iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

tangentially character driven stuff with Gray Mann's island #tf2 I've been approaching backgrounds as a kind of exercise in thinking about things like environment and infrastructure as well as things like scale. It's an interesting way of challenging myself more.

my notes from a LibreOffice document:

Gray’s Island
• functions as a remote head-quarters and technology hub
• materials for development are imported here, but it is not strictly outfitted for mass production
• Gray utilises both company and hijacked factories to produce his robots, most of them are off-shore
• the patchwork appearance of his machines is partially due to having to improvise from what he has access to, based on locale
Features
The island is largely split into two parts:
The developed side of the island, and the mountainous, undeveloped side. The rock face grants protection from chaotic weather.
The outer portions of this developed side consist of a beach on one flank and an industrial shipping area on the other. This industrial area also sports a water treatment facility and a power plant (maybe hydro-electric, or even nuclear power?)
The more central portion is the main hub where Gray conducts his work and relays information to his army of automata.
Gray tower is at the edge of this inland area where the developed side becomes mountain, well sheltered from storms. It is the tallest structure in the central area and gives a good view of the layout of the developed side of the island, surrounded by a number of storage warehouses, workshops, garages and smaller control rooms.
Beneath this elevated central area is also a basement, which can be accessed through some of these building, as well as some tunnels in the rock. Most of the electricity supplied is fed through here, rather than with overground power lines.
The basement could also feed into tunnels that lead to the ocean and serve as containment for ships and submarines that aren’t actively being used, so there is no risk of passive damage from weather conditions while docked.

digital drawing, long shot of Gray Mann's island in landscape, sitting on the horizontal plane

digital drawing, rough overhead view of Gray's island

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

camera studies of light and flesh felt like messing around with my old digital camera today ✌️

digital photograph, a close up shot of light coming through a small orange wedge

digital photograph, half an orange with light coming through and ambient blue light

digital photograph, a whole and mostly peeled orange with light coming through, angled so the segments are radiating from the center

digital photograph, two backlit orange segments that appear as if they're glowing

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

the gist of it is there's not really an "Australian identity", or well, it's always been pretty contested what that's even supposed to mean. I kind of wanted to do something exploring Barnabus more at some point, so this is that. #tf2

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

another batch - chipping away at these on and off while winding down I should probably do the whole TFC if I'm going to add Fred and Virgil but we'll see...

Merasmus, the Horseless Headless Horsemann, Fred Conagher and Virgil the TFC Sniper from Team Fortress 2 as NES inspired sprites.

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

I played Slay the Princess recently, been thinking about... boids

several rough sketches of the protagonist of Slay the Princess, representing different facets:
1. a wary Hero
2. a blank, staring vessel
3. upright and cold
4. eager and opportunist
5. a broken defeatist rubbing its wing
6. tense and paranoid, fluffed up feathers, clutching its beak

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

playing with MotU AU stuff - Merkur and Radon are scientists from the citadel, I've been thinking the hazmats are a uniform. Radon being more an engineer than a chemist means they have thicker work gear. Wanted to make Merkur's Altered Future design a bit roughed up. Also Han, being... Han.

Merkur and Radon wearing blue and yellow hazmat suits inspired by the cover of Flying Microtonal Banana. A couple of extra sketches of them unmasked + a symbol of a hand grasping a mountain based on the cover of I'm In Your Mind Fuzz - brainstorming something to represent the citadel.

Bust sketches of Merkur, a bit rougher and older looking. He has a marked chunk torn out of his hairline and a chipped tooth.

The symbol for Mercury was doodled on the left of the page and on the bottom is another symbol based on the style of alchemy symbols - it's a circle with a dot in the center, like the sun symbol, but radiating out two arrow shapes pointing up and down, as well as six cog-like notches. I was thinking about something to represent Radium since I'm running with the theme of elements representing the scientists of the citadel.

Han-Tyumi pinning Merkur to the ground and vomiting onto his face, specifically over his mouth. Merkur seems startled but not nearly as horrified as you'd expect, almost curious.

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

#lookoutside hard to imagine she was all that convincing...

rough sketches of some dialogue from Nestor's quest in Look Outside:

Nestor: Huh? Something for me? A letter?

[Nestor examines letter, his eyes widen]

You say this is from... The thing in the pipe?

Uh... I don't know what to think about that.

[the letter is revealed to be illegible, Nestor is looking very anxious while a blissfully ignorant Sam is giving him an enthusiastic thumbs up]

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

#lookoutside testing out some brushes in Krita with Rafta

Look Outside fanart depicting Rafta in the pipe, surrounded by other pipes, with an internal monolgue following her down its length. Her text is interspersed with speech bubbles, coming from a light source at the bottom of the image, at the tube's opening - where her toothy worm maw is waiting.

Rafta: OH, MY POOR, SWEET NESTOR

Nestor [out of frame]:Rafta? Hello?

Rafta: YOU ARE A COWARD, AREN'T YOU?

Nestor: I got the letter...

Rafta: AFTER ALL, "THAT THING IN THE PIPE" CAN HEAR THROUGH THE PLUMBING
Nestor: You're in there, right?

Rafta: BUT, I CAN KEEP YOUR LITTLE SECRET
OH, I WOULD HATE TO EMBARRASS YOU!
IT'S ACTUALLY A BIT... CUTE

Nestor: I hope I didn't keep you waiting...

Rafta: JUST DON'T EXPECT ME TO GO EASY ON YOU ❤️

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

more thoughts on this too but the gist of the initial illustration - something about worms actually being muscle-nerve cable bundles that can pry loose and form nodules that grow into mouths and things. They're like packets of stem cells or something. Why Nestor's second phase has fewer "hands".

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

( eye trauma + body horror #lookoutside ) fiddled with the composition of this thing since last night, + extra page

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

#tf2 #tf2engineer #teamfortress2 I did not post anything from the Mother Mary animation either... which, to date, is probably the biggest animation project I ever did check it out here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DR1...

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

OH! I should mention! the WAR redraw collab I participated in at the time was what kicked this off - I swore I posted this here already but apparently not? #tf2 warcomicredraw.neocities.org

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

#lookoutside among other ways of abstracting the worm party I keep thinking about them like this:

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

warming up some spriting muscles and I remembered these psuedo-NES styled sprites I started working on some years back, so I thought I'd finish the set :] #tf2 #mybugs

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

#lookoutside chimera (might as well repost with the coloured sketch)

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

#lookoutside thinking about Marshall. the bog of wisdom

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

oh! oh I've also been kind of obsessed thinking about this one theory that Hellride is the cursed form of the woman in the letter to Eugene. Also wanted to try designing him a cursed demonic form as a consequence... #lookoutside theory in question: weirdagnes.tumblr.com/post/7954796...

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

( body horror ) ...also thinking thoughts about Eugene getting desperate and losing the plot... #lookoutside

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

#lookoutside thinking about worms and body autonomy and hostile dependency and more worms

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

#lookoutside I'm so happy we got more cleaned up Nestor sprites in the update AH...

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

#lookoutside guess who finally got to see a certain side quest :')

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

oh you can also have this - semi-transformed Fabrice for a tumblr ask #lookoutside

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

maybe green isn't such a bad colour on you... #lookoutside

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

this is a bit overkill just for practice, but, eh.

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

so like. I saw some folks building out character animation rigs in Da Vinci Resolve's Fusion Engine and I've been slightly possessed trying to mess around and see if I can get much out of it. kinda thought Kirby characters would make for good practice cuz they're simple (and I'm biased)

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

oh! I drew some older OCs for the first time in a few years - this is Mechana (or Victoria - though she prefers just 'Vic') and Lucinda. Wanted to play with their designs a little and change things up a bit, still thinking about 'em.

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androgenius @abberantmachine.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

this is definitely something I would like to explore more, so hopefully!!

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