Pilosophos' Circle

Worldbuilding

I've been a part of and have run a few collaborative worldbuilding projects. Many of my hobbies and interests were picked up because I wanted to improve my worldbuilding, so I owe worldbuilding a great deal.

My worldbuilding originally started because of NationStates, and while I don't play anymore, I'm still worldbuilding. And strangely, I have never DM'd a TTRPG campaign.

My favorite worlds I've built are:

• Malaszec, a magical cyberpunk country having emerged from the collapse of an authoritarian regime and struggling to integrate faeries, elves, and humans into a ruthless corporatocracy.
• The Federal Constellation, a supranational space union founded by two alien worlds each on the other side of a shared wormhole, around which both home planets orbit.

Conlanging

At some point as I was worldbuilding, I asked myself "how come I'm making up imaginary people and places, but they all inexplicably speak English?" It was at this point I picked up conlanging. At around the same time, I'd been learning Latin, which is invariably taught from a philological perspective rather than trying to get students to use it in their daily life, which gave me my initial exposure to linguistics. Conlanging is the main reason why I got a linguistics degree.

One of my most developed conlangs is Malaszec, which you might have guessed is the language spoken in Malaszec, one of my worldbuilding projects.

Technology

Originally I just wanted to make cool things and show them to my friends. I do this for a living now, and miraculously I'm not burned out enough to stop doing it for fun.

I mostly do web programming in JavaScript etc., since everyone has access to a web browser these days. My favorite language is Python, but I have experience in JavaScript, Java (mainly because of Minecraft and uni), Lua (because of Computercraft and World of Warcraft), and a bunch of others I don't use very often. I've made Discord bots, scripts I use to help me do conlanging and learn natural languages, plugins for Minecraft servers, and a whole bunch more.

I also have a home lab which I cram into my tiny little apartment, filled mostly with hand-me-down hardware and stuff I found in the trash (and subsequently disinfected). I'm trying to get into wearable development, as well as embedded systems (e.g. arduinos, esp8266) which I try to kitbash with salvaged parts from broken old printers and stuff.

I'm also on tilde.town as ~pilosophos. If you're viewing the tilde.town mirror of this site, I guess you already knew that. If you're on tilde.town, you should sign my guestbook!

Drawing

My main styles are ink rendering (particularly with fountain pens), sketches, and manga style cartoons. I'm probably best at landscapes, but I'm trying to get better at the human form. I like trying out a lot of different techniques, and as a result I haven't settled on a distinctive style yet, though I'd like to so I can set myself apart from other artists.

It's hard to beat the convenience of digital art, so I use a Huion Kamvas tablet with Krita. But there's something seductive about traditional media that makes it hard to let go of entirely. I have a bunch of fountain pens (my first, and favorite, is the Pilot MP with the fine nib) and inks, and I occasionally dabble in ink wash with watercolor brushes.

Arguably not "drawing," but I also do a lot of digital vector art in the form of logos and flags, primarily for my worldbuilding. I also do cartography in QGIS, which is probably overkill for worldbuilding but I do it anyway.

I primarily post art on Pixiv these days. I used to post on DeviantArt, but at some point it started flagging random things as explicit content. Even though that's been reversed, I'm just fed up with DeviantArt and stopped using it entirely. I seem to get better engagement on Pixiv anyway.

Gaming

I play a bunch of video games! I most enjoy strategy, racing, and sandbox games, though I can appreciate a good RPG. I have no allegiance towards PC versus console gaming, although I make it a point only to buy consoles that can be hacked.