Software tools -

• obsidian for keeping track and record keeping and noting ideas.
• Obsidian Canvas, Miro - for mood boarding, currently using canvas but I am looking for an alternative that’s FOSS and very light weight.
• paint to make diagrams and concept ideas.
• Typora - good distraction free free writing tool.
• Keep - quick idea noting, but slowly shifting over to obsidian mobile. Unfortunately it isn’t as intuitive on mobile, need to configure it.

I am only making use of these so far, but I am also currently on the lookout for a map creator tool. The mainstream ones are either to anemic or paid.

Idea Generation Tools -

• Immersion techniques, subscribing to the communities I want to use for inspiration to learn more in depth about them, watching videos, shows, reading articles
• I have an Idea bucket from where I pick and mix in with other ideas to come up with something.
• Deviant art, Reddit, other socials for interesting art to take inspiration from.
• recently I’ve also been creating playlists on all the social media platforms.

Obsidian MD for notes Wonderdraft for global maps Dungeondraft for local maps

For visualization (I hesitate to call it art) I use FOSS programs like InkScape, Blender, and Krita. I was using Obsidian extensively for notetaking and conlanging, but especially with Conlangs where I use one note per lexeme, it can get bogged down when you have hundreds of notes stored remotely.

I’m currently exploring TiddlyWiki as it’s much more shareable online. I have several on my neocities page. I also have a (private/self hosted) mediawiki server running, mostly as a personal ego boost so I can say I have a “real” wiki.

Obsidian is a good program for organizing stuff, but i prefer HTML. Most of the visual stuff for my world has been maps, for which i use paper, Blender, Krita, and a giant empty plastic Christmas bauble that i can draw on with dry erase markers like a globe. I use Polyglot to organize my conlangs.