#second sentinels

Uploading this finalized shot as a video instead of a GIF just because I've spent for freaking ever hand stippling every single point of Opal's biolights here and I need everybody to look at and appreciate that, and the GIFs don't really do it justice. Please consider watching it at full screen size I drew so many careful dots.

This shot was the first one I tried to do, and I've completely redone it once, and re-timed it a billion times. Next project I'm for sure doing a properly timed out animatic ahead of time. I just hadn't known how to add sound in CSP back when I started this project, so I hadn't been able to. I think that will help a lot.

Unfinished Watercolor

The girl whirled to face Opal. She was the palest human being Opal had ever seen. She looked like a watercolor painting somebody had forgotten to finish.

Today, I stop talking about JAGR for a minute to bring you a fanart of Jamie, from Secondhand Origin Stories, by @leebrontide. If you follow my main, you've seen me yap about how much I love this book in the tags many many times (and it will definitely happen again).

I've actually been wanting to do this for a loooong time (since I first read that fragment of the book, actually!), and have had the idea planned for well over a year. BUT! I didn't have watercolours at the time, so I had to wait xD

This was low-key terrifying because I haven't worked with watercolours since I was a literal kid and it's been years since I've worked with wet media in general, so I was literally holding my breath to not mess up at certain points. But it paid off!! I didn't mess up!! I'm honestly so happy with how this came out 🥰 (tbh there's an annoying, perfectionist little voice in the back of my mind, but I've made the deliberate decision to not listen to it)

It's the first two books of Second Sentinels, by @leebrontide, which I'm always rambling about in the tags because I love them so fucking much!!

I already owned the ebooks before this, but I love paper books and I want these on my shelves and with the amount of times I'm rereading them they're worth every penny. Also have you seen those beautifully detailed covers?!?!

(the shitty quality of the pictures is not the books' fault, that's the lack of decent lighting in this house doing entirely lmao)

Anyway, if you think you might like:

-Books that are easy to read (my focus is shit and english is not even my firsst language, yet I devoured these like I used to do when I was in hisghschool)

-Character driven stories/characters that feel like real people (I'm chewing on everyone's characterization)

-A lot of different flavours of queer characters (the entire main cast is queer!)

-A lot of different flavours of disabled characters (without it being a big deal but also without it being mentioned once and then never again!)

-Near future sci-fi in which people got superpowers through genetic modification

-Oops turns out genetic modification is often clunky and comes with its own set of challenges

-No but seriously what woud a world with superpowered people realistically look like

-(guys I'm not even into mainstream superhero stories, this one is just too good it has me in a chokehold)

-Convoluted family dynamics

-Realistic sibling dynamics

-Teenagers being teenagers! Being stupid and making mistakes but trying so hard and being lovely dorks <3

-Critique of a lot of the fucked up bullshit we have to deal with in the real world beautifully woven in the narrative in a way that feels natural and not distracting AND doesn't leave you feeling hopeless (quite the contrary actually!)

Then give these books a try, I'm begging you!! Right now, the ebooks are free on gumroad and itchio!

So, APPARENTLY you can make custom blends on Adagio and I realized the character cards I made before would fit on the tins and anyways I designed some custom teas based on my Secondhand Origin Stories series and they honestly all sound so delicious? And I’m going to order tins right now and drink all of this.

Today I finished putting all my editing notes for this round into the document.

Tomorrow I start actually changing the text. This book only has a couple tectonic edits at this stage, because this book likes me better than the previous two did. But there's a lot of really important fine tuning I'm gonna start in on to make the character arcs go harder.

Speaking of my books, you know the writing is going greeeeaaat when I not only have to bust out the nature documentary soundtracks and the big paper roll, but I don’t even dare to cut the paper roll because it just keeps going.

And this is for an end of second act scene.

💡: What's the earliest piece of worldbuilding you came up with that you are still using?

⚡️: How many gods do people in your primary setting's main religion worship?

Thank you for the asks!

💡: The earliest thing I can remember really was probably 20 years ago when I scoffed at a Marvel plot line in which the US government was trying to force mutants to put their names on a registry. I remember, way back in college, saying that all you had to do was restrict medical care access for mutants to specially licensed clinics, and then provide affordable care at those clinics, and the vast majority would put themselves on that registry. Prosecute doctors who provide care to mutants outside those specialty clinics. Bear in mind this was before the ACA so there was a HUGE problem with healthcare access at this time. Which is how I lost a bunch of hearing in my right ear my first year at college. That idea became the APB in my books.