#stall iii

[arturia-giallo]

Neon stall3 by MOKEW [Twitter/X] ※Illustration shared with permission from the artist. If you like this artwork please support the artist by visiting the source.

[storm-art-journal]

15 March 2025

Spoilers for NIKKE: Goddess of Victory Chapter 43

Timelapse

I'm going to talk about the artwork first to avoid accidentally spoiling people. The workflow is largely the same, except I used more solid brushes to define the lighting this time. I think this helped prevent me from blending everything causing the image to lose contrast like my previous artworks. I also used Basic-1 more often for some areas to avoid my habit of blending everything together to ensure that some areas get clean and sharp shadows. I was trying my best not to overuse contrast adjustments like the previous artwork. Besides that, I also put more effort into blocking the areas (the gray parts at the start) to make sure that overlapping shapes are assigned to different layers. This allows me to paint more efficiently by selecting each discrete layer so I only paint in that region (for example, only painting the hair without affecting the skin, and vice versa). These layers are kept invisible and are only used when I need to select stuff.

I also got more used to just merging layers when necessary. For example I merged the layers together for the girl on the left in order to fix the legs which I find to look a little odd (I did keep a backup). It was very risky, but it also worked. I just need to get into the mindset of not being too overprotective of the layer structure.

Anyway, NIKKE chapter 43 spoilers.

This artwork is about Princess and Stall III, the two new characters introduced in Chapter 43. I'm pretty sure Stall III is Neon, but I was a bit confused on which one is Neon at the start. But considering Stall III's circumstances, that had to be Neon. Man, all of the Counters's backstory are pretty depressing huh. I was watching it in Japanese, so I though ストル三世 meant Store the 3rd, and I was pretty confused. But it's Stall and everything made more sense then. I went for a more slice-of-life kind of scene to represent the early parts of the chapter as Princess slowly bonded with Stall III.

Honestly, I really love the episodes when it just shows Stall III and Princess going through their day-to-day routine. Something about it just resonates with me. It makes the world and the characters feel a lot more real when we're shown their daily routine in this way. Plus, having Stall III's routine shown also helps foreshadow her worsening vision later on.

I've watched up until John Wick Andersen; and it is pretty satisfying watching this take place after ARK GUARDIAN. But I'm sure that tragedy will befall Stall III and Princess soon since it's NIKKE. So at least gotta get this slice of life artwork out before that happens lol. But that's part of NIKKE's appeal.

[storm-art-journal]

1 May 2025

Timelapse

Spoilers for NIKKE main story Chapter 43 and various events.

I'll talk about the artwork first. Finally got motivation to take on an artwork again unlike the last two posts, which I'm very happy about. For this one, I'm still using mainly Krita's Basic-1 brush for the rendering, although for the skin I decided to use Basic-3 Flow to deal with gradients since Basic-1 is too sharp for that. I think the result turned out pretty well.

One problem I faced during the making of this illustration is the sheer number of mechanical parts of the woman's armor. Most of the time I have no idea what I'm looking at, and I'm mostly just eyeballing things, hoping I got them right.

Last thing I want to point out this time is the eyes I guess. I think the eyes this time looked a lot better than some of the eyes that I've painted previously, which is a welcome improvement even know I can't really put into words what I think I got right.

Anyway NIKKE talk now.

I've finished watching ARCANE ARCHIVES, SIN EDITOR, GOOD WORLD, and ENTER HEAVEN just to cover all of the necessary knowledge that I missed. The contrast between ARCANA ARCHIVES and SIN EDITOR stands out in that in Arcana's case, her duty is to remember those who would have been forgotten in history, while in Label's case, her duty is to make people forget about the bad things that happened outside of the Ark. I think that's just a neat contrast between the two.

Label's role in the Ark especially stands out considering the events of KILL THE LORD. Should the people of the Ark be aware of their terrible situation in the surface (supplies gathering, NIKKE casualties, etc) or should they remain blissful in ignorance.; just like the final decision of KILL THE LORD. Being unaware of the issues outside means the people of the Ark will continue living their lives normally, not having to worry about the degradation of the Ark and not doing anything drastic in desperation because they're not aware in the first place (the drastic consequences have been demonstrated during the malfunction of the Eternal Sky that killed Trony). But, as pointed out in LORD FOR JUSTICE and also by Crow, that complacency will make the Ark residents forget about the danger the Raptures pose and the sacrifice the NIKKEs have made. Both extremes are bad, and that leaves the middle path where some censorship ultimately had to be made, but the people must still know about the casualty rate in the Surface (picking the middle path is a whole another question since one can easily slide down the slippery slope to one extreme).

GOOD WORLD is yet another nice event that characterizes the Ark further. I believe GOOD WORLD extends the message from Chapter 42, where there is always good in the Ark, but we've focused so much on the bad that we become blind to it. Furthermore, it also poses a hopeful message - regardless whether it's true or not - that as long as there are good people in the world, the Ark will improve. And I think this is a nice parallel to the real world with how social media algorithms pushes posts that are more "engaging" and thus likely to be more controversial and "bad". We are constantly fed with bad things, and thus that inadvertently becomes our view of the world; and even when there are good things, we will see the bad instead.

That is not to say we must remain ignorant of the bad things in the world and live in fantasy la-la land; but whether the world is good or bad, will improve or not, those don't matter as much, what matters is that we are able to hold onto the hope and see the good in the world, beyond the seemingly overwhelming amount of bad things happening around us. Otherwise, we'll end up jaded and nihilistic.

Finally ENTER HEAVEN, I'm glad that we got more information behind E.H. and Ingrid's backstory. While I haven't watched the half-anniversary events yet, I'm already aware of Past Mustang being, well, a douche. And given that there seems to be some sort of scandal regarding the past Missilis CEO, it really makes the current Big Three CEOs seem like a saint compared to the past versions.

E.H.'s story is particularly striking because it brings up one of the core problems of the Ark and also the real world; the bystander effect. Many people of the Ark don't care about the Outer Rim, and in a similar vein, many people in the real world don't care about the poor, whether they don't want to involve themselves in that kind of thing, or for other reasons. I myself am guilty of this as well, having passed many street beggars when going to-and-from work. I'm too much of a scaredy-cat to take out my wallet in the middle of the street on a moped since that leaves me pretty defenseless. And yes, that does sound like an excuse and it is. Point is, people are not keen to risk themselves, and thus the bystander effect: someone else will handle it. It's people like E.H. who are selfless enough to be able to accomplish it. Unfortunately the whole fiasco with Crow...

The fiasco with Crow also raises a neat parallel to protests in the real world. If peaceful protests do not work, then what if we get a bit more violent? I am not the person to involve myself with protests and demonstrations, but I suppose this mirrors how real-life protests escalate. Of course, there is the possibility of some people intentionally escalating the situation with violence for some reasons. In which case, what started out as a protest in good faith becomes associated with evil and violence; the protestors become associated with terrorists and gangsters in the eyes of the populace, and the message fades away. I believe there are many real-life cases of this, such as "Just Stop Oil" being associated with disruption of public order rather than the message they're supposed to spread.

It's a really good story. For this artwork, I decided to pick that scene where E.H. showed the kids of the Outer Rim what I assume to be a firework sparkler wand. At that time, E.H. showed them to some random kids, but considering Neon's backstory, I wanted to include Stall III even though timeline wise it probably didn't make sense, but screw it, we'll have Stall III there marveling at the firework.

I'm pretty proud of this artwork.