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6—Calypso's Birthday After [Fic]

And the second illustration for chapter 6 of The Marks Left On Your Skin.

[Dramatically different WIP version from this summer after the jump.]

I mean the background was still in the sketch phase, but the improvements of Ed and Stede are pretty extreme...

Close-ups without shadows for better look at details.

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6—Calypso's Birthday [Fic]

Just posted the second-to-last chapter of The Marks Left On Your Skin.

[Sketchy WIP and alternative version after the jump]

Just a regular WIP step this time, but it also gives a better view of the leg tattoos:

I did make version with the half up hair for continuity's sake (see second illustration), but felt it made everything feel unbalanced... also went back and forth on the shadow intensity.

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6—Calypso's Birthday [Fic]

I just uploaded the second-to-last chapter of The Marks Left On Your Skin. Illustrations with WIP versions will be up soon as well.

“Hey, you okay? Look, I was a wreck after my first kill as well. Well, it was my dad, so there’s—” Stede grabbed him by the lapels, pulled him through the door, spun them both around and backed him further into the cabin. Ed hit a bulkhead, but what knocked the breath out of him was the look in Stede’s eyes, the urgent need, barely contained by gentle concern, the unspoken question. Ed suddenly very much wanted to be caught, was gonna jump mouth first onto that hook and welcome the sharp pain as he was pierced and trapped with no hope of escape.

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I made a transparent easily tileable version:

I finally made a proper pattern to use for Stede and Ed's robe! 💫

and here's a transparent version, if any of y'all would like to use it-

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I managed to find the proper source of the robe pattern I used!

Thank you, @lonicera-caprifolium! 🥰

I finally made a proper pattern to use for Stede and Ed's robe! 💫

and here's a transparent version, if any of y'all would like to use it-

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5—The Kraken After [Fic]

The second illustration for chapter 5 of The Marks Left On Your Skin.

I swear to God eventually Ed will look happy again in the after pictures...

This one I actually didn't change that much from the first version from this summer. Still added it after the jump.

[Edit: found the source for the robe pattern]

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5—The Kraken [Fic]

Just uploaded chapter 5 of The Marks Left On Your Skin.

1717—days immediately following s01e10 The Revenge Ed / Izzy

The progress pictures are after the jump. Izzy’s face went through quite a change and yesterday it finally clicked for me regarding folds in velvet. (Also the original version was from before I wrote the chapter so I adapted some things)

[Edit: found the source for the robe pattern]

The two things I'm happiest with is definitely Izzy’s face and the robe.

Here are two in-between steps of the entire image.

Close-up of the robe:

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Finally uploaded the chapter of The Marks Left On Your Skin that inspired this. So this chapter gets three illustrations instead of the usual two.

1717—days immediately following s01e10 The Revenge Ed / Izzy When Izzy turned back to face him, there it was again: that gleam in Izzy’s eyes that told him that he knew exactly what he was doing, that he was purposefully riling him up. After everything he had taken from him, here was Izzy, still manipulating Edward to scratch whatever twisted itch was plaguing him. And here was Edward just playing along, pretending he didn’t notice. Well, fuck that. Maybe Edward had let Izzy get away with this for years, but Edward wasn’t even supposed to be here anymore, was he? Izzy of all people certainly didn't want Edward to be in charge.

(Will post the other illustrations once I finished preparing the progress pictures.)

Shattered

Strictly speaking this is a scene from a fic I'm working on, but I figured it works pretty well by itself.

Incidentally, I would be in the market for a beta reader (my wife is reading it, but she only watched the show once and isn't in the Fandom 😉). You'd have to be ok with explicit content and Calico Jack since it has vignettes of Ed's relationships over the years and he features in the first couple ones.

I've also posted the "unshattered" versions of Edward and Blackbeard.

(Nonsexual nudity is fine now, right? Since there is no strategically placed shard in those versions. But you can only see a faint outline really.)

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4—Brothel After [Fic]

Second illustration for chapter 4 of The Marks Left On Your Skin.

This one was another instance of "oh I'm pretty happy with this one already, I'll just tweak the skin tone a bit"... somehow those end up being the most extreme improvements... see below the jump.

Original version from September:

some progression of reworking the skin:

The final version without the darker lighting so you can see the details:

Particularly happy with the eyes this time:

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4—Brothel [Fic]

Chapter 4 of The Marks Left On Your Skin is up!

Republic of Pirates ca. 1707 Ed / Sex Worker and some Ed ;̵̢̭͚̜̝̩͌̍̾͗́͝ ̷̨͍̺̫̳̭̼̞̦̘͉̣͚͌ Izzy

(whatever eldritch punctuation mark could even try to encompass the love/hate, toxic, codependent and sadomasochistically sexually charged mess that is their canonical relationship…)

This chapter was originally intended to go quite differently, so I redid the art and don't have as many and as drastic progess pics. There are some though plus the original version after the jump.

Original (unfinished) version:

Now to the current version.

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3 - Coconut War After

And the aftermath of Chapter 3 (or the first picture).

Honestly, given every single one we've met so far, I'm not surprised that most pirates Mr First-Base-Is-Stabbing knows are dead...

If anything it's a miracle these boys survived each other at their youngest and dumbest...

So, Chapter 3 was the last Jack chapter. Couldn't give him a weird beard this time so he got a little ponytail instead.

Some very funny progress pics after the jump. (So are my references for period appropriate underwear and young shirtless Taika.)

Not sure know the exact timeline but first version is from summer, I had the 3rd version below by September and I started working on it again last week culminating in the final version.

Ed's skin came out so light in some of the early versions because I was fighting with the lighting (Tip: if you're going to put some sort of overlay over the entire picture change to change the lighting / mood, don't start with colors based on already very brightly lit reference pictures...)

What is very funny to me is that when I reworked Ed's face with some great reference pics from the right age, I actually had to make the eyes more cartoony again. 😂

Also were we all aware that Taika played a stripper in a mid 2000s TV show, so definitely the best resource for shirtless reference pictures...

Here are a couple of references pics I screenshot from this helpful YouTube video.

and surprise bonus baby Fang 🥰

And yes Ed's underwear is roughly period appropriate (as is Jack's choice to forgo it). Also love that it shows the functional origins of having the little bows at the front.

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3 - Coconut War [Fic]

First image for Chapter 3 of The Marks Left On Your Skin. This is the last Jack chapter (also the last short chapter and the last that might still count as mature depending on your definitions)

Art progress pics below the jump.

Left one is from some point this summer. Particularly happy with the hair, the buried in sand effect and my absolute favorite—the thumb...

I think this thumb is one of the best things I've ever drawn. Here's a closeup without the shadow.

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3 — Coconut War [Fic]

Chapter 3 of my fanfic The Marks Left On Your Skin was just uploaded. (Rating is E, all the tags can also be found in my older post linked below)

Chapter 3: Secluded beach ca. 1699 Ed / Jack Ed's in his late twenties Two bottles in, one of them—Ed couldn’t for the life of him remember who—had proposed a good old-fashioned coconut war. Soon both of them were out of breath, covered in sand and angry red welts that would turn coconut-shaped bruises before long. Jack had turned away to pick up the next coconut and Ed went for the opening and tackled him to the ground, own coconut in hand. Grappling had led to wrestling which had led to increasingly frantic fumbling. Ed wasn’t convinced that Jack, typical boundless and often ill-timed horniness notwithstanding, wasn't just trying to catch him off guard and would brain him with a coconut any moment now, surely.

I'll post this chapter's art here soon separately with art progress pics in the next couple of hours.

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Left at the Altar Dock

Tons of people have drawn Ed in the blue dress by now, but this is my version. 😅

Since I started to draw this one fairly recently I don't have any extreme progress pics this time, but the first version of the hands did look like this:

(Really not sure how it took me so long to realize that if I can't find good reference pictures, I can just take my own of my own hand...)

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2 - Crow’s Nest After [Fic]

And the second illustration for chapter 2 of The Marks Left On Your Skin.

I've only recently realized that Ed and Jack's arm tattoos kind of match so I had to go back and change Jack's pose to include them

Progress pictures after the jump!

Progression of Ed and Jack respectively

For a moment I had given Jack hair that was just too nice. And as everyone except for Stede at the height of jealousy knows, he does not have nice hair...

I'm also just in general happy with the detail on Jack's clothes even though you can't see them so well in the final picture

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2 - Crow's Nest [Fic]

Chapter 2 of The Marks Left On Your Skin is up!

Hornigold’s ship ca. 1692 Ed / Jack Ed is around 22.

For this picture I learned how to paint sweaty/wet looking skin, scars and glass. Some wip and pretty drastic improvements below the jump!

first version is probably from July.

Close-up of the skin:

And Jack's hands. Probably the most drastic change with no in-between.

Probably a pretty basic tip, but taking reference pics of my own hands on the right pose helped me immensely. So did paying attention to how tensing the muscles changes shape and color!

Also adding that little bit of shadow where things touch takes it from awkward hovering to an actual grip... 😅

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The Marks Left On Your Skin [Fic]

Chapter 2 just went up and I made cover art now!

The Marks Left On Your Skin (2706 words) by PerpendicularPotato Chapters: 2/7 Fandom: Our Flag Means Death (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/"Calico" Jack Rackham, Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Original Male Character(s), Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Israel HandsBlackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet

(Find the myriad additional tags below 😅)

Summary:

Even years and countless miles of ocean removed from the home of his childhood, his body still was not his own. Idly searching for distraction from the open wound of his back, his gaze caught on the nearest jar of tallow.

For weeks now, Edward had been waiting for Jack to crack and breach the plausible deniability. In this case, however, he seemed determined to drag it out—or was he waiting for Edward to crack?

Alright then, fuck it! Maybe he was done being coy. He fucking wanted it.

----

An exploration of why one would get a "Trust No One" tramp stamp (that tattoo did not look fresh!), since that feels less like a reminder to yourself and more like a message to the people topping you...

Which ended up becoming a character and relationship study, exploring amongst other things the learning and unlearning of (internalized) toxic masculinity through seven times Ed had sex with various people and the illustrated history of his tattoos spanning from Hornigold's ship to Post-Canon Era.

First chapter is only mature, but the explicitness will ramp up. Chapters 3-6 are about 90% done, chapter 7 about 50%.