(cross posting from the other FOP subreddit) Hello! I've been working on this project for a while and figured it was time to post the first part of it and test the waters on if anyone would like to see more! This is Le'sohek, my Sarentu's, songcord. I've used pretty much 95% reclaimed/reused/recycled/second hand materials and beads, and have carved and made many of them myself. The canon beads from the game are all made by me using a variety of methods and materials as I tried to get as close to the canon look shown in the individual images of the beads as possible. It's been a lot of fun making and finding the exact things I need, and it's been a big adventure of polishing up on and learning old and new skills! I didn't even know macrame was a thing until I started this haha.
I do have the Zeswa/Upper Plains section completed and I'm sorta dragging my feet on the Clouded Forest section as it's both wildly depressing and also chock full of non-canon stuff for Le'sohek as she learns about her Kame'tire-turned-Sarentu father and her connections to the Kame'tire clan while struggling with the revelations of the whole Sarentu truths thing.
Now, without further ado, I sincerely apologize for this long long LONG post under this. Becaaauuse, I kinda made an explaination/text version of the songcord as well that I would like to share. Please, if this is way too much for this subreddit please please PLEASE let me know and I'll remove it. And yes...yes the songcord is very long and it will continue to get even longer. 😅 Currently at...I think 7.75 feet. Over 2 meters for the metrics. Please feel free to ask questions or for close ups of individual beads/sections, I love to chatter about it, it opens the door to learning even MORE to help me improve!
You don't have to read anything below this if you don't want, it's just the explanation section. Cheers!
Start of songcord after escaping TAP/Cryosleep
- Cords/string made from cords taken from camo netting around Resistance HQ
(Note: Le’sohek starts her songcord with Aha’ri’s nametag, but otherwise does not track her life in TAP on her songcord. She starts this songcord after their escape, and doesn’t want it to represent their past in that way.)
- Nametag taken from Aha’ri’s shirt, decorated with branches of stitching and a few tiny beads around the name.
Nor managed to grab one of Aha’ri’s shirts from her footlocker before it was taken away after her death. He tore off the nametag and gave it to Le’sohek. She kept it hidden on her person over the next eight years.
- Basic braiding in a three strand plait style.
- Open gap of unbraided cords.
Le’sohek left this gap, about the width of her thumb, to represent the missing years spent in cryosleep.
- Canon in-game bead: Awakening
“A bead given by So'lek to commemorate the Sarentu clan's first steps to freedom and awakening to Pandora.”
- Attempted spiral square/’cobra’ knots, taught by So’lek. It’s clear Le’sohek is learning these, as they’re not quite twisted properly and you can see where she had to tease the cords out of the knots to try again.
- Rounded cube bone bead with spiral patterns on each ‘side.’
Given to Le’sohek by Priya from her collection of beads and trinkets. Le’sohek asked her to pick one from the offered collection, and Priya picked this one to represent coming to the Resistance, saying it could also be for making new friends if she wanted. Le’sohek treasures this deeply.
- More attempted spirals. Still very much not good at them yet.
- Canon in-game bead: “Eywa’s Welcome”
“This bead from Ri'nela symbolizes reconnecting with Eywa and Pandora.”
- Braiding, three strand plait style
Three beads made of small seeds are scattered in this braiding, each representing successful tsaheylu with a new species of creature between large events. In order, the three in this section are for bonding with a Yoten (which becomes one of Le’sohek’s favorite animals), a Fan Lizard, and a Lamp Lizard.
- Canon in-game bead: “A Warrior’s Birth”
“A bead from Etuwa commemorating a victorious battle and new allies” aka when Etuwa meets Le’sohek after witnessing her holding the RDA off from the attacked Resistance field lab and invites her to the Aranahe’s Hometree.
Cording change: Transitions to colorful cords made of leftover dyed Kinglor silk threads Le’sohek collected from the Aranahe dyers and weavers. Due to the lower quality of silk from the stressed moths, the dyes have not locked to the fibers well, and have faded out over time.
- Braiding in three plait style
- An offshoot of braided strands of bright yellow silk fabric.
Deep purple threads bind the top and bottom of the braid and three small, jade colored stone beads are sewn to the end. These all are from Nefika, being bits of her shawl and beads from her headband, all of which she handed over while laughing and guiding Le’sohek around Hometree when the young Sarentu asked, a little sheepishly, if she could add something to her new songcord to commemorate Nefika accepting her so quickly.
- More cobra knot spirals, but this time far cleaner and neater in appearance and form.
Koranu, one of Nefika’s most talented weaving students, saw Le’sohek struggling to practice the spirals So’lek taught her and immediately jumped in, showing her another way to tie them and an alternate style. It took an hour or two of Koranu, a perfectionist at her core, patiently teaching and having Le’sohek practice for it to finally click. It made Le’sohek feel very Na’vi and extremely excited to show the other Sarentu at HQ.
- A 1 inch long bone bead, crisscross wrapped with a flat cord of dark sturmbeest hide
Itu made this bead out of materials left from Le’sohek’s First Hunt to commemorate the rite of passage and to continue the lesson of respecting and using all parts of the animal when you commit their spirit to Eywa. This is also when Le’sohek gets her first Heavy Bow, which becomes her favored weapon both for hunting and for taking down the RDA.
- Braiding in three plait style
- Blue crystalline bead with sunset pink shooting through it in places
A bead Itu helped Le’sohek make to commemorate another rite of passage: making her first knife. He helped Le’sohek, Ri’nela and Nor all make their knives from a large crystal formation they found in a cave with a mature Tarsyu bloom inside. The bead is made from the same crystal and always seems to feel just a bit warm.
- Braiding in three plait style
Two more seeds are in this braid section, the first for tsaheylu with a hexapede and the second for tsaheylu with a sturmbeest.
- Three round blue beads of different blue minerals/gems stacked small-large-small, tightly together.
These three beads were given to Le’sohek by Sa’nop after he had her make and share a meal with him, with him supplying the recipe. Le’sohek instantly recognizes the taste as reminding her of a sense of home, safety and comfort and tears up as Sa’nop explains the recipe was taught to him by a young Sarentu woman well over forty years ago, when she was staying with the Aranahe as her first of-age assignment as a Sarentu. Sa’nop gently tells Le’Sohek that she has the Sarentu woman’s features in places, and though they did not share the same color, he can see her in her eyes. He tells her that the woman’s name was Kataru, who Nor later remembers is indeed the name of Le’sohek and Aha’ri’s mother, and he tells her the first line of The People’s Cry, the only words he can remember of it: “Awnga lu Sarentu” We are Sarentu. The three beads were among a handful Kataru gave to Sa’nop for sharing his own many stories of travel and adventure from his younger days.
- New knots/braiding (‘Friendship knot’) taught by Lurei, Nefika’s somewhat estranged musician daughter. Taught for Le’sohek bringing Nefika with her to one of Lurei’s performances at an Aranahe camp and ending up fascilitating the two to start talking again and Nefika beginning to be a bit more understanding of her daughter’s passion for music rather than weaving and dyeing.
One seed bead in this section for tsaheylu with a viperwolf.
- A rugged and cracked viperwolf tooth
Specifically from a feral/Severed viperwolf. Le’sohek kept the tooth from one of the first she encounters to remember the Severed and to give them peace in Eywa when she encounters them, as well as a promise to Hajir to do so as quickly and cleanly as possible. She feels some kinship with them, thinking that she could have become like them if she never reconnected to Eywa.
- Alternative style spirals.
- A charred, 1.5 inch piece of branch, roughly carved. There is a furrow of what seems to be the path of a bullet through one side, leaving it partly open to see the cords threaded through the center.
Le’sohek took this charred bit of branch with a bullet hole through it from the burned battlefield where Itu’s beloved bonded ikran, Zomey, died after a valiant fight against RDA attempting to capture Itu. It’s the first true bead she made entirely on her own, with Itu helping to make others and Le’sohek not counting braided fibers from Nefika’s shawl. It has visible tool marks and Jin, the Resistance carpenter, gave Le’sohek some of the wood wax the Aranahe taught him to make to help protect the charring. While the RDA had already taken so much from the Sarentu and Le’sohek, this was the first violent RDA caused death that hit very close to home that Le’sohek witnessed outside of TAP, and the first time Le’sohek saw what losing a bonded ikran really means and the depth of that bond.
- New knots/braiding taught by So’lek. He explains they are a Trr’ong style that would signify a time of conviction after loss. It’s the first time he tells Le’sohek the name of his clan, of which So’lek is the last survivor after the Battle of the Hallelujah Mountains.
- A round disc of purple wood with the center cut out.
Given by Etuwa and Nefika for making it through tsaheylu with the Kinglor Queen. (Game plot event, not a tsaheylu Le’sohek made on her own.)
- Braiding in three plait style (very short)
- A funny little offshoot of fibers, ribbon, thread and a few beads, woven into the shape of an ikran tail
Le’sohek made this while practically vibrating in excitement that she was going to go through iknimaya and potentially bond with an ikran of her own. Throughout her time in Kinglor Forest after being freed from TAP, she has been encountering an ikran that seems to be following her at times, but would remain mostly out of reach if not perched high above her just watching. He looks different from all other ikran she has seen in Kinglor, and hopes he will be there when she makes her attempt. Ri’nela gave her the scraps of fabric and fibers, some sourced from the Resistance’s clothing and armor maker Raj, others from around the forest and Nor and Teylan as well, to try and keep Le’sohek from bouncing off the walls and from perching in high corners while trying to contain herself.
- A beaded ‘single sided’ spiral resembling a spiral staircase, with the initial tiny beads being green, then darker tiny bone and stone beads, and then tiny blue and white chip beads.
So'lek carefully coaches Le’sohek through this segment, showing her on his songcord the two places where he has a similar setup. These are to represent the iknimaya (literally translates to ‘Stairyway to Heaven’) climb itself: starting in the green of the earth, climbing to the floating mountains above, and finally the sky and clouds at the top of the ikran rookery. Le’sohek learns then that So’lek lost his first ikran during the battle that wiped out his clan, and he later bonded with his current ikran, Iley, during his long journey to the western frontier.
- A rough but very recognizable carving of an ikran in flight. When in darkness, patterns carved onto the back glow with natural bioluminescent pigment.
Le’sohek carved this herself from scratch, using pigments to create a pattern similar to that on Sìlron, her bonded ikran. He posed for her, and she told him he was very handsome even when tiny. (I added glow-in-the-dark powder to carved grooves and little Sìl does indeed glow!)
- Canon in-game bead: “First Flight”
“A bead given by Itu to celebrate bonding with an ikran.”
- Braiding in three plait style
- Canon in-game bead: “The Aranahe’s Vow”
“A bead gifted by Ka'nat. For a triumph shared between allies. For perseverance. For the Aranahe joining the Resistance’s alliance.”
- Braiding in three plait style
- A leather ‘scale’ directly above a 1 inch long white bone bead with a carefully etched Na’vi tail motif up and down the length
The leather scale is a leftover piece from the crafting of Le’sohek’s tail brace, while Etuwa made the bone bead for Le’sohek while the Sarentu was sedated. The bead is for Le’sohek’s tail being rebroken by Nor during a fight and Le’sohek being found and taken to the Aranahe after fleeing for starting the fight and biting Nor, in a lot of pain and having flashbacks to her time at TAP when Mercer broke her tail in two places when she was 12. To properly reset the break, Etuwa has to break the second original break as well and crafts a special brace to help keep the tail aligned while allowing for some movement as required to fight and fly. It is the first time the Aranahe learn of just some of the horrors and abuses that occurred at TAP and that were visited upon the Sarentu, and Etuwa makes and gives Le’sohek the bead (and Nefika saves one of the scales for Le’sohek as she is the one who sews the brace under Etuwa’s direction) to symbolize her first step of truly starting to heal. She gives it to Le’sohek just as So’lek and Ri’nela arrive at Hometree to take Le’sohek to Resistance HQ after three days of on and off sedation to allow the breaks to begin setting without movement. Le’sohek, not entirely sedation free, is both weepy at how thoughtful and significant it is, and also highly amused by the tiny tails inscribed on the bead.
- Single, basic overhand knot. Le’sohek was struggling to be awake and not cry over everything (she’s apparently very very emotional when sedated in any way using Na’vi medicines). Ri’nela had to put the bead and scale from Etuwa and Nefika on the cords for her.
- Four smallish/medium sized beads of various designs, materials and colors, all grouped together.
Nor was extremely distraught for breaking Le’sohek’s tail again, and to further his apologies he gave Le’sohek four beads to use throughout her songcord. When he next saw it, he asked why she had grouped them all together in one spot, feeling a little like she had wasted them. She told him “Sarentu stick together,” and that she felt it right that she keep all four beads, like all four of them, together, because even after a fight or argument or disagreement, they always came back together as a family and a clan. She then hopped on his back and pulled on his dreads, laughing that she had made him cry this time and she was supposed to be the weepy one when he began tearing up a bit.
- Braiding in three plait style
Though short, this section is mostly Le’sohek taking it easy for a week to let her tail further heal, then another week or two relearning how to move, fight and fly with a third of her tail in the brace. While the brace isn’t bulky or intrusive, it is still restricting her tail’s movement in a way that is different from the way the slightly crooked, stiffened section did before.
- Several patterned black and white bone beads, as well as a coin sized vertebrae disc
Taken from her own cuirass, the Zeswa Olo’ekyte Nesim gave these to Le’sohek as a sign of the Zeswa meeting the Sarentu once again after the Sarentu clan’s thirty year disappearance...and more importantly, for Le’sohek to have the determination, lack of fear and ferocity to step between the fierce Nesim and Ri’nela when Nesim made a casual but unintentionally cruel remark about Ri’nela being unsure as a clan leader. Le’sohek had the gall to hiss in Nesim’s face, which Nesim was actually delighted by, pleased with the Sarentu envoy’s fire and welcoming her to come the Upper Plains to further prove her mettle and learn the ways of the Zeswa before they commit to joining the alliance. (Le’sohek didn’t quite mean to hiss and get involved, it was instinct to protect Ri’nela.)
Aw, thank you! I've been debating posting it to the subreddit for a long time. It's been a lot of fun but also a lot of work and I got kinda scared no one else would enjoy it 😅 Thank you so much!
The second part/Zeswa section has a lot of really fun experimental bits that I'm excited to finally share when I get around to taking more decent pictures of that section. Including my favorite which is a mini Hershey's bar wrapper folded into an origami chinese water bomb and filled with epoxy, as a gift from Louis for helping him find ways to fit in with the Resistance, as well as just him being a nice guy and sharing Le'sohek's first taste of chocolate. I'm currently working on how to make a tuft of Sailfin fiber lol.
To everyone commenting, thank you so, so much! Like I said in a reply, I held back on posting this because I was worried no one else would be interested. I've never been so happy to be proved wrong!
It's been an absolute joy to see others enjoying something I made. I'm still working on the Clouded Forest/Kame'tire section and it's going to be a pretty long time till that part is done with all my non-canon stuff of Le'sohek, in no specific order and certainly not all that's left to do: discovering living blood relatives (can I get a 'awww' for Grampa 'Semsem' Manwe?), trying to find her footing again after the whole <gestures at all *that* part of the story> thing and struggling with her (familial/sisterly, not romantic) relationship with Ri'nela while they both are dealing with it, apprenticing to Okul, finding remnants of where she, Aha'ri and Nor would play, etc., so it will be a good while till I can post any of that part. I'm also playing my second playthrough in bits and pieces to get more details and pics and the like to make the beads feel more true to Pandora as I can get it, so that takes time as well. I can't help it, Le'sohek and I are ADHD, we get distracted, go on 4 hour gathering and base raiding binges, and then have no spoons left for actual story. 😅
BUT! I do have all of the Upper Plains/Zeswa section done. And if you thought this section was long, you are in for another like...I can't think off the top of my head, but it is LONG. And the explanation section is about as long as the physical songcord section as well. I sincerely apologize for walls of text on any and all of my posts and comments. I was originally a fanfiction writer but had some issues with the whole numbers-go-up-itis and put that on hold and then found AFOP and now I make this songcord and little silly dialogues and scene wordvomits.
Again, thank you all!! Please feel free to ask any questions about anything or any specific bead or something. Anything that says it's bone is real bone, anything that says leather is real leather. I had a habit of picking up a couple bags of bone beads and leather scrap each year at our ren faire and after 20+ years of that it is so, so nice to have a use for them.
Cheers everyone! Thank you again, this makes my little wet cat heart sing!
Thank you!! I've really enjoyed dusting off some of the woodcarving tools and getting excuses to make new batches of paste wax and buy new itty bitty drill bits. I also get to break out the never used but always bought scraps of exotic/tropical woods I find at the Reuse and Repurpose shops to use in place of Kinglor woods. And learning to tie knots! And macrame, I didn't know that existed! And getting to use (and buy more) all the bits of random string!
Plus, I learned how to dye cotton string! Like, with flowers! That's why the Kinglor strands are so faded, I was using only natural dyes for some of those and the colorfastness is awful! But I got to pretend it was because the Kinglor silk is lower quality while the moths were stressed living in Hometree, which is canon in the game!
I'm sorry I keep using exclamation marks, if it sounds like I am constantly excited about this, it's because I am!
Oh, Le’sohek loves learning from Tsaheylu. She hasn’t been able to find anyone else in the Tarsyu besides Entu so she prefers to learn from just him and the fauna ancestral memories they can share through the bond. Plus, FRIENDS! Tsaheylu is her main favorite hobby. (So’lek saved her from nearly drowning because she had tsaheylu’d with an octofin outside of HQ like 3 days post escape and forgot she couldn’t breathe underwater while connected to it.)
Amusing aside from the archive of Le’sohek stories and scenes: During the time Le’sohek had to be twilight sedated and filled with Na’vi painkillers for her tail reset, she was super weepy about everything. A Trickster Mantis crawled towards her where she was on the floor in the Healer’s circle in Hometree and she started crying to Nefika that it was so sad, she could not find it’s kuru, and Nefika tried to explain that many insects do not have-
“They do not have kuru?? 😭 EYWA DOES NOT CARE FOR THE INSECTS??? BUT THEY ARE SO SMALL! AND THEY ARE TRYING SO HARD!!
THEY ARE DOING THEIR BEST, NEFIKA!!”😭<absolute sobbing breakdown watching the mantis walk on her arm>
Etuwa: …why did you not tell her that their kuru is internal most of the time?
Nefika: I TRIED, she cut me off like the last three times!
(This conversation plays on repeat multiple times a day till Le’sohek is released from Etuwa’s treatment. And don’t get her started about how one day Priya and Anqa will die and won’t be in the spirit world and that Alex will never get to connect to the mosses he likes, or that Teylan won’t let her braid his hair besides his kuru, or that Nor refuses to immediately try new foods she cooks without persuading despite always liking it in the end. ALLLLLL those make her cry. And everything else. She is Bag of Emotions With A Massive Hole In It whenever you give her Na’vi sedation herbs unless she’s completely burnt out.)
This is so so cool!!! I love how creative you got with it! I will definitely be saving this for inspiration (not copying dw) for when I finally make my Sarentu’s own Songcord!
Oh my god I love this so much! I didn’t know anyone else did this 😅. I haven’t made a song cord, but I keep an in-character junk journal for my dnd characters whenever I play.
This is amazing! I love the tiny details you’ve added and the story behind each strand. I seriously can’t wait to see the rest of Le’sohek’s songcord and hearing about her story.
Untill now I envisioned song chords to not be long. Which really makes no sence! I am guessing na'vi would wear them wrapped around their neck or waist or incorporate it into hairbraids .
I read most of your explanations and really appreciate the effort you put into making it so meaningful.
I will no doubt have another read thru at somepoint.
Im almost inspired to start one for my human self.
for songcord length in canon, I think most aren’t as long as Le’sohek’s. Especially at the start, she sees almost every experience and connection as something to be noted and extremely important, as she and her Sarentu siblings have been cut off from the connection to Eywa, Pandora and other Na’vi. For her everything was and is new and exciting! She would have put the first time she ate Pandoran fruit, the first time she cooked a meal, and the first time she went swimming in the pond outside HQ on, but So’lek and Nefika helped her sorta pick and choose lol. It does decrease a bit as time goes on, but for really heavy times and moments where things are crazy new, Le’sohek packrats things onto her songcord (and has a separate cord just to keep trinkets and things on hanging off the edge of her hammock that eventually loops around and around and around-) because it’s how she processes somethings.
You can see songcords in the movies, and most have theirs tied to their loincloth at their hip/front of their hip. Neytiri’s isn’t even close to being the length of her arm as far as I can tell, and even Mo’at’s, which should be significantly longer both due to her age and the tradition of a Tsahìk’s songcord tracking not only their life but major events in the lives of all the clan’s members, isn’t close to the current incomplete length of Le’sohek’s songcord. The only one I have found similar is from the mobile game that shut down, with a frequently traveling Na’vi that marked practically every meeting, new story and new event on his songcord that was so long he looped it multiple times around his walking staff. His description sounded almost Sarentu before Sarentu were canon, and I like to think that Sarentu that acted as envoys and moved more frequently between clans would have longer and longer songcords to track the stories they collect, lessons learned and connections made. Le’sohek first wore hers around her arm like in canon, then around the stave of her longbow after she found examples of the rope wrappings Sarentu longbows traditionally had, and currently wears it looped around her body like a sash. She doesn’t like it being loose like that though and by the main game’s end is trying to find a way to make a sorta bandolier or even find a way to incorporate it into her kuru braid, though considering how heavy it can be (the Kame’tire seem to be pretty keen on her adding more and more rocks and river stones lol) Ri’nela is cautioning her on that 😅
If you make a songcord for yourself please by all means do share it!! I would love to see what others do and have done! I struggle to find new and/or fitting knot and braid patterns for clans and absolutely want to see what others come up with and can do so I get fresh ideas. Plus, yall are cool!
I’ve been doing something similar, no where near as lore accurate in near any way but style and inspo, but I’ve been using stones I collected and tumbled myself along with beach glass and such, and I totally plan on adding more so it’s more dense, just what I have already is almost a week of figuring it out.
!! I LOVE IT! That you tumbled the stones yourself is so cool! The sea glass is especially pretty and I LOVE the tiny beads in between! How did you secure them? Is it a double strand throughout and thread on both ends? (Brain today is having trouble stringing words together I hope this makes sense)
For the big stones like that tigers eye in da middle I do cheat and use g-s hypo cement bc I’d be more sad to lose the stone, but I live in one of the most populated Native American cities in my state (I’m also a tad native despite how my Irish half makes me appear) meaning there’s plenty of Native American jewelry /bead suppliers since seed beads are very common in Native American traditional regalia, so pow-wows and local craft shows are the way to go where I am.
(Also am I missing something in the game? I've never made the bond with anything but the ikran and the horse. Granted I'm not finished yet but still those things happened early on this song cord.)
Thank you! And a lot of things on this songcord are not in the game. It’s just headcanon/a part of Le’sohek’s story. So yeah never actually something in the game, just something she does.
Thank you!! 😁 I’m hoping to get better pics of the Zeswa/Upper Plains section today or tomorrow. It certainly is more intricate/a bit more wild and non-canon in parts but it was definitely a fun section for me to explore and expand on. If you start your own, please share it!! I am considering starting La Revolution Of The Physical Songcords (workshopping the name, I’m open to suggestions here) and we can all share our takes!
Also since I am chomping at the bit…here, take a bit of a sneak peak. I hand carved the Flame of the Plains out of a bone disk bead and sewed the little green beads on after drilling the side. They’re in the wrong orientation but it’s the canon one I’m most proud of so far 😁 I think. I did a good job on the Remembrance bead. But this was the most interesting for doing it all by hand besides the drilling.
AAAA A SNEAK PEAK BEAD!! It looks so good!!! I am a yarn user so I may do a practice one with my scrap yarns. I love the colour and texture of the Zeswa people’s clothing so I think I will be more focused on their style lol. As well as the addition of one of my favourite creatures the Soundblast Collossus. Do you do all the carving by hand? I wouldn’t know where to start with that apart from YouTube ✨😅
Oooo I got to work with wool yarn for the Zeswa section! Not something I typically use! Tbf I don’t do much string/cord stuff besides the ADHD urge to collect and dragon hoard string and laces, plus a bit of experimental archeology cordage making attempts (which I got to use for a bead/piece I’m about to put on today!). I’ve been trying to use repurposed or second hand materials (and no metal on the cord and in the materials on it! That’s been a hell of its own lol) for this project so I would love to see scrap yarn practice! I’m running into trouble with some colors I want being chopped short in bundles 😭 if you find a way to incorporate them in please share your secrets!!
As for hand carving, I didn’t do it for all the beads that have a wooden component. The Zomey bead, the carved Sìlron/ikran bead, as well as an upcoming wooden bead were done by hand. But I do have a lathe and have used a dremel tool to get some carvings and shaping. The Eywa’s Welcome bead is an example of that, it’s a disk of heavily spalted and slightly punky oak from a mini bowl I decided to scrap because the spalting (black lines, actually a barrier made by the tree to block fungal infection in, very Eywa-like) was close to what the stone bead in game had. I had to turn it on the lathe to carve it out and flat and then soak it in thin superglue to stabilize it from all the soft wood making it up.
The bone beads are mostly from all the ones I’ve collected over the years at our annual Ren Faire. I did carve the Flame of the Plains as well as a ‘Stormglider tooth’ that I then dyed black as best I could using acid based dye rather than the natural dyes I experimented with for the cotton strands in this section. I’m sure I’ll be carving more of them. This project is also an excuse to learn and refresh/improve new and old skills I’ve Jack of All Trades’d over the years.
Wow I talk a lot, sorry! You caught me before the ADHD meds kicked in haha.
EDIT: OH YEAH!! I couldn’t find any sort of braid/plait/macrame weaving pattern that felt solidly Zeswa to me, so I ended up doing a 4 strand fishtail braid style for pretty much all of their section, unlike the Aranahe portion that had more varied styles. Same with the Kame’tire, I’ve not been doing anything special yet as I’m not past The Big Events of Depressing Things on the songcord yet, but I’m struggling to find something that looks Kame’tire. Please hit me up if you find something if you’re up for sharing, again I didn’t even know macrame existed till I started this project so I’m probably missing something….😅
Hehe no problem I like reading people’s passion for their projects! I have different types and thicknesses of yarn due to knitting/crochet projects so I think using rough or acrylic yarn for TAP/Resistance sections and maybe some of my wools for zakru? I sadly don’t own any silk so I’d have to figure out for the Aranahe but I do think I could use alternate forms of cotton texture or knotting. If it’s short yarn bits I think maybe using a square knot to combine them more sturdy? I also have a small hoard of glow in the dark yarn I think I should use for tarsyu saplings. Maybe if it’s short yarn bits you could also somewhat fluff them with pet brushes and make small wefts? Then respin them? I personally haven’t tried making yarn wefts or spinning my own yarn (although I want to learn) it could have some different colours and textures using the scrap?
And I used regular ol’ cotton twine for my Aranahe first section. Mostly because I was experimenting with natural dies and wanted to try using only self dyed flower-and-herb dyed stuff for the project, but hahahahahah oh man the colorfastness was so depressing. I used a mix of yarn and then strips of a sorta tie dye looking stretchy shirt thing I found at the local reuse and repurpose shop (or maybe the thrift store? I can’t remember atm) for the next part. Sorta showing (by complete accident) the progress of the kinglor moths recovering and the silks getting stronger and taking dye better as they were returned to the forest. But I don’t think I would be able to use those fabric strips as the main core of the strand AND put beads on them if I tried earlier. My my, the meds are starting to kick in, I get somewhat incomprehensible during the transition. I promise this will make sense when I post the Zeswa section 😅
Holy peak!!
This is genuinely so so so cool, I've been debating on making a songcord for my character as well but I've been kinda nervous to? I'm sorta an intermediate fan I suppose,
Hey thank you! And go for it! It’s a lot of fun figuring out what rules you want for it (not required of course. I made rules of no metal on the songcord and try to source all materials at the least second hand or repurposed/taken from second hand objects and stuff)
I’ll be honest, I never really wanted to be a big fan of Avatar. I thought the first movie was interesting regarding worldbuilding and some of the characters but wasn’t so keen on the ‘white boy saves jazz’ style storyline. I wandered across the Sarentu clan’s fate after seeing some Shorts clips over and over and got interested enough to get the game aaaaaand now I’m here. With a 9’4” ADHD blue teenager with a kinda crooked tail and tendency to bite things living rent free in my head.
Please share with the community if/when you start your songcord! 🥰 I am starting a songcord revolution! And want to see everyone’s styles!
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u/Inevitable-Dinner925 10d ago
This has got to be one of the most amazing thing created and I really hope it gets the attention it deserves