#mintycolors

We are pleased to unveil the sketch for the final writer spotlight in the Kingdom Hearts Rogue Nebula event! The artist, MintyColors, can be found here here. We now offer the writer’s — Besin’s — take on the art.

What is your favorite part about this piece?

I have to choose? That’s a little cruel. I love the setup. I love the color in the final draft. I love the lights overhead and their clothes. I love Aqua’s hair. But if I had to choose my favorite part about this, it’s how absolutely confident Aqua looks, which is extremely important to the perception of her character and her entire narrative within the story. It’s so important that she’s seen and perceived this way because of what goes on in her head in this scene… but I can’t give too much away.

Is this a scene from your story? If so, what makes it so memorable? This is actually the opening scene, and it came out flawlessly. Aqua’s jacket, her hair, her pins — you’ll see more in the final version, of course. The scene itself is memorable because it sets up Aqua’s mentality to the audience. There’s a lot going on, and there’s a lot about to go on. She’s tired, she’s exhausted, and she’s at the end of her rope — but you wouldn’t know that by looking at her.

Would you consider this a cover piece, and interstitial piece, or a back cover piece? Where would this piece be placed in the text for peak effectiveness? If this were a book, I would put it on the cover, then display copies of the book Literally Everywhere for Peak Display. Max Visibility. (Maybe a poster.) But enough about how much I love this piece — for the posting of the story itself this art will be placed after the prologue, at the very beginning of Chapter One, just as Aqua is taking a breath and leaning into the microphone.

We are pleased to unveil a preview for the final artist we’ve decided to spotlight in the Kingdom Hearts Rogue Nebula event! We are extremely lucky to have MintyColors working with us. She provided art for Besin’s Stress Pelican, an upcoming fic in the event. You can find Minty’s previous work here, but for now we’ve got this special Q&A with the artist herself!

What is your favorite part about this piece? I'm really happy with how the colors came out and the painterly look of some of the coloring. I'm always trying to push colors to look interesting!

What was your favorite part to draw on this piece? I liked drawing Aqua's hair a lot -- I always have fun with drawing hair and pushing the shading on it.

Were there any particular challenges you faced with this project? There's two that come to mind -- first is working with making things out of focus, because I've always meant to try using that more but never got around to it, so it was a bit of a learning experience to get settings correct so it'd look right. And another is learning how people hold instruments and some other things specific to performers. Luckily I had someone with insight to help me fix things up and make it a little more accurate, and I learned a lot from doing it!

How did you go about choosing the colors for this piece? Since it's a rock scene, I needed to push the lighting, so having moments of harsh lighting was important. And I wanted the colors themselves to feel sort of harsh, to set the tone for the environment and the way Aqua was acting. After that it was some experimenting with pushing the reds and blues to get it the way I wanted it.