I miss you like nobody else. The memorial forest was quiet. It usually was, especially at this time of day. Walking on autopilot with her head down, Zara unerringly wended her way to the tree she wanted. The markers were all identical; elegant stone slabs extending a metre and a half out of the ground in their neat little rows. The trees were a bit more individual, growing wild and free. The marker simply said “In loving memory”. Zara absently touched the screen on the top of the marker. It brought up a timeline of all the people that had been buried under that tree.

Where you come from and where you wanna go this time? Zara and Zul’jinn hanging out in a courtyard either at Zara’s aprtment complex or more likely Juan’s place. There isn’t so much rhyme or reason to this, it just kind of happened while I was listening to the chorus of Red Hot Chilli Peppers: Tell Me Baby. As a young adult most of Zara’s gymnastics skills simply augment her fighting style but every now and again she likes to randomly show off. I think she’s going into a straddle press handstand on the wall.

I dashed this one off instead of doing things I should have been doing. I’m such a rebel. The pony stag leap was so much…er…fun that I decided to do the human version as well. Well before she was a thief and a vigilante, Zara was a gymnast. The stag leap was one of her favourite jumps, though she doesn’t do it often anymore, in favour of her favourite flip, the split-legged back sault which she happily adapted into her signature backflip kick.

Super quickie sketch before bed (and because I’m late getting to bed again (which means I’ve once more failed at trying to get to bed early, really need to stop it with the bloody late nights! XD), no story with this one, sorry. Zara and Dak playing blind push hands during one of their common training sessions. Zara is supposed to have her goggles around her neck but I forgot to draw them before I coloured the top. Oops.

Worked on this the last couple of stream sessions, posted works in progress to Patreon and realised that I’ve been completely forgetting to post public wips (which is completely unsurprising as while I do post occasional works in progress they are occasional so it was actually pretty easy for me to forget with all the other stuff going on). I also wanted to show @jedau the kind of stuff that takes me forrrreeeeeeeeevvvaaaaaaarrrrrrrr XD

Unlike the silence of the pod, which was broken only by the pods own humming, Dakarai’s head was full of tumultuous, confused thoughts. They’d looked. They’d kept looking. They hadn’t given up. The last few days…or was it weeks? He wasn’t sure. Either way, it had been a seriously unpleasant blur. He’d hurt Zara. He glanced sideways at her, perched nervously on the comfortably worn seat beside him. That had been the start of the downward spiral. They’d been training, he couldn’t understand the technique Juan was showing them. Zara picked up everything so easily. Frustration was normal, but then it had been intolerable. He hadn’t meant to hit her that hard. Then Juan had confronted him about his stim usage. Dakarai bristled slightly. Juan wasn’t his father, he didn’t have any right to tell him what to do.

Super quickie sketches of Zara, 10-11 years old doing gymnastics and probably 17 or close enough to as she is in the current block I’m working on practising a form or something. And the one in the middle because I like odd numbers and because I’m trying to work out how to convey expression with those bloody goggles covering half her face all the time! Also, that ring hold was tough even with a base.

The plan for streaming on Thursday was do a quick sketch, then carry on with the rig test anim. That didn’t happen. What happened instead was this. I don’t do anything more complex than textures for backgrounds, the bed is just one ridiculously oversized prop masquerading as a background. I don’t hink that’s going to be a normal thing either. I am not really looking forward to shading those tattoos XD

“Doesn’t that make your teeth rot?” “It’s worse when you’re with ’em!” Andrew snickered. Zara passed Andrew another box of decorations from the bowels of the shed, surreptitiously observing Dakarai and Megan being cute at each other on the other side of the garden. The bright orangey yellows of the Christmas bush caught her eye. Around this time of year, especially among the people that celebrated Christmas, there seemed to be a tradition of kissing under mistletoe. The whys were lost in the annals of time (unless one cared to look of course). Andrew’s ears perked up as Zara’s trademark cheeky grin suddenly crossed her face.

“You know I know how to make ’em stop and stare as I zone out, the club can’t even handle me right now…watchin’ you watchin’ me I go all out, the club can’t even handle me right now!” The original idea was to the song “I Like the Way” by Bodyrockers and was going to be done in silhouette possibly with flashy background like some of the old iPod ads or the art that could be found on iTunes cards, which developed from thinking I should do a series like that of Megan dancing.