This is one of my favourite scenes from my story, Project TL, taking place circa around the beginning of book 2. Both characters were having a terrible week for extremely different reasons and this was the culmination of it!
Featured in the drawing are William (Liam, protagonist, the guy) having a bad not so good overall terrible day and Teryel (Teri, love interest, as a dino) using his Utahraptor form to improve the situation.
This scene. Is the reason. I have seven-ish books instead of two!
(scene description & fun facts below)
They could have gotten together sooner but Teri had the BRILLIANT idea to sit on Liam. His dino brain went "wet kitten... must warm up!" and unfortunately for Liam that led to... this. Did I also mention that Liam at this point had no idea Teri could shapeshift thanks to his little magic item? Because he didn't, so in his pov a giant friggin beast just gave chase and decided to nest on top of him. Utahraptors were estimated to weight around 500 kg so good luck getting away from the bear sized bird intent on pinning you down...
The title refers to both the weight situation and the fact that, after this happened, the possibility of romance is crushed... at least until later in their lives :D
Mmm other fun facts about this drawing...
I has a LOT of fun doing the rain effect. I added more rain after posting the snippet, and it improved the scene a lot. The blurring serves the same purpose, making it easier to focus on the characters. And the rocks, man! Generally, the background was a pleasure to work on.
The characters themselves came out after a bit of a struggle to decide the pose. I made a collage from screenshots of videogames and random photos to use as reference, which was essential. I should really find some time to do studies/sketches on anatomy and poses at some point... Uni takes so much time though. It's also why I finished this drawing AFTER Valentine's Day.
The Utahraptor's tail was not forgotten: generally, tail stiffness in dromeosaurs is very hard to determine but from my understanding it seems like Utahraptors had at least some stiffness in their tails. Most references I found have it completely straight or very mildly curved to the side when the dino lays down. From the front, like here, it's not very visible either way. Which is a shame! The fanned feathers on the tail would have been a great addition, but it came to a choice between pretty tail and clear pose. Couldn't pass on drawing Liam clawing the ground, sorry tail!
Speaking of, we got full name reveals! I usually just call them Liam and Teri, although technically they are William and Teryel. So far I've also referred to them as protagonist and love interest. The books are from the point of view of both though, so maybe they're just... both protagonists? In their own way?
Liam's face was initially shown but I liked more the idea of leaving it hidden so it was changed. And maaaaybe I am still holding back the actual face reveal... Kinda feel bad for Liam here. I'd like to do a proper face reveal when he's looking more like the cool sunny guy he is and less like a wet kitten covered in mud. Meanwhile, Teri looks waaaay more competent and confident that usual, but don't let it fool yah: it's the bird brain taking over. He's NOT going be forgiven for sitting on Liam anytime soon, the man has pride and this is a HUGE slight.
Lastly, I LOVE doing layouts and working with shapes. The idea to frame the drawing by using a circle was immediate, and I made some plants poke out of the frame to give it some uniqueness. Titles are written by hand with love (and little hearts instead of dots), they were a last minute addition. It felt a bit empty to have just the drawing by itself. Now, with the titles, it looks way more polished in my opinion.
Many thanks to @a-dinosaur-a-day for the 2026 Draw Dinos Daily thing and for putting Utahraptor on Valentine's Day. It really inspired me to finally draw this scene!
what myth in amazigh mythology that you like a lot? :0
i've already talked about multiple myths (anzar's bride, ayyur and the orphan, teryel trying to kidnap ayyur and tafkut) but i remember not really expending on lunja— who's one of my favorite! <3
lunja, sometimes described today as a "cannibal rapunzel", is an ogress and daughter of teryel, mother of all ogres. teryel gave birth to her little time after her time in attala—the underworld (the magic place where humans originate from) and while little is known about how things went like there (how did teryel —a mortal— ended up in attala? how did she survive? how did she found the tree of life and death? how did she get out? all is unknown, i personally believe that ifru —who's also the goddess of attala— had something to do with it), but we do know that she consumed a golden leaf from the tree of life and death, and thanks to it, gained magic powers, became an ogress and immortal/goddess. she also was gifted with 80 biological children, while it is hinted that teryel was pregnant, it is even more hinted that the reproduction wasn't sexual, and that only the consumption of the golden leaf leaded to the pregnancies.
her first born was lunja, a girl with unmatched beauty and glowing golden hair. teryel loved her daughter very much and spoiled her (ex: trying to steal the sun and moon for her). and of course, lunja is her mother's daughter and is a man- eating ogress. she doesn't use the same tactics as her mother, who simply chase human, lunja uses her beauty. so many princes asks her hand in marriage, and each time she accepts, but when the couple's first night together is here, lunja kills the man and eats him (and some sources also says that she eats any other men present in the palace). the funny thing is that even if most princes proposing to her doesn't know about her being an ogress, other's do, but still asks for her hand, believing they can change the ogress' daughter to become mortal. how wrong they are.
When stories about the greek gods (Theoi) are always brought upon, specially with crossovers, people always likes to pair them with the norse gods (Aesir)
And I'm like, ok, both Theoi and Aesir are very representative and very famous pantheons, but fam, I genuinely think the Theoi have more in common with the Canaanite, Persian, Amazigh and Egyptian gods who have more to grasp than the ones from Germany/Scandinavia.
I mean, no hard feelings to the Aesir, but when it comes to this crossover, they always led to the old cliche of Gods Fighting between each other instead of interacting in good terms (thanks Marvel for that) and honestly it becomes boring with time.
I want to see the Theoi interacting with other pantheons who had contact throughout history.
C'mon, the possibilities are endless:
Circe and the Amazigh Teryel conjuring and practicing magic spells for hours. 🔮
Helios and the Persian Mithra competing about who is the most shining fella in the Mediterranean. 🌞
Aphrodite and the Sumerian Inanna chatting about their shepherd boyfriends Adonis and Dumuzid and going on a double date. 👩🏽🤝👩🏼👨🏽🤝👨🏻
Zeus and the Phoenician Hadad boasting about royal stuff while their wives are just saying to themselves "Husbands, am I rite?" 👑
Athena and the Egyptian Horus venting about their unique childhoods and giving each other a huge comfort hug. 🤗
Dionysus and the Indian Varuni drinking wine while performing playwrights dressed with extravagant clothes. 🍷🎭
Herakles and the Assyrian Gilgamesh being the most dude-bros of the region flexing these guns YEAH!!! 💪.
And that's just a tease of the huge plethora of stories you can write. Let the Aesir rest for a while, I know they're cool and all that, but when you start to find and explore other pantheons which had a contact with the greeks, the stories start to bloom with so much naturality that you don't need to force plot points at the moment of puting the gods in a same scenario. @alatismeni-theitsa You can be my writing consultant btw lol
Have fun. And hope I can publish more since I left this blog in a long hiatus. Between school, the epidemic and all that, I didn't have time to dedicate to it, but *phew* what a ride.
teryel core :((( my grandma would tell me her story and in her version (because i recently discovered that most people don't interpret teryel's story the same?) teryel and the free man were lovers and after he turned into a lion she ate the golden leaf out of desperation:(
