Tag: art

Women in Drag

Pinball McQueen Leave a comment

As an AFAB drag artist, one of the most prominent criticisms and questions I get is “How can women do drag?” And many people who are new to drag (or people who may have outdated views on drag) may wonder the same thing. Isn’t drag about female impersonation? Aren’t drag artists crossdressers? How can women be drag queens if they already have the hair and wear makeup? Where’s the transformation sis??

While mainstream media that promotes drag may have ignored women and afab people in drag forever (looking at you Drag Race), women have been drag artists and drag queens as long as drag has been around. This year we’ve started seeing women in drag getting recognition finally, even if it’s practically decades late. Both Drag Race UK and Dragula, the two most prominent drag-focused TV shows, featured cis women in their casts with Victoria Scone and Sigourney Beaver. Drag Race All-Stars also crowned Kylie Sonique Love the first trans woman winner of a Drag Race season.

But even as women in drag are getting more attention, they have to deal with far more misogyny than one would expect from a predominantly queer and supposedly accepting fanbase. So let’s set the record straight: 

  1. Women in drag are Not encroaching on LGBT spaces. Surprisingly, women can be gay too! Both Sigourney and Victoria have been open about being lesbians, and Venus Envy, another cis woman in drag, is open queer and asexual. BUT drag artists don’t have to be queer! Drag is for anyone!
  2. Drag is not just female impersonation or crossdressing. Women in drag are doing drag! Many of them pad, they all wear wigs, paint on completely new faces, and often do more to transform than cis men in drag (looking at you Joey Jay).
  3. The terms hyper-queen and bio queen are outdated and insulting! While these terms have been used to discuss women in drag in the past, most drag queens don’t associate or use them anymore. Women who are drag queens are drag queens. Same as any other queen!
  4. Women in drag are fucking incredible. They are some of the most innovative artists ever (I mean, look at Sigourney’s run on Dragula. COME ON!)

So support women in drag! And if you’re looking for some women in drag to support, consider this (non-exhaustive) list to start!

Creme Fatale (@cremefatale)

Sigourney Beaver (@sigourney.beaver)

Victoria Scone (@victoriascone)

Venus Envy (@venusenvydrag)

Updates on Cyrene

Micey 2 Comments

Figured it was about time for someone else to shine. This is Cyrene, I wanted to give her this popular mean girl vibe but that made choosing clothes that fit her and her interest in tattooing hard. I revamped her face to be thinner, hair shorter, clothes preppier, very Chilling Adventures of Sabrina even though I haven’t seen the show. Not sure about the dots on top of her eyebrows; I keep forgetting to add them.

LOG_004_ECHELON

Traveler Leave a comment

Echelon supersoldier Taiga poses for a recruitment poster.

 

“The Elites of Echelon”

Quincy Takai, 

Published JR-7274-E, 23-10-2977

It’s costly to sustain an interplanetary standing army– thus many world governments turn to private military corporations when conflict boils over. Of these private corporations, some of the top corporations– among them Vanguard, Citadel, and Echelon– have found vast fortunes to be made beyond conventional warfare.

Echelon recruits the cream of the crop, developing those with potential in both combat prowess and charisma into supersoldiers. From day one, Echelon gamifies their soldiers’ performance: each action in training and on the battlefield is assigned an XP value, and as enough XP is earned, unlocks and promotions are granted through this system. On many planets, these supersoldiers are treated as major celebrities, with their battles frequently recorded and broadcast or even livestreamed. The profits from merchandising, external sponsorships, and licensing rights dwarf the money Echelon makes through government contracts.

LOG_003_DISHWORM

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Illustration from Irma Beumer’s field notes of the dishworm’s life cycle.

 

Text transcribed from the notes of xenobiologist Irma Beumer:

The dishworm, so named for its dish-like carapace, is a small organism native to planet Khepri-1b. It lives in the dirt of temperate forests in the twilight zone. In addition to energy obtained from the photosynthetic cells on its “dish,” the mobile forms burrow and forage in detritus for food.

Its lifecycle is a complex one: the dishworm appears to be gynodioecious, consisting of female and hermaphrodites. Current research suggests that all members of the species start as females and later become hermaphroditic. Adult females are mobile and their eggs develop parthenogenetically into female offspring, while adult hermaphrodites are sessile and self-fertilize eggs, not unlike the life stages of Earth organisms of ferns or cnidarians. Early xenobiology research mistook the two adult stages as entirely unrelated organisms.

 

#1 spore/egg — small, scattered by winds — can be fertilized (egg) or self-fertilized pseudo-spore

#2 young dishworm stage (sessile) — undergoes embryonic development, suggested main nutrient sources are from the soil and photosynthesis

#3 juvenile dishworm stage — similar to stage 4a, but with a much shorter tail that grows additional segments with age

#4a adult stage — wormlike, the first recorded observations of this organism. Its anterior has four appendages for shoveling and combing dirt, while the heavy tail and the tail’s claws serve to anchor the organism in high wind conditions

#4b adult stage (sessile) — hermaphroditic, self-fertilizes eggs that are dispersed via wind forces. The soft “body” of 4a is not visible.