this is more for links than info, but if for some reason you need to know more about me, there's a bit more info about me on my cowsite. (which is the star icon with the rest of my links on my carrd.)
The cherry blossom season is here and they'll be in full bloom! Would you prefer to enjoy the cherry blossoms during the day with Marsha, or admire them at night with Sentinel? Which would you choose, Timekeeper? Beautiful photos and comments are also welcome!
Guys I love Sentinel/Marianne so much you have no idea. Like, she's probably the reason I got back into Reverse 1999 because the new event interested me quite a bit because of everyone talking about it alongside the upcoming event with Beryl Bouanich (how do I spell their last name) and the designs just cooking so hard. After scrounging together a few single pulls, I eventually saved up for my first ten pull on Sentinel's banner since I saw there were only two days left of it...
...and I got her on that singular ten pull and nothing has been the same since...
I hadn't gotten myself caught up with the story at that point, so all I had to go off was dialogue and her gameplay and after seeing just how much damage she can do if you kit her out properly (I'm F2P so six star portraits are a no go for me sadly lol) I immediately fell in love with her.
This is her build on my account right now, IDK what max level for resonance is but I'm hoping to get her there some day.
UPDATE I JUST GOOGLED IT AND THE MAX IS 15 AND I HAVE HER AT 14 RIGHT NOW HOLY SHIT MY GIRL IS GONNA BE SO OP YOU'RE ALL LUCKY I'M F2P BECAUSE IF I WHALED ON HER BANNER AND GOT HER TO PORTRAIT 5 IT WOULD BE OVER FOR EVERYONE AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I DON'T CARE IF NAUTIKA IS MORE META, I DO NOT HAVE HER, SENTINEL WILL BE MY MAIN DPS UNTIL THE SERVERS FOR REVERSE 1999 SHUT DOWN AND THERE IS NO MORE REVERSE 1999! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-
I referenced Sentinel's official art to get details like the rifle barrel, belt buckle and pouch right, and I ended up kinda mimicking the way this specific artist for Reverse 1999 places light and shadow in their L2D art. Like, I managed to make it fit in with my art style and the way the rest of the piece is rendered but got dayum I have never drawn a gun that good before, I gotta study Reverse 1999's rendering style properly someday holy shit.
I took some minor liberties with some of the details (I did not fucking care about drawing those bullets I don't know how the fuck they're staying on her coat AND IF I DON'T NEED TO DRAW HANDS AND THEY CAN BE SIMPLIFIED I AM FUCKING DOING THAT) but I actually managed to stay pretty on-model because I love her Insight II design. Also, I think her face and hair ended up being some of my favourite bits of rendering to come from this piece, like, I am so proud of how crisp the hair is compared to the shadows in some points and how I managed to make her face look pale, ghostly, almost like it was made of marble or stone itself.
I also think the colours ended up really working well because contrary to my normal work-flow, I actually started with the background first! Crazy! Doing the harder thing that you should genuinely do first so you can have a more complete piece where it feels like there is an actual interaction between the character and environment? Who could have guessed how well that would work! I actually did a few practice sketches in my sketchbook because I find that for pieces with complicated backgrounds this works pretty well. I made a version with and without Sentinel in it, just so I could get an idea on how the composition would work
Gradient maps also saved my ass during this entire process. I decided to start off in monotone colours when constructing the church building with the polygonal lasso tool (because it's really good for getting good geometric shapes down) and once I finished up rendering the building I used a gradient map to help me with the foreground and background of the building. The stained glass panel is on its own layer (which I also used a gradient map for), and it actually took me quite a lot of trial and error to make it look right, but I found that using the fill bucket to colour in each individual set of panes, then putting a gaussian blur to make the edges cleaner and more cohesive helped give it a slight glowing effect that I'm pretty proud of. I'm also really proud of this gargoyle I drew, I've never drawn gargoyle's before and I also love how I was able to render this.
You see, if this was just any other post with fanart of a character, I'd end it here with a "wow so fun" type of comment.
However,
I have gotten really obsessed with Reverse 1999 and it has gotten to the point where I am actually making headcanons. Non of you have any idea what it will take for me to form headcanons about a game I really like this is a milestone. Since I've actually gotten caught up with the chapters in this game and am currently working through A Long Long Way, I'm actually comfortable enough to talk about my headcanons for her, so I'll open up my ramblings with a question.
Do you think she'd have internalized homophobia? Throughout her whole life she's been told that her gargoyle heritage makes her unholy, a demon. She prays to god and has a lot of very religious dialogue. Ladislas also shares this trait, which to me implies that gargoyles are constantly trying to prove that they aren't demons, that they are just as holy in the eyes of god as everyone else.
She also doesn't really see herself as a hero or a saviour in the story. She doesn't tout about how amazing she is for killing the people that incited WWI and keep it going, she's just resigned to it, like it's a bitter part of her reality. "If someone won't do it, then who will?" is the logic that I see her following. What struck me the most in her interview with UTTU is that she can't tell if she's already succumbed to her demons, her worst thoughts.
Now imagine all of that baggage, but the moment she realizes she might have romantic feelings for Marsha she immediately falls back on her religion. She doesn't want to accept that there is another "unholy" side to herself that makes her even more of a demon. Even if she does accept that side of herself, would she worry about putting Marsha in danger just because of her association with her?
In the original timeline before the first storm in 1999, do you think her and Marsha still met? Would Marssha still have become a nurse? After the war ended, would Marianne have gotten married to a man as a way of trying to permanently erase that part of herself? Who she was in the war? Would she never even have gotten that chance to see that part of herself, yet she becomes discontent with her new life?
And then in this new timeline after the shit that went down in Paradise Regained, do you think the two of them would naturally be drawn to each other? Like they've lived this same story before only now there's seemingly no way of escaping it? Marianne in this timeline is now forced to come to terms with a part of herself that in her eyes makes her even more of a demon.
Also, I really wonder how she'll react to Isolde because of what happened in E Lucevan Le Stelle. I'm calling the different phases of the story "timelines" for now since Arcana kind of fucked shit up real bad in Paradise Regained that it feels like we've shifted timelines. IDK if she would have internalized homophobia but I'm a sucker for angst sooooo...
