Fiction Work – Aside Quest

The Favicon for my website was rather easy for me to construct. I didn’t really put much thought into it rather than just having my initials be the color. For now that is enough for me, since the majority of my time is going to be spent on my header. Speaking of my header, let’s get into it.

This is my header, or at least the extremely rough reference idea I have for it. When I say it is rough it is rough; it’s inspired by the 5th layer of a series I just recently discovered, Made in Abyss, which this layer is just before the 6th layer of the Abyss, a sort of turn back point before you go into the true horrors. I decided that I’d draw out one of the areas from my own personal story, Hellburn. It’s one of the layers of hell where my two protagonists, Oz and Angelo, find themselves on their journey. The blue part in the middle is the many souls they gaze on going up/down into another layer. The red is the lava that’ll also flow up/down, though that may change later depending on how I feel.

I originally drew out my reference on paper and then when I made all the changes I wanted to on paper, used Adobe Fresco to then draw it out. I’ve never been much of an artist before, especially not a digital one, so figuring out how to set even a reference layer was difficult, but I had fun with it. I’m doing this all from my phone as well rather than an Ipad with an apple pen or something along those lines; so that may change things though I’m certain it probably won’t. I feel like what I’ve learned is to not use color on your reference layer, because I had outlines to discern where the lava would flow from and by indicating what the lava was in red I basically got completely rid of those guiding lines. Another thing would be to definitely indicate with writing where you want things to be/the flow of the piece in general because I am certain I am going to forget if I’m not working on this constantly. Overall though I am excited to work on this piece, even though I can tell it’s going to be a challenge to get it to a place I like, I’m very excited.

Nereus was not my first ever character, but she was one of my absolute favorites. A Paladin Triton (who I flavored to be an Axolotl) born in a falling kingdom deep under the sea who was one of many knights chosen by the moon. She was too honorable, too kind, too set in her ways in becoming the one thing she thought she could never become: a hero. She was reckless and a little bit of a himbo, but she had a good heart and often knew that the best decisions were the hardest to make. Her fate by the end of the campaign was that she became much like Guts from Berserk, getting the armor and missing an arm. But I’ll never forget her: how she lost her arm and so she made her enemy lose their head. How she single-handedly caused a god to feel fear. How she burst through the teeth of a dragon just to save her friend. She truly was, despite all her flaws and errors, a hero.