FFVII - A President and his Dog, and a young fencer (Patreon)

It feels good when I have these bursts of creativity but when I go into a lull of rest I get scared I won't find it again. But despite that, rest is still good! And I have all these sketches to look back on for inspiration and ways to make me happy.

The expression pieces of Rufus were mostly practice. Since like 2009 I could never get his hair or eyes the way I liked them. Then he gets this glow up in Remake/Rebirth and I'm like "GREAT now I gotta get a read on this guy!" XD but I'm proud with how they turned out! Did versions of him from Before Crisis (I call it his emo hair) and a small one from Advent Children on the bottom right. The top middle one is definitely my favorite though!

Next we have Rufus' loyal hound, Dark Nation/Dark Star, who surprisingly gets a lot of screen time for a enemy that only shows up in one fight in the OG. I love how much it's implied that he loves his dog XD He calls him D during fights, Dark Nation is super protective of him, Rufus has a line in Remake during his fight "Not a fan of dogs?" And in the artbook it shows he has his own coins with Dark Nation on them, hence the small comic.

Last page we have a young Diana! Here and there I've been playing with ideas of what her life was like growing up in Midgar before the game events. When I was a kid, I made her a sword fighter and now I'm playing with the idea that she trained in fencing while growing up. Her dad and stepmom would do well enough that they'd be part of the higher social circles with Midgar's upperclass, so that's how she'd meet Rufus. Years back I was terrified of having my OCs simply know canon characters. Like, you had to have these balanced and believable stories on how they would meet. But now its like WHO CARES? I'm going to put them IN SO MANY SCENARIOS and they can't stop me! XD