So any regular visitors know you normally don't see much of my own art on my ao3 account. It tends to be something I mostly keep to myself as a fun stress-free activity. But I have such a soft spot in my heart for the MHEA event--the MHHE, as it was, last year really got me through some ish, and I was determined that if it happened again I would contribute--so I signed up to be a writer and was pleased af. Yeah, maybe I get to share something that helps someone else forget about reality for an hour or two, AWESOME.
Except then, buoyed with the success of finishing my MHEA draft, I offhandedly offered to OfTheDirewolves five weeks ago that I could do pinch hit art if they needed someone. I resolutely meant it at the time, and completely forgot I'd offered it by the next day.
For those new to the MHHE/MHEA Big Bang events, Tier 3s are the hard mode fics of the event; the kind of fics authors slap and go "look at how much awesome I can fit into this bad boy" before crying into a starbucks cup bigger than their own heads. And it was three-and-a-half weeks ago that Maii came and asked if I was serious about about offering to do pinch hit art, and if I thought I could do a Tier 3 project in this time frame.
SURE, I said, I CAN TOTALLY DO THAT. It was a chaotic moment. I was filled with an utterly boggling amount of false confidence. 24 days. Cool. Coolcoolcool. I don't know where that amount of confidence suddenly came from. Adrenaline? Caffeine? Just sheer love for this wonderful event and all the hard work that's been put into it?
I had a moment of sheer panic, and then a whole wave of false bravado, and then I got to meet SultryButDamaged and hear about the fic I would be illustrating, and my shrivelled little heart grew three sizes. Julia/Penny/Kady? Marqueliot? My fave boy James showing up to ruin things? Josh and Vi running a bakery called the Stonery? Penny and Alice with a kid?? And all of this in some well-paced, thrilling, interesting mystery with beautiful background characters and such an amazingly detailed romantic development for all of them? Honestly. It was like being dropped from height into a giant box of my favourite candy. And each piece was absolutely delicious. It's been a really fun three-and-a-bit weeks. And it's been interesting to try and accept what I could do within the time limit. I owe a bunch of thank yous because I have been a hot mess with a pencil and anxiety for the entire time.
Thank you to Loran, Rubickk, and Maii for talking me off major ledges during this past three weeks; thanks to Team Whitespire for my occasional (horrifying) exclamation marks!!!!! moments; thanks to Hoko and Lou for the encouragement and reassurement of the pure joy involved in this event; thanks to my boo Tig for being super supportive; thanks always to Stars, who for some reason believes in me non-stop; and thanks to SultryButDamaged for letting me join their wonderful project last minute, because it's been a real blast, and I really hope you all read the fic, it's a beautiful achievement of a novel.
Chapter 1 has the mandatory main 3 pieces of art, Chapter 2 has micro-illustrations, and Chapter 3 has some behind-the-scenes images and a couple of colouring pages that you can print off if you're into that :).
Please read the fic, it's AWESOME.
