#naldthal

So, I just want to start this off saying that in-universe this piece is intended as an admittance to blasphemy - Fuck the Gods, they're stupid, I made my own - and I just want you to know that that's what Paper Menphina is about to me.

Anyways, after struggling two years-ish to even just finish 3 out of 12, something possessed me to power through all of them in two weeks, including Actual Dalamud, Thalaos and Perykos, Nophica's Racist Kids, the Monkey and the Horse. That's the Power of a Deadline for you. I hope you're proud of me because I was in fact not even struggling that hard, I just fail to execute without pressure. Isn't that fun.

To get myself some head start I initially planned to do something to do with Paper Menphina meets Trails of the Heaven for the Art Contest before it was even officially announced, at first I was thinking about doing an actual Paper Diorama but with at most the Euphrosyne Gods to save myself some work - but then I realized No.

So I did this instead. It did help that the Twelve are our longest Companions so they fit the theme perfectly... but just in case nobody got that I also drew companions from each Alliance Raid just to be sure. I guess I also knew most people wouldn't draw companions as niche as Unei and Doga and I wanted to honor our other B-Side Alliance Raid NPCs at least a little bit this way.

Llymi was by far the hardest one to get right, not even her serpents but just her, I needed almost 4 attempts when I got the others down in ~2 at most - but I think it shows, she's by far my favorite

I included sketches of Halmi and Calyx because they walked all this Trail to my Heaven I already had those ready and at the end of the day I am in fact lazy efficient.

I thought about including G'raha and Krile in particular, but tbh it felt weird giving them 'screenspace' when I already struggled to cram Unei and Doga in there. With that in mind I do question my choices to give sketches of the Twelve that much real estate (looking at the almost 1-to-1 thaliak in the lower left there)

The Sketch Menphina in the upper right corner is the actual first Paper Menphina I've ever drawn just copy-pasted right in there. I hope you'll understand why I didn't include Chain Chomp Dalamud, yes all of this is supposed to be a Paper Mario reference, don't tell SE

I also hope you appreciate that the Sketch of Nophica behind Llymi's trident is glaring at the Sketch of Halone who couldn't care less about it (it doesn't actually look like she's looking in that direction, but she sure does in my heart)

I think I could have done better on the spacing/proportions of everything... I think it looks really good on here when you see it up close, but on the line up next to all the other submission, it feels a little lost :/ I could have made all of them a little bigger, which would also have helped with some of the gaps in-between them. Some of them (Oschon) also lean a little too much for my liking which is :///

I also should have gone a little bit harder on the elemental deco, especially the Earth stuff on the lower right. I was just too scared that it might hide my Implication of 2P... also, that's supposed to be the Red Girl Smile but as Emil, i thought that was funny

Actual Anogg and Konogg, btw :))) #AnoggForGhostsOfDesire #GetInTheEvaKonogg. It did hurt me physically that I didn't have the time to draw a bigger/better EVA. I did watch all of eva last week-ish btw, thoughts/evercold speculation are maybe coming soon.

Also, I nailed Ramza in a way I didn't with Alma...

Also, I drew Leofard. Guys, I drew Leofard. Look, It's Leofard. Anyways, back to forgetting that Heavensward exists.

I do remember stopping to gauge "where my eye is drawn to" like they tell you to do and stuff - but well, right now it's drawn to that "4 feet apart, they're not gay"-Gap between Oschon and Byregot and it really stands out to me now. Why didn't I give him his Hammer, I have it in my sketch, I ended up removing it to give the monkey more space, but I should have still drawn it anyways in that little gap right there. He's the only one who doesn't have something extra too ://// Really left my man hanging...

I can't unsee that Rhalgr looks like he's taking a very feminine nude candid holding his naked breast, but I still think that's too funny to fix.

I had a couple of ideas for the middle, I was considering a researcher group hang in Omphalos, but really didn't see myself drawing 3 to 5 people if I include the Roe with the nice hair (her real name btw) and Deryk. For the longest time I actually wanted to do Oschon's Stone with Wanderer's Palace in the background, but I misremembered the stone as standing right in the middle of that outcrop and not weirdly to the side as it does. Taking a look around all the other stones (I actually did end up taking most of that Pilgrimage in-game for this), I ended up doing Azeyma's instead even if my WoL has no actual affiliation to her besides the azem of it all ofc.

btw I did the entirety of that middle drawing with my WoL on the final submission date := With that in mind I'm actually pretty darn pleased with it outside of...

...the background, which I'm a little embarrassed by :/// I think it looks good enough, but I did use that Line Extraction Thing from Clip Studio and just laid it on top of the reference screenshot I took with some other effects and stuff and then drew some extra highlighting lines on top of it. I think it's perfectly fine to use those tools, this is in no means intended to shade to anyone who does, but I just feel like I could have done it better with a little bit more time (management) and/or confidence in backgrounds :/ also the coloring is supposed to make it look heavenly, but I worry it just makes it hard to get what you're looking at if the crystals aren't bright orange

Speaking of orange color, I will just never find that sweet spot where bronze-ish anime skin doesn't look full on orange on characters with light hair colors. I do actually look out for that, I have that exact same problem with my Azem, but then two weeks later I look at it again and am always a little mortified that I left it like this. Sorry to all the Blonde, Tan Greeks out there, I always let you down.

also to incriminate myself even more, i could have colored in leofard's skin a little more in that sketch, huh... i guess take that i colored in both prishe and alxaal (who is white) instead??? what was i on, that's actually pretty embarassing :/

I gave Ata a red pencil when I didn't draw the sketches in red