Alaskol Entente (commission)

Many months ago I was commissioned (again) to make a series of Discord server icons. This is the same client who previously commissioned such gems as Enraptured Athoracophoridae and Erudite Australopithecus, so I knew I was going to be in for something interesting. Just like last time, I was given a list of phrases whose words started with E and A, then asked to illustrate them. I was given minimal direction other than the occasional explanation when I asked what some of the words meant.

This one is made entirely of inside jokes, but luckily it was explained to me and I will now pass this arcane knowledge down to you.

Alaskol is the name of a hypothetical moon settlement created by a few members of the Discord server in their childhoods for a moon settlement design contest. This multi-day contest culminated in the creation of a PowerPoint presentation, the creation of which I was told involved many sleepless nights huddled around Google Slides and a considerable amount of bickering, politics, and voter fraud.

I was given a copy of these slides, which included a diagram of a moon park made in Google Drawings featuring a diamond-shaped crossroads next to a lake, some benches, and a few trees. This diagram was labelled “RFP 7,” which I can only assume stands for “Request For Park 7”, like the Internet Engineering Task Force’s Requests for Comment (RFCs).

Entente is a reference to an old NationStates region from around the same time period. In NationStates, players make virtual nations, and can join regions with other nations to chat and roleplay being countries. The Entente had the flag illustrated here.

Anyway, I’m quite happy with how well the landscape turned out in this one. There were some stick figures in the original diagram, and I thought I’d give them some life here. I think the guy waving to you adds quite a bit of charm.