQ5O/image-asset.jpeg Overview (old) Rial Commune — site overview https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1517751995800-EIKYI5NN2PM16XUXUGCN/2CalaisC.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582652410077-ZSM9X05PGNFADJB0934Z/Catdragon_Tower.jpg Overview (old) 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 :) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1587353966574-F11A7O1SC20TWF7O0H5R/Pavilion_Lowlight_rs.jpg Overview (old) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1587353952861-UWD0ZQV60N4580DLJ0OT/Pavilion_Lit_rs.jpg Overview (old) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1587353991155-YGM00GWL3F9FZZM8KKJH/AlteCoer_Support.jpg Overview (old) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582654109753-Z44GTIJ04MF8MDL93SPF/SP30NOV_DAY_rs.jpg Overview (old) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582652898292-NAX171E5Q4VP3KIBGGD4/QS4.jpg Overview (old) More skytrain fantasy from #pastelskycubes :) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582653892426-L8S34ZGI9HZO6ANFWP8Z/SP30NOV_NIGHT_rs.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582652674134-CNLW406YJ3IWY78WIMDF/9JAN_WiPwLog_instMod.jpg Overview (old) 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! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1541502944789-FS9VV6FMRLFSPSCX65HA/MPiiF.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474558267071-CGIPH0B402YI0AETGJCK/sihacaplain.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474558003610-N6QR2DLP3D94079M4SQ5/hillstation.jpg Overview (old) Hill Station https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474563675730-ELNXS9AJKS9XP86GZDVF/image-asset.jpeg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1494841022055-VVU2HR8GIAZNQR0F15XD/claefeldoune.jpg Overview (old) Clae Feldoune, ‘Dragon Chaser’, patrols the deepest, darkest parts of old Calais https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1543413213741-MXW5YAH6LWPQFFUS7H4B/Malendar_ed2.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1609386898656-7ELH9WV3CHT0B9LMOLGT/2020.12.07_Tie_Arquis_rs.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1487580082577-CV5UH9LVQGZLF69D0XIA/Edge+of+Iara.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474558365063-0EEHJNCI7CFXZK5VAEXZ/roadhome.jpg Overview (old) Road Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474557770361-7I6I3K1WJHMMN1Y1QK64/carnivalpierandenvirons.jpg Overview (old) Carnival Pier - overview https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1543412845318-5U5MCUUIPOKQUVZTRV8Q/Gate_UpSat.jpg Overview (old) The florid ‘Crab’ Gate stands guard over the ancestral halls of Tilay. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474558054171-LB2OIDJK9J67JMHR7HH1/haven.jpg Overview (old) Haven https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1565598528167-N0HYYQZVEFD09YZXF2GC/EveningRoad.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1511890131429-5K2XCMZPJ0S67IG3UY8G/Storm+Ferry.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474554967052-5367JZ6TDLMJQN1GFT2Z/outpost.jpg Overview (old) Outpost https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1563166387639-TG5ZZCGUMWYTD5XWSX0F/SR_std_n_rs.jpg Overview (old) You reach sometimes for lost worlds you know, but cannot find. From my lifelong project Finding Calais. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1558357973838-S2ECZ4FFHXDFTVP96CR7/Woodland_OrganRS.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474559936007-XQE6QOHJMJ4J2L8GWMJJ/arx_tallia.jpg Overview (old) Arx Tallia - Tallia’s central promenade ends in a terrace with a view over the canton’s botanic gardens https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1499138903225-41DIWTWXEMCQHI2NRQN9/Passage.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1542553758900-51NA7BP1ACDR5K642WAK/TrentLanding_compileIIRS.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474557866055-2ZV97H9UVN0YH6BLGUXW/singleroomshot.jpg Overview (old) Single Room - Shot https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1542554300931-3OJ2G5QELPQK8BOJT2AG/TamoraStationLV_gifXS.gif Overview (old) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1549704010834-IKJZC3GCZV3LIOEEDKF0/Tepin+Os_flb.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474558535069-MMHOC3AVWCRAOM8SWRLP/twilight.jpg Overview (old) Malendar: Twilight at the edge of pier country https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1541503465452-ZIC4NY0VWN9BCAMHFHR3/TamoraStationVars.jpg Overview (old) Tamora Station https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474558445121-R64PGDZB9K14DW6I0YIY/gasstation.jpg Overview (old) Gas Station https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474555313450-MOED66AI5A6B8FZ6BNH3/west_torak.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1477422984686-F44LMI4UFNACXLCCDCXE/image-asset.jpeg Overview (old) Simulated blast damage for somewhat stylized IP — 'before'. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1536423078738-7A2MOKY47GEINJQFZTLT/Suburbia2mEXc.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1563169913369-G96JLTNUTDKWDIJE0J8N/NH2rs.jpg Overview (old) '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.~) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582651814665-YAYKSHPRE3YYT0KIJFSK/Octan_Palace_upCont_rs.jpg Overview (old) `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.’ . 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474558680662-PYVZ4AMO7UEKTQ13DTRU/approach.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474558172686-KBGSJ1UEM2L5GJ7DTX4Q/thebassist.jpg Overview (old) The Bassist https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582652150629-STLK5G6F9VDB5SDMM88A/Breather+and+Biscuit_rs.jpg Overview (old) Take a breather, don’t miss the marvels on the way? :) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1604257073015-OAA2V5IDXFEJCWLFCLWG/Erimude_Portal_rs.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582651420505-0TBYP42LGWKNVFZ6O9GX/Ilusia_Welmisley_rsL.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559677178517-YQKGJ13GLCM187GAWV78/Thresher+Class.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602164989414-1NDQYDF57YUGZUE3ZXDG/SEQ_OV_upCont.jpg Overview (old) Sidescroller Produced for the project’s instagram. A fun side-scroller featuring a slightly monumental but otherwise typical commune in peripheral Middle Calais. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1521829710698-YV6VMKWQA4TWKIQO6W08/Uita_Station.jpg Overview (old) I like stations :) This one started out as a scrapped concept from work. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1542554077941-S0DYK896366BHEXUQIE9/TrentLandingGIF.gif Overview (old) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474598800532-RK1B43NQA39205PA7FLY/Arrival.jpg Overview (old) Shamu V rolls into town at the Far Side of the World. She is tailed by larger yard cousin Epsilon IX. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1572413245506-0J4XSE1EKTV23Q4C8C3Y/SpotterBoys_24rs.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1550654319072-0UW3DOY0YNFD3C0NJH17/Taldesie_ssm.jpg Overview (old) Middle Calais. If you’ve followed the beacons (and the waters) this far, you’ll mark that it gets rather lusher here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474554780248-3655XZ7M2LTF7K72J58P/beacon.jpg Overview (old) Beacon https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1572419781762-IUI8SM18ZFY5U2XX49MU/QentinDoras_rs.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1475524856721-BJI5T6LM9FMYCLIKAZVC/freight_dirigibles.jpg Overview (old) Spotter Boys' Annual - Freight Dirigibles, Issue #14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1490112273740-0ZNYGFUGRYNR7MIKVV5V/image-asset.jpeg Overview (old) RTS Asset Demo https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1538853051419-PLEAUVOIKNGPUJB7P819/TP_PAGW_9CTS.jpg Overview (old) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474557936659-IOMCFGYFRU8IXB3S80QI/singleroomset.jpg Overview (old) Single Room - Set https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1500006638434-SP602NK1789DLOFP8B7C/Home+for+the+Evening.jpg Overview (old) 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1572421221462-BYO1NAH4QS5V1W2TSHPM/CSTrs.jpg Overview (old) 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.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1477423255668-YH61I5USSC6HAM29AOBX/image-asset.jpeg Overview (old) 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.. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1604857071403-6U9SI29O8JBM52POSHHF/Plianth_Wistor_rs.jpg Overview (old) ‘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. http://www.tiangpong.com/about daily 0.75 2025-05-13 http://www.tiangpong.com/miscellany daily 0.75 2021-06-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1650871876764-FRJKQOFQ4VAB2UWD51W0/2022_March5_Ophicleide.jpg Miscellany A sketchstudy of Tony George on the Wessex Ophicleide! The Ophicleide is a 19th to early 20th century brass instrument that looks like a saxophone and an euphonium had a car crash together. In the right hands, the voice is sweet and colourful, with the agility bought by the use of keys instead of the clunkier but more secure piston or rotary valves present in today's brass instruments. Modern orchestras and wind bands are remarkably uniform. There was an explosive variety of brass and woodwind instruments up to the early 20th century, with divers armies of manufacturers and independent innovators jostling for attention from composers, ensembles, and renowned players. Today's orchestras and bands are the result of several centuries' worth of evolution and elimination, and I find it unfortunate how innovation seems to have ground to a halt. There has been a resurgence of interest in archaic instruments like the Ophicleide, but largely in the interest of performing period pieces with period instrumentation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1657888575720-FCURJROIN50GW82JADUE/2021.12.26_Spoonbills.jpg Miscellany https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1657888489177-ZPAMU9P5C4AQRMU6MN21/2021.12.26_PelicanStudy.jpg Miscellany https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1623323990046-25WCZ3W6KAEJUK247NIK/2021.03_Donki_Study.jpg Miscellany [Paint study] ~ The visual cacophony of a Donki store is laid out for your itinerant, pensive, solitary consideration in the middle of the night. I think it also makes for intimidating study material so here’s me having a go at it :) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1623324668607-40BCB79QZNCWEY5W31AF/2020.12.31_Study.jpg Miscellany https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1623324109715-JKTK2KFPRYAB0DWFTCJP/2021.03.16_Study.jpg Miscellany Paint sketch practice thing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602081134857-QHLXSTODABBFMY4N8R18/2020.07.30_THREE.jpg Miscellany https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1594658771120-1DI7SRMS9M8SXAAQHN2X/JP_Study_Kitchen1.jpg Miscellany https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1594658771147-Z00PG1VX20CW3B1ODBJL/JP_Study_Kitchen2.jpg Miscellany https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1594658796202-COPIA8NYMNAQVA9ZMDJX/JPstudy_Tunnel.jpg Miscellany https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1594658803176-46G3MJO7J4RDGZ7XV088/JPstudy_Nedry%27s_Tree.jpg Miscellany https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1623324376444-NVGEG1O1R6JAIXGNF44X/2021.05.06_CS_Study.jpg Miscellany Study - Anglican Tenor https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1605882924220-95N04XLTMJKPL2R1BFFK/AnglicanTenor.jpeg Miscellany Study - Anglican Tenor https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583143228432-9222LH9VKH3OCCXHBKJ0/TP_PGAW25crop.jpg Miscellany Train study. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140899404-I78YI99XE5U0MEC806WZ/YFA.jpg Miscellany Yakult fanart! Yep……/ ~ Yakult is a premium probiotic cultured milk drink that contains the specially cultivated beneficial bacteria known as Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota. ~ The Yakult chiller is a familiar sight in mature public housing estates across Singapore. Many of them have been running faithfully for decades. Someone has to document them! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140855462-FXKWWIB0WMHM5O8XEZWQ/26comb.jpg Miscellany Diffuse light street studies, Taiwan. Along the thematic lines of my second lifelong project, Pastel Skycubes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140859787-RXDMMIA8WYCKUGUBGKZ8/JPS.jpg Miscellany Paint study :P Yes, no drivers! People are in two minds about JP’s color coding but it is one of those things that have helped secure its place in our cultural memory. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140861745-DKH1UR0W45V4H3OBQ8MV/LSfin.jpg Miscellany YouTube Study with liberties: LuciSerene performs Willaert. I keep going back to this performance so I thought I might as well plein it. Am messing with style, colour, workflow, yada.. as one has to do with studies. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140867562-YZXWDKCRN4MOLXWFWKBM/SMeC_sketch.jpg Miscellany Chiesa San Marcello al Corso, Rome, drawn with some accuracy. I visited once on summer term, a long, long time ago now. (I was caught off guard the first time I saw it. You walk by a narrow but busy city road under eaves of stone, then the wall drops away beside you, and at once you see this facade resplendent in late afternoon sun.) There has been a church on this site since the 4th century. Coming from a far younger city, the weight of the years is difficult to grasp. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140866893-HSPKZSNQXWJRBE6K5608/SGMcomp.jpg Miscellany San Giacomo Maggiore, Bologna. (bit more sketchtouring stuff for mileage.) This basilica has a conservatory attached to it, and was where I heard choral polyphony live for the first time in memory. It wasn’t a performance - they could’ve been sight-reading on a routine practice sesh - and I lingered as long as I could hoping the singing would start up again. I wondered that they didn’t need any microphones for their voices to ring gently through the long, vaulted interior. Polyphony is frequently held up as an example of transcendental (some say objective) beauty. I knew nothing about it then, but looking back I can see how it could’ve been a life-changing experience for some people at a suitable point in their journey. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140892206-W5OE08D8UR1G3Z2M8FTM/TP_PGAW24.jpg Miscellany Plein-air study. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140859185-YCNZ5IT7VFRLPMBHMAA5/Canal.jpg Miscellany A relatively quick piece. I'm enthralled by how the night can bring a very different kind of life to a scene. I suppose it reminds us that you'll never return to exactly the same place on your next visit. The clouds, the lighting, the shadows (the plants and people certainly) will never array themselves to your imagination as they were the last time you passed through. If simply being in a certain place has had a lasting impact on you, it could well be entirely by chance. My take is that this makes it more precious. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140890397-75SX0A1AMAWKO7B792IV/TP_PGAW23.jpg Miscellany Photo study with liberties. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140899720-YUANPJ7DGTUEVCRP80OP/WoodlandOrgan_WiPcompile.jpg Miscellany WiPs for the ‘Woodland’ Oegel - viewable here. I chose a workflow that allowed me to keep the sketch inside the final image. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140889210-ZH8AJSE6UH570K5QP00U/TP_PGAW22e.jpg Miscellany Quick study. Playing with purple. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140885511-RFQ62651B8JKFTFVJV94/TP_PGAW20_Fnoninst.jpg Miscellany Kutná Hora, Czech Republic. Plen-air study with (considerable) liberties. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140884769-10VO4R0OBP6R73NHCRR8/TP_PGAW19.jpg Miscellany Plein-air study with liberties ~ Sendlinger Tor, Munich. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140869193-MQQ6UBSVRA08ZZRI8UBM/TompSketch.jpg Miscellany Early concept sketch of Tomp City’s facade from my second lifelong project Pastel Skycubes. If it manages to grow on me, the final will look much like it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140871240-U517A8T4SGZBQXRPFH7B/TP_PAGW_6.jpg Miscellany Study. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1623324784031-H9RWZR9VQ0143NP6Y297/2021.02.18_Chars_1_Gram.jpg Miscellany https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1623324242458-HGUW43VHDX2WTAL92WK9/2021.03.03_SharpChar_2.jpg Miscellany A quick study from the 1993+ series Sharpe. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140896925-PSXQUH72OQZ60YE3JDTJ/TP_PPL_2.jpg Miscellany https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140862175-K8GZ4NDYT2U0XUO79IRU/Pplvars_2mod.jpg Miscellany Study: brass embouchures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583144412595-HWVPFVNLR6NB3LFJ34BN/STSLines.jpg Miscellany Lines from Pastel Skycubes. Decided not to go into render before ‘firming’ a style. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140883214-RJ7W57IOMWPX957E1M6U/TP_PGAW17.jpg Miscellany Study. End of the line at a hill station, Darjeeling. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140863684-WR1NQRTDX3UST3DHI1A6/RbA.jpg Miscellany Study with liberties. And a spot of fan-art. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140882039-3O9QO0HMNSB1AQC8FKD2/TP_PAGW15.jpg Miscellany Midnight ice-cream. Study of my favourite scene from Jurassic Park. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140881165-LQ5795H02BOGNPL1Y2SW/TP_PAGW14.jpg Miscellany Everyone knows these great net fences are for dinosaurs, not golf. (: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140879573-IXQKRLJFJWMJA0WU6RPQ/TP_PAGW_13ednp.jpg Miscellany Plein-air study. Bus stop, Kochi. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140878197-RZFDB7G219JJDXKT3S5D/TP_PAGW_12.jpg Miscellany Study with liberties. Cold place indoors, smell of sea. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140876792-MPG6TAAJ2ZF6K0L7A98M/TP_PAGW_11fnonins.jpg Miscellany Study with liberties. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140874033-BNC0YFFM7JYAMRVP3IWK/TP_PAGW_8.jpg Miscellany Hammond’s Island. Study from Jurassic Park. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140874027-3K0QR91DY8ZEATNIZPHI/TP_PAGW_7.jpg Miscellany Dodgson Arrives. Scene study from Jurassic Park. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1583140876352-5YOZPXVRFZYL2L3K4ROY/TP_PAGW_10.jpg Miscellany Study with liberties. http://www.tiangpong.com/writing-samples daily 0.75 2020-09-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1601286068911-KEUU9VHOL3HOBFINZV4F/Malendar_OVrs.jpg Writing Samples Personal work from Finding Calais, 2019 http://www.tiangpong.com/pastel-skycubes daily 0.75 2024-12-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1735505725175-OIRAGX135LK45YFKML7G/Harvest_Dropship_rs.png PASTEL SKYCUBES - Harvest Dropship War is out of fashion in Dom Fa, and a marine dropship that has never seen service finds itself ferrying agricultural equipment to vast, minimally tended plantations far from human habitation. For the duration of the contract the ship will provide a beacon of light and life to workers as they earn their keep amid the encroaching twilight of winter. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1735505724480-R6XX2O3HVMTW1LR9T1YB/Harvest_Dropship_elevations_rs.png PASTEL SKYCUBES - Harvest Dropship - elevations In these elevations, a converted marine dropship sees a new lease of life transporting harvest mechs. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1718723789625-3ILOSGJHTHMVP918ZARW/Skycubes_Nightstat_rs1of3.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES - Trigar Lake Image I of III The ‘Nitestat’ began as a dank, lonely cluster of rocks in the middle of West Timen’s Trigar lake; a resting spot for kayakers and recreational fishermen. In a bold and oddly inspired move, the ASD (‘Chibi’) Line’s planners opted to lay their tracks straight across the dark waters. Trains would meet and pass the rocks, and passengers could alight with a fare waiver. A station with recreational facilities - notably, an aquarium with an underwater viewing gallery, vertical gardens, and a public boat hangar - was proposed and built. The Nitestat gained its moniker over the years as a stopover point for the region’s salaried population on their long, huddled transits home. Many seek simple takeaway dinners, but others linger on for a slow drink, free television, and a gaze across the lake. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1718723861590-3XIIFIUDGWZO7ISD7XDH/Skycubes_Nightstat_rs2of3.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES - Trigar Lake Image II of III The ‘Nitestat’ began as a dank, lonely cluster of rocks in the middle of West Timen’s Trigar lake; a resting spot for kayakers and recreational fishermen. In a bold and oddly inspired move, the ASD (‘Chibi’) Line’s planners opted to lay their tracks straight across the dark waters. Trains would meet and pass the rocks, and passengers could alight with a fare waiver. A station with recreational facilities - notably, an aquarium with an underwater viewing gallery, vertical gardens, and a public boat hangar - was proposed and built. The Nitestat gained its moniker over the years as a stopover point for the region’s salaried population on their long, huddled transits home. Many seek simple takeaway dinners, but others linger on for a slow drink, free television, and a gaze across the lake. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1709864137203-AOXCTZFUPA6L61HJYJ0C/Skycubes_Nightstat_rs3of3.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES - Trigar Station Image III of III The ‘Nitestat’ began as a dank, lonely cluster of rocks in the middle of West Timen’s Trigar lake; a resting spot for kayakers and recreational fishermen. In a bold and oddly inspired move, the ASD (‘Chibi’) Line’s planners opted to lay their tracks straight across the dark waters. Trains would meet and pass the rocks, and passengers could alight with a fare waiver. A station with recreational facilities - notably, an aquarium with an underwater viewing gallery, vertical gardens, and a public boat hangar - was proposed and built. The Nitestat gained its moniker over the years as a stopover point for the region’s salaried population on their long, huddled transits home. Many seek simple takeaway dinners, but others linger on for a slow drink, free television, and a gaze across the lake. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1711789016672-CPG1CAYW1GM2F5RF54ZQ/2022_FairfieldAquarium_rs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES - Fairfield Aquarium A suburban station with dated visual cues, built around a public aquarium. Public aquaria were a lot more common in the 90s, when they were used to add circumstance and interest to public spaces. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1622897061816-JLAFG8LK74P5X8JLH234/2021.06.05_STTrs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES - Skytrain Roost Quiet place in the clouds, with good Straits coffee. I like to think the Changi Airport skytrains of the 90s have really just tired of shuttling between terminals. A Lion-class freighter plucked them from the rails one night, and they now ply a more interesting route in a world higher and cooler than Genting Highlands. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1603185436409-YK17YBLNM93V7WFM9BCJ/Caas_Si_rs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES - Caas Si I daydream regularly about visiting Changi Airport in its original form. It spoke to my child’s imagination above perhaps all other public spaces I visited in those years. Some quiet corners away from public view still stand relatively unchanged, an indication of how Singaporean civic architects used space and materials in the late 80s. The chairs and tables in this illustration were referenced off the old T2 staff canteen. . I don’t know how the children of today see the loud, clashing mix of visual cues that is today’s Changi Airport, but I’d wager the experience builds their character in a very different direction. (With that said, I do give #jewelchangiairport the kudos it deserves for its sense of wonder). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602145181038-ERPC8KJY42FCAY2IF2NJ/image-asset.jpeg 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 :) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602145148098-Q9BG4TTV44U1UQ6VS3BS/9JAN_WiPwLog_instMod.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES 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! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602145227472-NWZHDSV1ENQ6V09S5NVA/PS1_Oniet_rs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES 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. You may view its counterpart here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602145581085-UFDREQ1JYF7XU6J7C403/QS3.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES I drew a skycube. For #pastelskycubes! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602145223482-24BZPAA79PHU76KD30KK/QS4.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES More skytrain fantasy from #pastelskycubes :) Anyone get familiar vibes from this place? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602145259241-ZFWJHW1QP44N9PGHVACC/Station%2BI.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES Uita Station started out as a scrapped concept from my commercial work. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602145162182-MMSRLJ6XOWOQ38SOXCXW/CSTrs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES 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.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602145260262-FG0ML8LZIC0FP1YUCD9U/STSLines.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES Tenshin Town and Bunker - linework https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1603787358406-TD4GGOTERIWX9EPQKDBY/TransitTowers.jpeg PASTEL SKYCUBES Gondola transit towers https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1603787453521-JLHALRAXLTJ9GQUJFF8J/BirdVendor.jpeg PASTEL SKYCUBES https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602145377306-9I8RU604YVYCU2D50BTT/TamoraStationLV_gifXS.gif PASTEL SKYCUBES Tamora is a hill station dominated by the Gateway Tower’s imposing gabled facade. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602145436121-81KKDZHRV6VZ57XSKA74/TrentLandingGIF.gif PASTEL SKYCUBES - 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602145421942-LWWP8W52JD3T8M34RC93/Unit_2rs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES Small comforts on quiet days... ~ Several hundred thousand years into the future, colonists on a stormy, watery world seeded with fabricated (‘concrete’) continents will come to build an identity around the aesthetic vocabularies of the late 20th century’s developing Far East. They’ll see photographs of the old Sentosa Monorail, nod in sagely approval, and think it a fine fit for at least one of their highland refuges. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602146843470-FWUFLPOQJ4OYKMC8CGZF/TN-41_NibomTower_rs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES This is another concept page from my proposed guidebook on highland rail stations. Here we see a dim, quasi-brutalist hulk standing by the quietly lapping shores of a concrete-lined reservoir. Apart from receiving monorail commuters, it is also a gondola terminus, an observation tower, a beer garden, a hostel, a radio station, a tv mast, a barge dock, a visitor centre for the Tushan Caves, and a suburban market floor. Mixed-use developments have an illustrious history in Singapore, and can be inventive in such fun and accessible ways! . While scratching away at this piece, I was reminded of OBS (Ubin Campus) and old Genting's 'underworld' of staff residences, concrete foundations, and cloud-shrouded cablecar pylons. Do follow me for updates, and if my work speaks personally to you, you can help me to make more of it at patreon.com/tiangpong :) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602146812920-3AAZYAYIZNXPRMKQBBSG/ST-14_Concourse_rs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES This is a concept page from a proposed guidebook on highland rail stations. Skycubes channels the far east in the 80s (Singapore and old Genting are higher priorities), as well as helpings of weathered syfy, asiatic retro-futurism, convenience stores, concrete continents, storm ferries, and other magnificently random stuff. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602146762774-6RQX5T5SQCNZW6BVONLD/PG15_ThomBo_rs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES Bunch of tuning forks. Also known as transit pylons. It’s no fun taking a gondola across these into a storm! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1623327933363-VLQUXVI52AR4J67I6BW7/1_FookHai_Building_rs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES - Source Material Study for 'Cloud Lake House' Singapore experienced an architectural renaissance soon after independence. Among the products of that age were some truly ambitious mixed-use projects that participated in the production and shaping of trends for the entire Far East. These projects are beginning to quietly but rapidly disappear from the cityscape. . The Fook Hai building of South Bridge Road is a modest example of the mixed-use revolution, and joined the many commercial icons that were springing up in and around Chinatown in the early 70s. As of 2020 it stands encouragingly well-preserved, with much of its original furnishings intact. Unlike classicalist landmarks like the old Supreme Court, contemporary construction methods put economy well before durability, which means that most buildings built in the modern age have a sadly limited lifespan. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602147131784-K0ZF8XHAS16YX05QGEPL/1_FookHai_Building_CLHrs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES A quiet, ageing mixed-use complex by a reservoir. You hop on the monorail to and from it, or (if time’s on your side) take an hours’ walk in the gauzy, gentle highland morning through empty squares and emptying villages. Wide expanses of concrete and paving, slowly returning to nature. (Very loosely inspired by Fook Hai Building, and other ‘old world malls’ of the region.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1620644536163-DYST6IXHTQRXZI4X48WW/2021.05.09_YandirBeacon_rs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES - Yandir Beacon https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602145413021-WM0VOATIVB4VCNE3XXD6/TrioStat_GH1_L.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES Singapore has been well-known for bright urban colours. This particular ‘playful pink’ scheme is similar to that which defined Bukit Timah Shopping Centre (it is now a more neutral brown-yellow). I used to detest the garishness, but think rather differently about it now that ‘retro’ Singapore is quietly but rapidly disappearing. There was, I think, a coherent aesthetic developing Singapore achieved, that participated in the production and shaping of trends for the entire region. It was far better researched and thought out than most of us would expect. One admittedly tall thing I’d like to do with #pastelskycubes is to pay visual reference to it, so that it may be kept fresh and alive at least digitally. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1650866724982-XMIWTUOHM0VFBS3MTDJW/2022.03.03_Prac.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES A study of a food stall I came across near Sala Daeng BTS station, Bangkok, before the pandemic. Visiting the same place on Google Streetview, I'm struck by how quickly the area is changing. For now it remains an exceedingly dense neighbourhood filled with divers life; a good taster of downtown Bangkok's incredible contrasts. Because of how organically the neighbourhood has been allowed to grow, you see crumbling, traffic-blasted, honeycombed tenement facades right beside gleaming first-world malls, and hushed 'old world' interiors hidden deep inside city blocks boarded up from the street. Sky bridges are everywhere, connecting the BTS station with the second, sometimes the third floors of encroaching properties. We'll see (and have seen?) such contrasts in Pastel Skycubes as well. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602140089790-CZWFN71UVUDN4QMVB6EV/TIBS.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES STUDY: Retro TIBS Bus. ~ There was a great fleet of these classic TIBS buses by Singapore’s Kallang River, largely obscured by trees when seen from the elevated tracks. I never had much to do with them, but they left an impression in the 90s and early 2000s. The present is really nothing more than a blip in the larger narrative that got us here, and reaches past our smallish selves into lands we cannot yet see. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602327086634-OM9HWHGNV7YSCS5IWOZM/Route_Finding_rs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES As you make your way deep into the world of Pastel Skycubes , your personal assistant’s at hand to help navigate Alto Sihaca’s confounding wilderness of interconnecting rail lines. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602088629199-LPWYGKJPYCF8F4F1SB7X/RS_1.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602138452272-7C92AQJSNUKA5KB05299/YFA.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES Yakult fanart! Yep……/ ~ Yakult is a premium probiotic cultured milk drink that contains the specially cultivated beneficial bacteria known as Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota. ~ The Yakult chiller is a familiar sight in mature public housing estates across Singapore. Many of them have been running faithfully for decades. Someone has to document them! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1650867950239-7O6ZDBKTYFT3EM87H8BO/GBHakTrib_LoopB.gif PASTEL SKYCUBES A bit of Nintendo fanart, along the thematic lines of #pastelskycubes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1572427764269-PUVMY4JSQ54HSWE0LYPD/image-asset.png PASTEL SKYCUBES https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602089035796-PPCQGXEEEVU6REUDWJ60/Storm%2BFerry.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES - Storm Ferry 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602089073621-3GHV2DXNMT1HIUD3EN40/MP.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602089100043-GTUWQKOLX1ZXWOPETZZ3/TP_PAGW_9CTS.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602089103528-EOL7VI1GYI6EBVT6TUWD/TP_PAGW_12.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES Cold place indoors; smell of sea. Marine life is housed here for public edification. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1650869772488-5IT43TGFI0OYPYUX4524/2021.06.14_PS_Study.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES Paint practice thing of a station on the Shonan Monorail, footage courtesy of AUNZ RAILFAN. This is one of those scenes which (to my mind) could come straight from Pastel Skycubes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1623326158691-ASGX9XIVQU8C19VL7JKK/SkycubesAid_Study.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES Painting study (with significant liberties) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602136677756-VQGOLWEJSCB3QRF9AVL8/TP_PAGW16.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1650869686644-4IY8P2AJ2FFKBJBJO8ZW/2021.07.11_PS_Study.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES Paint practice thing (feat. classic Japanese rail). The ability to simply board a train in the centre of your city, and have it whisk you across great expanses of land to places you’ve never visited.. there isn’t such an option where I live, and the idea of it is magic to me. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602136727057-51LG9TOOHHXE9IOUR7QH/SkyCubes_18Dec19.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES December 18th, 2019 ~ This study does a pretty good job capturing the feel of Pastel Skycubes. It's much, much more than this of course, but I'd consider this image quite typical. I cannot tell you why I am so drawn to older things of all sorts (it certainly isn't the case that they are ALL better informed and in better taste).. I'm sure that part of it has nothing to do with the objects themselves, but with their indelible association to the millions of lives - millions of stories - that have passed that way and lived and formed among them. You remove old things, and you excise parts of the human story. Some of that is inevitable, of course.. but how much really? (Hats off to the YouTube channel #丸窓電車 for providing the footage that helped make this image possible) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602139605963-SVQ3Z7TVNRLVNCAQO29Y/RbA.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES LINE sticker nod (: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602139642802-QCEVZTNB84575MTQM88J/Skycubes_27Apr_rs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES (Not a real place, but based on real places.) For a cosy sliver of time heartrendingly far in the future, on a watery world with concrete continents battered by cataclysmic storms… the past will be sought, and revived. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602139706243-S4YJH9YBYWVZ6P9E62AW/Study_25Apr.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602139749973-G4Q47KJ0UC71MI687UQP/174_Skycubes_rs.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES Harry’s Locker is a weathered neighbourhood in Trehting, ten miles above sea level and out of reach of the worst of Dom Fa’s raging, pan-oceanic storms. In these parts the clouds don’t part nearly as often as residents would like, so the housekeeping inclinations of people are disproportionately directed indoors. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602139765761-J14OAIT3EYY3G75QU5ML/Sihaca%2BPlain.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602139802434-5HALR0YDDCBOPE1V5P77/Passage.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1650869004992-RFIUZYR49VCXOUN8LOT7/2021.11.04_QStudy.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES A sketch/study based on an old Apple ad, changing a little of the design and composition. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602138547169-I9EL8JIF61L8AU86GY1O/TompSketch.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES Early concept sketch of Tomp City’s facade from my second lifelong project Pastel Skycubes. If it manages to grow on me, the final will look much like it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602139731284-TCIL5LNGMNVS5FOEMKLS/Electric%2BAvenue.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES ‘…(This world) involves vast, open tracts of weathered concrete, the tops of massive structures raised by founders when they made landfall with forgotten verve. Their glinting starships filled the night sky; the seas were calmer then, and one fancied the weather’s capricious might would be quelled in time by great engines later waves of humanity seemed destined to bring. ‘A dozen generations have passed, and the colony is a backwater. Expansion has ceased, and tenements cling like barnacles to their fabricated continents. Superstorms rage all about and below the quailing population centres; the firmament is ever dour and gray, and the wan ecosystems painstakingly cultivated have for the most part been ripped clean off by shrieking winds. ‘There are times, though, when said winds drop to an unnerving calm. The sky lightens, birds titter, and the world takes stock. These gilded hours of gently rising mist are worth all the dread the rest can bring.’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602139896737-FOU0HQTJMZU4HOH26HCA/Single%2BRoom%2B-%2BShot.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602153783201-2998LI7K6N9XX0HOK1OW/hillstation.jpg PASTEL SKYCUBES - Hill Station http://www.tiangpong.com/overview daily 1.0 2024-12-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1521829710698-YV6VMKWQA4TWKIQO6W08/Uita_Station.jpg Overview I like stations :) This one started out as a scrapped concept from work. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1572413245506-0J4XSE1EKTV23Q4C8C3Y/SpotterBoys_24rs.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1490269970536-UKP1EYG42CV010K3UQ5O/image-asset.jpeg Overview Rial Commune — site overview https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474557866055-2ZV97H9UVN0YH6BLGUXW/singleroomshot.jpg Overview Single Room - Shot https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1538853051419-PLEAUVOIKNGPUJB7P819/TP_PAGW_9CTS.jpg Overview https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1499138903225-41DIWTWXEMCQHI2NRQN9/Passage.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1572421221462-BYO1NAH4QS5V1W2TSHPM/CSTrs.jpg Overview 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.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1587353966574-F11A7O1SC20TWF7O0H5R/Pavilion_Lowlight_rs.jpg Overview https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1587353952861-UWD0ZQV60N4580DLJ0OT/Pavilion_Lit_rs.jpg Overview https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1587353991155-YGM00GWL3F9FZZM8KKJH/AlteCoer_Support.jpg Overview https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582651420505-0TBYP42LGWKNVFZ6O9GX/Ilusia_Welmisley_rsL.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474554780248-3655XZ7M2LTF7K72J58P/beacon.jpg Overview Beacon https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582652898292-NAX171E5Q4VP3KIBGGD4/QS4.jpg Overview More skytrain fantasy from #pastelskycubes :) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474557770361-7I6I3K1WJHMMN1Y1QK64/carnivalpierandenvirons.jpg Overview Carnival Pier - overview https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1541502944789-FS9VV6FMRLFSPSCX65HA/MPiiF.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1542554300931-3OJ2G5QELPQK8BOJT2AG/TamoraStationLV_gifXS.gif Overview https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474555313450-MOED66AI5A6B8FZ6BNH3/west_torak.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474554967052-5367JZ6TDLMJQN1GFT2Z/outpost.jpg Overview Outpost https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582653892426-L8S34ZGI9HZO6ANFWP8Z/SP30NOV_NIGHT_rs.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1500006638434-SP602NK1789DLOFP8B7C/Home+for+the+Evening.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582652674134-CNLW406YJ3IWY78WIMDF/9JAN_WiPwLog_instMod.jpg Overview 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! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582652150629-STLK5G6F9VDB5SDMM88A/Breather+and+Biscuit_rs.jpg Overview Take a breather, don’t miss the marvels on the way? :) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1602164989414-1NDQYDF57YUGZUE3ZXDG/SEQ_OV_upCont.jpg Overview Sidescroller Produced for the project’s instagram. A fun side-scroller featuring a slightly monumental but otherwise typical commune in peripheral Middle Calais. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1565598528167-N0HYYQZVEFD09YZXF2GC/EveningRoad.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474559936007-XQE6QOHJMJ4J2L8GWMJJ/arx_tallia.jpg Overview Arx Tallia - Tallia’s central promenade ends in a terrace with a view over the canton’s botanic gardens https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474558054171-LB2OIDJK9J67JMHR7HH1/haven.jpg Overview Haven https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1475524856721-BJI5T6LM9FMYCLIKAZVC/freight_dirigibles.jpg Overview Spotter Boys' Annual - Freight Dirigibles, Issue #14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474557936659-IOMCFGYFRU8IXB3S80QI/singleroomset.jpg Overview Single Room - Set https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/988ed60e-0536-4c2c-9cb2-9bb0e824e437/NH2rs.jpg Overview - Make it stand out '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.~) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1542554077941-S0DYK896366BHEXUQIE9/TrentLandingGIF.gif Overview https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1474558003610-N6QR2DLP3D94079M4SQ5/hillstation.jpg Overview Hill Station https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1542553758900-51NA7BP1ACDR5K642WAK/TrentLanding_compileIIRS.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1487580082577-CV5UH9LVQGZLF69D0XIA/Edge+of+Iara.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1572420325061-G2KQWKIQTE0IKMGD377T/PS1_Oniet_rs.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1490112273740-0ZNYGFUGRYNR7MIKVV5V/image-asset.jpeg Overview RTS Asset Demo https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1543412845318-5U5MCUUIPOKQUVZTRV8Q/Gate_UpSat.jpg Overview The florid ‘Crab’ Gate stands guard over the ancestral halls of Tilay. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1582651814665-YAYKSHPRE3YYT0KIJFSK/Octan_Palace_upCont_rs.jpg Overview `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.’ . 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1511890131429-5K2XCMZPJ0S67IG3UY8G/Storm+Ferry.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1517751995800-EIKYI5NN2PM16XUXUGCN/2CalaisC.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1604257073015-OAA2V5IDXFEJCWLFCLWG/Erimude_Portal_rs.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1572419781762-IUI8SM18ZFY5U2XX49MU/QentinDoras_rs.jpg Overview 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1541503465452-ZIC4NY0VWN9BCAMHFHR3/TamoraStationVars.jpg Overview Tamora Station https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57e2b9a59de4bb9f3b7572c1/1559677178517-YQKGJ13GLCM187GAWV78/Thresher+Class.jpg Overview 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.