#I'm sure it's fine that the Filth has infected Klein's shadow

[mel-addams]

Shadows Boxing

[Image ID: a clean sketch of Mihas Blaga and Doctor Klein sitting around a campfire, their shadows cast large and looming behind them. Mihas is grinning with his fists raised, making it so both he and his shadow appear to be boxing. Klein, with a couple deep black Filth tendrils peeking out from the back of his collar, is holding a stack of Filth-stained notes in one hand, and adjusting his glasses with the other. However, his shadow instead has its hands reaching down as if to grab Klein, with a greater number of Filth tendrils extending from its head, shoulders, and chest. Despite being part of a shadow, those Filth tendrils are also a deeper black, and have a bizarrely solid, textured quality to them.]

So a bit ago in the SWL discord, we were discussing the museum upgrade item, Dr. Klein's Notes. (A number of us agreed: we would very much like to be able to read them.) From our collective silliness, Vomher (or "Vh'mhyrr," as their display name appears in that discord group) suggested the notes were Klein's shadow, trapped and put to paper. Then Mojo replied to that with:

[Image ID: a discord screenshot. The original message is from the user "Vh'mhyrr, the Empty Socket Stare" saying "He caught his shadow and put it to paper." The reply is from "Mojo | Local server pumpkin" saying "I wonder if he would sit with the Blagas at the campfire and share stories of fighting their own shadows"]

And I found that to be a DELIGHTFUL mental image. (For context: Mihas is a fighter, and mentions boxing with shadows. Klein is a scientist who has definitely not lost any intellect to the eldritch substance he's studying and microdosing, insisting he can still turn his head quick enough to spot his shadow before it sneaks up on him. Mihas fights monsters so he should probably actually be attacking Klein because the good doctor is definitely Filth infected, but it's fine, this is for funsies.)

SO, as is my wont when folks say fun things, I doodled it! And boy howdy do I love the watercolor physics in Rebelle, it is SUCH a boon for dressing up (relatively) simple doodles. I used it for the fire, shadows, and filling in the fellas. Used wet layers for the latter two, so the pigment would just flow together and I wouldn't have to think too hard about shading (using the lineart/selections to keep the pigment contained). Then an oil brush for the Filth, so the impasto 3d effect would give an uncanny texture, on top of it being (hex code) "absolute zero" maximum entropy black. I've taken to using the default oil palette's "bone black" for lineart and such, which is a brown-tinted near-black. So when I use pure-zero digital-black, it stands out even if things are otherwise (mostly) monochrome! It's fabulous.