Awhh Sitka beloved 🌲 big and beautiful!! Sometimes I wonder how Rhody would feel knowing Sitka, Juneau, Wrangell and Anchorage (the top 4 biggest cities by area) are all bigger than him 🤨 Sitka being four times bigger that Rhode Island. That also means she’s bigger than Delaware. But I’m sure they’d let it slide because Sitka so sweet and nice (ik this because she told me)

Little Hartford <3 Connie will spoil her with a little puppy!! And she takes really good care of puppy 😌 idk why I decided to design Harty tbh 🤔 it’s very interesting. I think the cute name is what got me honestly

Hartford is intrigued by tall woman… (Sitka is just this way because biggest city by area) (and Sitka spruce trees) I also imagine Hartford to actually be hard of hearing 🤔 this is because Hartford is where the first deaf school in America began! Among other reasons 😌 surprisingly lots of things related to that in Hartford research I did

Looks like the little one (not itty bitty young alaska) underestimated how tall Alaska’s Auntie is 🤔 I don’t actually have a design for the fella. I just use an old design I made cuz idk 🤷 but surely Ajak needs the rest! Couch/sofa sleeps are a different breed btw they hit very different. Anyways her heart is very busy worrying for Alaska and the little one a lot… I’m sure it can be very exhausting u_u also, I associate her with Wild iris flowers, or bristle-pointed iris, which are purple! At first it was just an association because when I go on my walks I see so many of them, but they also symbolize wisdom and respect… I think Ajak is very wise, I met her myself trust me y'all

(Ax K’eek’ means “my younger sibling” btw) Maybe I forgot to elaborate, but u see when I say the Christian missionary schools and such ruined huge parts of Alaska’s culture and people I mean both Russians and Americans, they both did that to Alaska, so they’ve gone thru it for so so long. I imagine they took Juneau, and from what I read once kids aged out of the missionary schools they’d send the native adolescents to boarding schools in Oregon and Oklahoma, and in my head Juneau at those times was probably physically rather young. So Sitka and Alaska could not find them easily, unfortunately 😔

perhaps their horrific experience may be why Juneau really is uncomfortable with venturing outside that isn’t BC or Yukon, (in Alaska terms the “outside” means anywhere out of Alaska) and also their ritualistic behaviors skyrocketed out of anxiety (from what I read anxiety and stressful events cause them to get worse) anyways 😼 I’ve had these thoughts for awhile, I wanted to get them out

SITKA 💪 this idea came from Sitka’s other name from during Russian occupation, “Novo Arkhangelsk” which is English is New Archangel, idk I think it’s an interesting concept 😼 I also did this for body structure practice! Cuz I literally met Sitka and she’s BUILT I know this (also dw I’m gonna get back to states instead of cities soon I’m just real busy this week I’m sure y’all know)

And here’s a flat version of this in case you can’t tell what’s going on

She’s a very tired lady.. her and Ketchikan are the oldest of alaska’s cities I think, and Sitka I like to imagine is the one that raised Juneau 🦫 she also dealt with more European and American contact than Ketchikan unfortunately 😔

I also like to imagine she sings to Juneau when they’re stressed. Because. Because!, I said so.

Also, I imagine Juneau tends to get very anxious or guilty feeling because of vicarious trauma, since I read Juneau history and Juneau had actually been very safe from a LOT of things, Russian colonizers didn’t settle there, the first non native settlers there (two French Canadians, one of which is who Juneau is named after) wanted to avoid conflict so they respected eachother, even Juneau’s natural disaster risk is incredibly low, a whopping 3%, because of how secure and tucked into the panhandle Juneau is. But just about anywhere else in the panhandle?? Crazy stuff went down over the centuries, yikes

I’m still experimenting on Sitka, I kinda do think of her to be somewhat masculine; but that may be my bias cuz my oldest sister is like that. I like this hair better cuz it’s more stylized, and I tried my best with the monolid eye— the bonus burl eye was cuz I was looking at the inside of burls and they are very pretty I think, plus the biggest burl in the world came from a Sitka tree! That’s pretty neat B)

I like to imagine with her hair down they’re like roots… and an idea perhaps is that when Alaska was forced to cut his long hair by the missionaries Sitka also cut her hair so that he’d not feel like total shit. Just a thought

Also this thing I spent too much time on for no reason imo… yknow the infamous “Tree of Life” in Washington is a Sitka Spruce?? That’s so baller, but maybe I’m just nerding around let me do what I want!! I do actually have a little comic idea for this tree that involves a native Alaskan story and Sitka… it’s very cool in my head u see. I hope my heart allows me to fulfill it without dying

Sitka… Alaska’s first capital, formerly known as Novo Arkhangelsk (or new archangel); also the biggest city in the U.S by area, four times the size of Rhode Island… I did try to implant tlingit physical features but I swear I’ll get better at it 😼 I also read the tlingit did trade before European contact as far south as Northern California, so I think that’s pretty cool; Also Alaska is home to 90% of the worlds sea otter population, I think that’s pretty cool as well (I imagine Sitka has hazel eyes) Sitka’s design is probably gonna change a few times idk yet but I’m content with this so far, I’d like to hear more ideas if y’all got some

I like to imagine that since Sitka has a tree named after them Sitka can stand perfectly still for hours on end. Also I read in Sitka it rains 2/3 days throughout the average year that’s why I drew that 🤷

some random other things, I imagine it’s terribly tough to tell what Sitka is thinking almost all the time, again cuz of Sitka spruce trees, although there’s a handful of things named after Sitka I like the idea of her being the equivalent of a plant/tree, and you don’t know what a plant is thinking even if they don’t; cuz it’s generally a thing in Alaskan culture to be able to talk without talking— not sign language, but simple gestures, I’ve read about it and it varies per Alaska region but not having to be vocal seems to be a common thing, and also cuz it’s a widespread belief in all alaska native cultures that everything and everyone has a spirit/soul so they are taught to treat everything with respect

I also like to think Sitka is like an older sibling to Alaska, not literally, just like

British Columbia… that jellyfish guy ☝️ yeah he’s indigenous but he was born pale. Think about it. Their province animal (?) is the spirit bear, or the Kermode Bear, and their flower the pacific dogwood. This isn’t fully rendered but I am rather happy about it :> hopefully it will get me back into the swing of coloring

Alaska’s son boy things. I refuse to think they are not somehow personifications as well, because that would suck when they get old. I also wish to draw Talkeetna again soon. She may be rather lonely but she has Mayor Denali

Also the uncolored version, cuz sure why not