4/19/23: r/SketchDaily theme, “Falling.” Not fantastic art, but this is all I could think of for the theme. In my anthro WWII storyline I keep mentioning, there’s a scene toward the end where a main character sacrifices himself to help the others. This is a character I grew up with, I’ve known him for literally decades, yet it’s only been in the past year or so that I’ve finally come to KNOW him. I completely misunderstood him all my life. And then it seems the moment I got to know him, the story took him away. It was necessary, but it broke my heart. His isn’t the only tragic loss in the story, either; it’s full of important characters who don’t get happy ends. I admit, I’m a horrible sap, my own plots make me cry, and this particular story has had me crying a lot.
The way I’ve found to try to cope with the grief (silly, I know 😑 ) is to imagine a postscript to everyone’s personal story, where they pass into a sort of afterlife. This isn’t a religious story, and this part doesn’t enter the main plot (though it’s hinted at). This is just my coping technique. This afterlife is everyone’s second chance, the opportunity to live the life they could have had, should have had, if things had gone differently, been better. An ideal life. This is simplifying it but that’s the gist. Heartbreaking endings aren’t quite the end. Everyone has the chance to see the way their lives would have gone in a more ideal world, and to meet again everyone they left behind, one day.
HERE (top drawing) is roughly the scene as it occurs, the character falling to his death in the jagged rocks below. HERE (middle drawing) the scene is reversed, and he falls upward instead, to his new life. HERE (bottom drawing) is just an alternate version as I originally intended a lighter color scheme though I didn’t quite achieve the look I wanted. The lyrics (with one word changed, “lay” to “lie”) are from Poets Of The Fall’s “All The Way/4U,” a song I feel perfectly encapsulates the character’s motivations here and throughout the entire story. And…that’s it, sorry for the textwall.
EDIT: Here’s Poets Of The Fall, “All The Way/4U.”
[All The Way 4 U 1 [Wednesday, April 19, 2023, 4:00:07 AM]]
[All The Way 4 U 2 [Wednesday, April 19, 2023, 4:00:19 AM]]
[All The Way 4 U 2 Alternate Version [Wednesday, April 19, 2023, 4:00:31 AM]]