Long rambly post ahead just because I want my work collected up!
At the start, I took the dialogue of 5.3 and reckoned "where does this diverge for Soren and the Exarch's relationship in particular?"
First, I removed the dialogue concerning Elidibus. For the sake of keeping the scene tight, it was too difficult to keep the parallel between the "guiding my every deed," even if I would argue that's a very important part of the scene, too. Soren would have still had the fleeting thought, but the interest of pushing the similarities between herself and G'raha was more important to her than trying to unpack the ways that G'raha could be read as similar to her enemy.
The second deviation is how they speak to each other in the middle, and giving it a much more intimate feel.
Some of those dialogue bits made it to the final copy (14 months later). I changed Soren's last name. The tears are not as pronounced. I never did have them go forehead to forehead (I admittedly forgot)! But holding his cheek, the finger to his lips, that all stayed.
Then, the game became "how much do I have to depart from the cutscene images." At the start and end, I used some of the actual CS images, but largely had to retake the entire scene, not least of all because I put Soren on the opposite side of G'raha, so any CS images were reversed...
By the end, I was just scribbling the notions of what it would look like! I almost wish I'd read my own notes better, I really started winging it at the end.
At the very start, I actually posed what became page 9-10 first: the "hold his cheek" shots. I used the wrong Exarch model the first time around, as evidenced by his legs, but I loved some of those original (September 2025) shots SO MUCH that I kept them and just cropped it!
I recreated some of the shots with the right model later (like that last one).
When I was about 4 pages in, I sketched out the entire rest of the storyboard, which I held pretty damn close to!
Some of my fave "before and after"s:
I couldn't possibly put EVERY rejected photo because there are 559 total gposes that went into this comic ;;u;; but I'll put some additional fun highlights.
Full size pics taken for the Crystal Tower flashback insets:
To be continued in a reblog, as I have run out of photo space :D
