Feral Heart

Then everything went black, but [Nagisa] could still hear the choking screams, the clouds of bubbles. She could feel their struggles grow frantic, then still. And there was a piece of her—a terrible sliver of her—that enjoyed every moment of it.

Excerpt from Ashika's character sheet (History section). Nagisa...you are unwell. Go home before you kill someone. 8'C

(Warning: I will now blather about character things. Read the aforementioned History section to get the full details)
In all truth, Nagisa has been a very tricky character for me to get my head around, mainly because a lot of her story kind of came together by accident. Oddly enough, her Feral nature as a Sybal is the thing about her character that I'm most certain of, but still catches me off guard. I tell myself that it's the result of the very fresh trauma of, "Well sh**, I just killed my husband's brother," that manifests into this crippling guilt and acceptance of the truth that she is a murderer—which then reflects in her Sybal behavior. Her perception of herself was fundamentally shaken and her transformation into the Sagami Naga, the very elements that killed Ietoyo, was horrifying validation. It was only a matter of time before her "true nature" showed itself...
_</blather>

This was kind of a spur of the moment speedpaint, but dang I love just kind of letting my hands draw whatever they feel like now and then. Usually it ends up being a light study, but this time I tried some particles and displacement. I learned that it's pretty hard to translate "being made of water, but IN water" into imagery...

Process GIF on Tumblr!

Character/Art © H. Lazo (Art-Zealot)
Sybal-Heim © Anna Earley (Turtle-Arts)