Worldbuilding Design
If you’re a writer or a roleplaying GM, you’re likely a pretty creative individual and know that worldbuilding is important. So why commission me (or anybody else at all) for these things? Hell if I know, because they’re so fun to do, I certainly wouldn’t want to delegate this stuff to someone else.
But, you may simply be feeling stumped or in a creative slump, and just want the most basic concept to spark your imagination and get you started so that you can build the rest yourself.
Or you might need some detailed deep-diving on a particular thing you’ve already sort of have a concept for, but don’t know what sort of questions to ask to develop it realistically, or even what you should develop or how much you need.
These are both good reasons for having someone else take on the task for you. Then, how involved do you want to be in this creation/development process?
The ideal situation for me is to have good discussions with the customer about the concept, guiding their own creation/thought process, and helping them build on their ideas and input while offering my own insights for consideration. A nice collaboration.
Or you might want to be totally hands off, “I have no idea, just make something cool for me, Mosa”, and be happy with whatever I come up with for you. That’s fine too.
I think I’ve covered most of the parts of worldbuilding below, but if you need something that doesn’t seem to be categorized by anything here, feel free to ask me about it.
These are just odds and ends that I’ve had lots of experience doing for my own personal stuff, but not so much as commission work. Because of this, there are no set or listed prices, as each job will have to be quoted individually depending on how involved the work is.
There are no examples here yet. I may someday get around to putting my own worldbuilding stuff up, so in the meantime, commission some!
Planet Design
Geographic features of your planet. This can be art based in the form of a world map, and/or text based, describing the size of your planet, and where particular things are located. Maps can be simple or more detailed, depending on what elements are most important to your story.
Other important things I can help you create include, but not limited to:
- unique natural resources
- cool land formations or natural phenomenon
- weather systems
- flora – trees, flowers, other plants, fungi
- fauna – unique animals and other critters (see Species Design below)
Some of these elements may include a small piece of artwork if desired or necessary.
Maps!
Yes, world maps were mentioned above, but maps for smaller areas like countries and cities are often necessary too. Obviously an art based commission.
Species Design
Fantasy animals or sentient beings for your world. This can be both a text and art based commission. Along with concept art of your new species, we can also describe their life cycle, biology, habitat, and many other things if needed.
Culture Design
This is a mostly text-based commission, in which I will help you build cultural elements for your world, such as religions, native dishes, entertainment, government, education, etc, for your people, depending on what and how much you wish to build.
May involve some artwork for things such as religious symbols, coats of arms, house crests, culture based tattoos, recurring design motifs, etc.
Language Design
One of my very favorite things to design. Language is the soul of its people, and will deeply affect the cultures that speak it, and vice versa.
Like culture design, language creation can be very basic and simple, to very time consuming and complicated, depending on how much you need. My goal here at the very least will be to help you design the sound of your language, and how it looks written in English. This is accomplished by creating rules you can follow on your own to create words that sound and look like they all belong to that language.
Beyond that, I can also:
- design a written script
- design grammatical rules of varying complexity so you can create full sentences as needed.
Clothing/Fashion Design
Things for your characters to wear. This is an art-based commission.
I can either design absolutely random outfits for you with little to no instruction, design based on some keyword descriptors, or design based on a pre-existing culture (either real or fictional).
Setting Design and Development
This can be art based, such as concept art for a location in your created world that you’ve already visualized/described in writing, or it could be textual information, such as the history and function of a place and who is often found there.
For example:
- a drawing of the exterior of a building, a written description of what the building is for, who works there, when it was built, including a floor plan;
- a drawing of a character’s bedroom;
- an in depth description of fantasy laboratory or classroom, its history, notable scholars who studied there, and what things are studied there;
- birds-eye/high pov view of an outdoor market with a description of what sort of things can be bought there.
Magic System Design
What’s a good ol’ fantasy world without some fun, unique magic? Here we can develop how magic works in your world, who can use magic, and who cannot, what is required to cast it, what the cost is to cast it, how it came to exist in the first place, and other neat things.
This is a text-based commission, though some diagrams and designs might be required.
Character Building
I’ve listed this separate from the Character Design page, because character building is different. Character design focuses on what your character looks like, whereas character building is the development of their personality. If you need help making an existing character feel more substantial, or need a realistic personality for a new one, I can help.
Prop Design
Items that exist in your created world, from small to large. This is an art-based commission, but if you need a backstory or more in-depth description of the item and don’t wish to do it yourself, text can be included.
Book Cover Art
Covers often have an illustration as the base, and if this is what you want for yours, please check out Full Illustrations and simply follow the instructions there. Do mention in your email that the illustration is intended to be book cover art, and I’ll need to know whether it’s intended to be for digital release only, requiring only the front cover, or if it will be printed and/or possibly wrap around to the back.
If the design is more abstract, then the elements will need to be designed to fit with your story.
In both cases, I’ll probably need to either read the whole story, or a good summary of it, unless you’re very good at describing exactly what you’re looking for.
What about actual writing commissions?
So perhaps you looked at this page and went “wait, I obviously knew Mosa was an artist, but I didn’t know he was also a writer”. Well, it’s true, I am indeed a writer of mainly fantasy/sci-fi, and it’s my favorite thing to do, even above drawing.
“So where is all your writing? Can I read it? Can I commission you to write for for me?”
The short answers to those questions in order are “Not public”, “Maybe”, and “No, but…”.
A longer explanation? I’ll start with the last question first.
Since writing is a very personal thing for me, I’m not comfortable portraying characters that I didn’t create or who I’m not familiar with through other works (aka fanfiction, though I don’t write fanfic any more). You may think that it shouldn’t be any different than drawing someone else’s character and worrying about making mistakes or getting it wrong, but to me it is. Plus I don’t need to enjoy a character or scene in order to draw it satisfactorily. ALSO, most, if not all, of my fan/customer base are furries. Why should this matter? Am I not also a furry? Yes, I am, but I actually don’t write furry fiction (unless it’s a comic, then I might have a furry cast of characters) but I prefer writing humans as a main cast.
So, nope, no fiction commissions from me. Technical writing, on the other hand? Sure. Writing fictional histories for someone else’s world? Sure. I don’t mind creating things for other people, and in fact that’s why I’m offering my services for the things listed above.
The first two questions I can answer together. Where is my writing, and can you read it? Well, as my projects are in various states of WIP, they aren’t posted anywhere.
Ordering Information
- Read this whole page, my TOS, especially the will/won’t section, (and Stream Rules if you’ll be visiting a stream). By commissioning me, you agree to these terms. If you do not read them, it is your fault.
- Send an email to mosa@mooncatart.com
- Attach, or embed reasonably sized reference files into the email. Links are NOT preferred.
- Please include your art site profile name so that I may link back to your profile when I post your commission.
- What it is you’d like, how detailed you’d like it to be, and how involved you want to be in the process. Reference images or text is welcome.
- Any related story elements that you’ve already built.
- Any other relevant descriptions needed.