BABF: Wheel of Fortune process
No one (literally) asked, but I'm going to go over my process for my ongoing One Piece fanfic! I wanted this for my own records - and, hey, maybe someone will find it interesting.
Link to the fic (Shanks/Buggy, timeskip canon divergence): blood and bitter fruit on AO3 (if you like what you've read, please consider bookmarking - the next update will be within the week! This work has been updated for continuity as of March 20)
And here is the final art piece that goes with the preamble:
And here was my process under the cut! No AI generated content was used at any point of this, for both drawing and writing. All mistakes, errors, and follies brought to you by my own two human hands. ;o)
First, the writing of this preamble:
Setting this up was difficult. I actually posted this back in July '24, when the story looked very different to say the least! All of that was scrapped to start over, now with a plot I can definitely say I feel more equipped to both write and finish. It was also my ideas collaborator approved (thank you @toastcryptid as always), although we both mourn some details from the first unpublished go around this fic.
In any case, I made so many edits trying to get Shanks right. You're not supposed to hate him, I promise! Stuff is going on!! Another important mention is that this is a POV alternating fic; thus, Buggy is a famously unreliable narrator. That will definitely come into play. Remember, this is a shuggy endgame fic, so... keep that in mind.
Otherwise, so many versions of this existed. I actually ultimately took part of an earlier draft of ch. 1 for the preamble, and I think it worked out. I like the ending the most; I love making Buggy #upset and #distressed. Importantly; I realized the first sentence: "In his previous life, Buggy knew of the unspoken arrangements between Warlords and the World Government." had Galdino instead of Buggy. Whoops. Oversight went unnoticed until I went to spruce this up in March 2026.
I also did re-edit the synopsis in March of 2026 to fit the newer version of the fic, and - more importantly - indicate who the main antagonists will be (hint, they rhyme with "Flodomingo" and "Hamsock").
Anyways, thank you so much to the dedicated commenters who left me amazing words of support on this work (despite an extensive hiatus), and on uncharted waters (I am blown away by the response the fic I wrote in the throes of 2020-induced depression has gotten; as always, thank you, thank you, thank you). You're the reason I decided to return to writing! <3 It also helps that I am months from defending my PhD, so I have been much more intentional about organizing my time and prioritizing my mental health (which I admittedly did very, very little of during my entire doctoral program).
And now, for the art:
This was my second attempt at a ~completed piece~ of digital art! Tysm @toastcryptid for all of the support and parallel play while I completed the sketch and coloring!
Sketch, v1:
I actually didn't sketch out any composition, I just went in and placed references where I wanted the final figures. I've been told this is exceedingly chaotic, LOL. The text and frame are traced from the original Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, and I based some of the animals and overall composition on the original card.
Reference animals used, clockwise from the left with character labels, are: Sengoku - Japanese macaque; Shanks - red fox (American); Mihawk - Red-tailed hawk (blended with a brown eagle legs to fit the style); Shamrock - red fox (British); Richie - lion; Garp - bison; Doflamingo - American flamingo. A lot of the specific type of animal really came down to what references were: 1. free for use (even though I am not selling anything... lol), and 2. high quality. Shoutout to National Geographic.
For my own notes: the foxes were essentially freehand with very little use of the reference other than to check anatomy... I guess I never forgot how to draw sparkledogs and foxes from my scenekid days! The easiest figure, surprisingly, was Sengoku as a macaque. Since I struggle so much with drawing people, I assumed he would be too difficult and I would have to default to my plan B (a white tiger). Thankfully, I was wrong! Most difficult, also surprisingly, was Richie. You'll see quite a few changes with him over the next versions of this... xD
V2, It's Completely Different (but Also Still Brat)
I modified several characters while finalizing the sketch. Doflamingo's leg made its debut (I really struggled with that damn foot), and I actually looked at references of Richie and realized he has a larger mane and (most of the time) protruding teeth. Again: whoops (how dare I call myself a Buggy Pirates fan...). Thus, the great editing of Richie began. This was actually my "final" decision after the fourth or fifth attempt at drawing his teeth. I really struggled! Next, I also made Shamrock fluffier to distinguish him from Shanks - I believe he only gets fluffier over time. Mihawk's tail and feet were adjusted, and I gave him Shanks' vivre card to hold onto. (in earlier sketches he was holding Yoru, however, I completely bonked those up... and didn't save the evidence. Needless to say, it was bad both visually and anatomically.) I also figured out how to rasterize layers, so I could actually not have the big ol' wheel I haven't drawn blocking the view.
V3, okay now it really is almost the same:
Tried my hand at some lineart with the final decisions! I freehanded Doflamingo's foot, which I am absurdly and disproportionately proud of (just don't check it against actual flamingo anatomy, pretty please). I struggled in deciding whether to vary the thickness of the lines for each character before deciding that it looked bizarre if I didn't. I still decided to go back and polish it more, but that this would do for now for an upload to ao3 as a placeholder. Otherwise, Richie's face was redone... again! I think this design is less visually obtrusive, though I do think his underbite in the previous version was more charming. I changed Shamrock's coat to be slightly more flowy to match his hair in the manga, and slightly tweaked Shanks' position to help with the visual clutter on the left side of the image. I decided also to break anatomy rules for feet (notably Garp's and Richie's, in addition to Doflamingo's), legs (Sengoku and, once again, Doflamingo), and other appendages (Mihawk's tail) in order to make a more visually appealing picture (at least for myself, if for no one else LOL).
Onto finishing the line art and coloring!
Flat colors! I had never done flat colors, so that was another learning curve. I also tried to mimic Doffy's strings to... limited success. I color matched most of the colors to screenshots from the One Piece anime (which I, admittedly, do not watch - I'm solely a manga reader... entirely out of laziness! ^^; ). I did, however, modify them to fit the overall composition. Mihawk kept his slight red-tailed hawk-ness with his coat color on the tail, and Garp is colored from his hair. Sengoku I found difficult - he was not standing out enough, so I decided to go with white (black was too difficult, gray did't stand out, etc...)
And the final piece! I've never shaded anything digitally (or really shaded anything seriously at all) so we're gonna say "don't worry about it ... they're in a nebulous unreal space anyways <3" with the lighting choices...
Anyways! Hope that was interesting to someone out there!
