Release of the Beast: full package

I can't tell you how nice it feels to finally finish this comic. It turned out way bigger and challenging than I thought it would be, but even if it didn't go like I planned, I'm happy I did this. I've learned a lot of things! And I'll be able to apply this experience to my future work, it's gonna be easier now. Though it is very funny to look back when I was naive enough to think I'll finish it by Halloween. And then by Christmas. And then by Valentine's day- And here we are, at the beginning of March, at last :'D This lesson I am learning especially now - I will learn proper scripting and will actually do storyboarding before sketching from now on, to keep the size under control.

I've planned this comic for at least a couple of years, and I even started sketching something, but at this point I can't even remember why I stopped. I do remember though that originally I wanted for both Gaya spirits to live in the bracelet, and for the Dark one to take control during the full moon so Sonic could transform.

But when I got to the comic last year, I decided to just have it "on the full moon Sonic transforms if he touches the bracelet", with Chip actually explaining that on the page 6, I wrote the whole text... And then I thought that snapping to Shadow's POV where he literally does not listen would be funnier, and really I had to invent stuff that's not even in the game and ultimately didn't see that to be too important. But if you wonder what he says, it's this:

“Because of the full moon, the connection between the living world and the spirit world is strong, hence the connection to the Dark Gaya gets stronger through me… When the moon’s gone, I’ll take the dark energy out of you with the first rays of sunlight. You’ll transform back safely.”

Unleashed never makes it clear what Chip's bracelet actually does, so I thought I could add something there.

A few things I had to learn before even starting to work on it! Like, the way I draw faces - usually I start with the face circle and then do nose, and muzzle and eyes - I like to create a space on which to plant everything. But I realised that often this approach makes my stuff look too safe, and I wanted this comic to feel sharp, intense, I wanted Shadow and Sonic to burn each other with their eyes. So I forced myself to start drawing faces from the eyes.

And suddenly things became exactly like I wanted them to be. I did this sketch as a practice, and throughout the comic I would force myself to do that as much as I could, for all the shots that I wanted to be as impactful as possible.

Oh but that's not all :D I've had a rough idea of what Sonic's house looks like ever since Love and Quills 2, but I've always been light on background. But for this comic I wanted establishing shots, I needed to show the rooms. But, I'm not very good with perspective rn, that stuff just won't settle in my head well enough, and I needed some reference... So I build that shit in Minecraft :D

Even as blocky and low detail as it is, it helped me a lot, even though this also took a lot of time to make, and it's not even the whole house yet, I only built what I needed to see. For the future though I'll have to complete it, because I have plans for the rest of the rooms, can't wait.

On the simpler side of things, I prepared a ref sheet for size difference, in hopes that would help me keep the sizes the same throughout the comic, and- my eyes got so blurred while working on the thing for so long, I'm not even sure if I've managed to stay true to it :D

But I've had it anyway, and I don't regret, because I don't draw characters from such distance often, so their overall sized are never clear enough. I'll be using this in the future too, it's not going to waste :3

This comic made me seriously push my limits, in many ways, and I feel like I can take on bigger, more complex stuff. It makes me feel like I can do more now. I'm super thankful to all of you for helping me make this happen, I am so glad that I can make things like this for you! I couldn't have done it without you, thank you, thank you! >w<

I'll be taking a little break from work till the end of this week, I need to give my eyes some rest. But I'll be back on Sunday, ready to work again. I've got many ideas I wanna do, I hope you're gonna like them. Thank you so much again!

Please grab the archive down below, it's got the finished comic with extras and sketches in there, like always! <3