maiji: Along Theta's Fringe doodles (Chapter 4: On The Surface/To the Depths)

[image: digital ink-brush and watercolour style illustration that reads: This Remnant Light: Along Theta's Fringe - Chapter 4 away team and gyre-angels. Left side shows Lt. Sulien Wave & Lt. Claude C. Kenni in Pangalactic Federation combat gear and looking a little bedraggled. Wave is holding a phaser rifle, Kenni is holding a Pangalactic Federation longsword and pulling his tactical goggles up over his head. Right side shows 2 gyre-angels - floating white luminescent ghostly aliens. One angel is hovering in the air. The other angel is going "blaarrgh" and exploding in teeth at a little Sulien and a little Claude who are going ?!!? and !! in alarm. The angels are approx. 2-3m in length.][image: Closeup detail of Sulien and Claude's faces at 100% drawing size. ]"This is the Ishibashi. Dream Team: do you read me?"After a brief pause, Claude responds, "Copy loud and clear. But—are you seriously calling us that?""Crew voted. This was the winner. Over.""There was a vote??"Claude tilts his head slightly towards Sulien, as if to ask when the heck did that happen?? Sulien can picture the incredulous look behind the dark goggles.He shrugs back. It must've been around when they were getting suited up. Hence Ensign Breem's comments."It's not the worst. And it's way faster to say than 'Lieutenants Kenni and Wave'. Or even just 'Kenni and Wave'. Oh, you know what—you guys didn't get to vote! Did you want to—""Let's get a move on," says Sulien.Claude scratches his head. "We're fine."- Along Theta's FringeLieutenant Sulien Wave and Lieutenant Claude C. Kenni and the gyre-angels as they appear in Chapter 4: On The Surface/To The Depths. Something sort of like this but please imagine it much cooler. Also "blaarrgh" and spewing things everywhere is exactly me when I'm writing action scenes and spewing ideas and words everywhere trying to hit all the targets I need to address to make a story work believably. (That was not my inspiration for the gyre-angels, it's just a metaphor I came up after the fact while writing this post. But who knows, maybe it was subconscious.)I regret the way I drew Sulien's phaser rifle previously. I didn't put much thought into at all (throwaway weapon design) and I was finding it wasn't really working here, so I just kind of blobbed around it. Fortunately, this is all for fun and also not a comic so I don't have to be accountable to consistency or anything other than my own personal annoyance. Yay!This chapter was the biggest bottleneck because I had to figure out the plausible-sounding-enough sci-fi-y plot mechanism. You can see me bellyaching about the SF stuff over here, with support from lovely fellow creators. I'm just glad I didn't have to make anybody unclog an optronic torsional modulator.The rest of this fic is mostly proofreading and cleanup so they should go much faster! I have one more planned illustration for the last chapter so that's the only other thing I can think of that may slow me down. Famous last words. Wrapping up soon~