Des is correct in saying there's not enough to really comment on, but I do have a few thoughts...
First, on naked women. I'm a big fan of naked women, in general, but cartoon naked fantasy women (and clothed men) is a bit of an eyeball-rolling "oh, teenage wish-fulfillment" trope, isn't it? But actually, I think that if you want naked women, there's a more serious point to make: how are you displaying them? Because the eyeballrolling trope more specifically has a certain sort of depiction of nudity: naked women are sexualised (but not threateningly so), implausible (your girl has full breasts, huge hips, and a tiny waist that's thinner than her head!)*, and are in some sort of "look how sexy I am, big boy!" displayed-for-our-pleasure pose. In this case, wiggling-butt-while-sashaying-with-head-held-high, and arms-behind-head-to-show-off-breasts-better. [seriously, other than in a sexualised context or caught right in the middle of yawning, how often do you see women standing facing you, elbows pulled up to their ears, with a grin on their face?] If you depicted naked women
in other ways, that were less like a stereotypical pinup, that would be easier to take seriously.
[I think anything can be good art. So there's certainly room for a "1950s sexy pinup world", and not necessarily just in a context that's explicitly erotica. It's just... it's much harder to do that without looking silly and derivative.]
To give an example of what I mean, I happen recently to have had a certain nude statue called to my attention - the Diana the Huntress, by Houdon. Let's compare some naked women statues. [not safe for work, theoretically, although it's all just stone and metal statues, and Art].
Here we have a 'Diana' who is, as it were, saying
"oui, I am a zexxy huntress! look how zexxy I em!". Nudity for the sexualised gaze.
Here we have a modern 'Diana' who is, as it were, saying
"sure, I can stand here while you stare at my tits. (I'm just going to think about how much you're paying me for this)". Nudity for the sexualised gaze (and for terrible taste).
And here's one of the most famous statues, the Sexy-Arsed Venus (or 'Aphrodite Kallipygos'): it says,
"wow, I've got a great arse. Look at how great my arse is! My arse is so great, I can't actually get through the day without stopping sometimes to take my dress off so I can look at my own sexy arse." (the discolouration is apparently the result of centuries of admirers kissing it). This is quite blatently nudity for the sexualised gaze, although of course since this is the Goddess of Love and Prostitutes we're talking about, that's kind of appropriate.
And then we have Houdon's "Diana". It is also a statue of a naked woman, but IT says [
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... Houdon.jpg]"oh, a puny mortal, how irritating. Keep out of my way as I go past, or I'll shoot you."[/url] Note how her body is that of a fit, strong woman - someone who spends her immortal days chasing and killing things - her pose is in motion (caught in the moment, rather than being statically posed to receive the gaze), and her demeanour is haughty. She still
has a very pretty bottom (that's a slightly different version by the same sculptor), but it's walking away from you, and she
doesn't care whether you think it's sexy or not. Now of course, Houdon was a man, and he made these statues for men to look at, and he still made her look like a sexy naked woman, and some people would take issue with that. But he's made a naked woman statue that's both more realistic (those other Dianas have clearly never chased down a deer barefoot!) and more respectful (it's what a divine huntress probably would look like, rather than being a fantasy call girl adopting the pose of Diana as part of some sexy role play, which is what the others look like).
Obviously, I'm not saying "be Houdon". I'm just trying to say that if you want to have naked or semi-naked women pictures, but also don't want to look like this is just a stereotypical teenage fantasy excuse, you make it look a lot more 'respectable' just by changing
how you portray women. Because actually, some women with clothes on, but in highly sexualised 'presentational' poses and with highly fantasised body shapes, can actually look more like cheap masturbation material than some naked women who actually look like they have independent reason for being.
It's not something I'd bother mentioning normally, but since the subject has been raised, I thought I'd contribute.
...well, that's the longest comment about female nudity in art that I've made in a while!
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A contradiction: the world developed as normal at first but "trilobites" discovered how to bind magic forces into pillars. Now, my problem here, as you may be able to guess, is that trilobites are giant woodlice, on average between 3cm and 10cm in length. Even the largest trilobite, a full 70cm long, was less than 10cm high. They had extremely primitive and tiny brains, no hands, and so forth. Clearly the "trilobites" in question aren't really trilobites, so the world hadn't developed normally up to that point...
"flame" isn't a direction.
There's nothing specifically wrong with the "five magical elements (the fifth is in the middle and is spirit" thing, except that it's been done a billion times before. Why not six? Why not three? Why not seven?
I know this is petty, but the first three times in this thread we get the name of this conworld, you spell it differently: "verlyria", "verlyra", "velyra". [and it's also rather close to "valyria"...]