the stalest fries on earth

This is the first time I tried out this line and lighting style. Usually I'm pretty loose with my line-art, which ends up with everything looking unfinished (see my loomian legacy art). I wanted this one to look at least a little complete, and I think it turned out not too bad.

Her right foot took a lot of time for me to get right. I struggle with drawing those articulated, so I like how it turned out. I think I was looking at LoZ link fan art to get ideas for how to draw that.

took me forever but i did it! yay

i loved how chaotic & hard-to-read Lost Lace's boss fight was. Pretty difficult, but more fun than torturous (looking at you, groal).

BACKGROUND INFO:

Episodes 1-4 showcase how witches cast spells, and the fact that Coco wants to be a witch. We know how spells are cast and that witches help people, but we/Coco (since we're learning alongside her) don't know how that "help" looks like, other than Quifrey doing redrawing a damaged seal (the pegasus carriage). We also don't know exactly how powerful a witch can be.

Episode 1, we've seen Quifrey use sylph shoes and that was awesome and shows a witch using magic. But come episode 2 and everyone else (barring Coco, of course) also uses sylph shoes just as skillfully. So the questions now are: what's the difference between Quifrey's skill level and the girls', other than how well they can cast? and what exactly does that difference look like? Up until this point, we haven't seen the other apprentices cast much magic, only Quifrey & Coco (I think).

#1: The skill-gap between apprentice & master

It takes the girls roughly 4/5ths (I'm eye-balling it) of the episode to pull themselves together, come up with a plan/spell to disable the dragon and execute it. This takes them roughly a night, going by sun-down to sun-rise change of scenery (side-point: time is kind of weird, the girls in the pocket dimension go from sun-up to sun-down to sun-up again but dont complain about hunger, while Quifrey & Tartah only experience sun-up to sun-down). And despite doubts their spell works! The dragon is happy.

In contrast, it takes Quifrey like half a second to do most/all of that at a much more effective degree (granted his spell must've been premade, but he still planned and drew it himself sometime offscreen. He went through choosing a spell for a specific effect like the girls). He doesn't just banking on the possibility that maybe it'll like the sand bed, he outright murks that sucker with an even BIGGER dragon made out of water and floods the lower levels of the "Dr. Seuss pocket dimension." It was a more sure spell, than the girls', that poor dragon isn't getting up any time soon.

The music supports this interpretation (I don't know music but I know how it makes me feel). The hype-music during the girls' moment is very fantasy (in a good way), wind instruments, strings, percussion and such. The vibe is very "hype moment" and gives me a vibe of "magic is wonderful" and showcasing the abilities and potential of the girls.

In contrast to the music during Quifrey's hype moment, which is full of tense strings (+ harpsichord, I love that thing) big booming brass, and other things I can't identify. This music coupled with the sheer scale of Quifrey's spell really showcases just how much of a power difference there is between apprentice and master, and also showcases just how much Coco has to learn if she wants to save her mom.

#2: The 3 philosophies of magic

Yes I believe this is showcased in this episode. Yes I know it might be a bit of a stretch but please hear me out.

1. Philosophy of Coco/apprentices: "magic helps everyone"

Coco is the one who forms the guiding idea of their joint "serpents bed of sand" spell. She and Tetia have made it clear that they want to disable the dragon by making it happy and giving it a nice warm bed. This is magic that helps, both the girls who need to get past the dragon, and the dragon who has no comfy bed.

2. Philosophy of the pointed caps: "magic helps some, and hurts others"

This is what Quifrey showcases with his magic, which is the magic he learned through the Pointed Caps system/curriculum. It's honed, practiced and VERY powerful, and has two purposes: The first is to ensure the safety of his apprentices (helping). The second is to absolutely wipe out that sucker (hurting). Althought you could argue that "the dragon's just a dragon, it's feelings don't really matter in the way that four human lives does," I argue that it does matter in this case. Remember that the main thing guiding the girls' sand spell is humanizing and helping the dragon ("it doesn't have a comfy place to sleep" and "it mustve hurt, bashing into that pillar"). In contrast, Quifrey's (I'm assuming) fully legal water bomb spell doesn't care about the dragon at all, only the girls' safety. This might be a stretch, but I can see this eventually being centered into a conflict with people being othered, rather than another species entirely.

3. Philosophy of the brimmed caps: "we hate those pointed caps"

We don't see much of this, but it's really cool that right after Quifrey's absolute aura-farm hype moment, that brimmed cap is like "I know magic much cooler than that bum Quifrey."

Right now Coco's philosophy (#1) is more inline with the pointed caps' philosophy (#2), since I don't think she's learned about the "hurt others" aspect just yet (I mean, I assume she was unconscious). We also don't know much about what exactly that weirdo wants from Coco, other than to teach her magic.

#3 Extra cool tid-bits.

Baby Tetia! She's so cute!

The art in this anime is SO GOOD!! And more themes about witches and their tendency towards secrecy. Coco talks about how her cloak is good at hiding secrets (like magic) from others. In this case, "the secret" is her fear. And this shot is just so pretty!!!

It's funny how just how much Agott struggles with letting Coco be "one of the gang." Like Coco apologizes for her mistakes and works hard to catch up with the others, and Agott is trying hard to keep with the "she's an ignorant outsider" shtick but failing, since Coco keeps showing her all her hard work to make things right.

It's interesting how in this shot, there's a clear shadow between Agott and Coco (the shadow), showcasing the difference between witch and outsider that Agott would like to believe in, at this point. However, that difference is only superficial. They're both wearing witch uniforms, and a line cast by shadow doesn't actually do anything to stop someone's movement. Coco is definitely a bonafide witch, but at this point Agott is so stubborn and still doesn't want to acknowledge her as such, ahah.

At the end of the episode, Coco is in her witches uniform, standing along the others and being acknowledged as 100% "one of them." I think Agott finally gave up on the outsider thing, at least for now.

The artstyle change when we change from Quifrey to Brimmed Cap!!! I am in love with this art, dude

Knights Moralis mentioned! I love how mysterious and vaguely threatening their vibe is, since it's been 5 episodes and we havent seen them at all.

Unlike Quifrey who is unvaguely threatening, ahah