Anatomy of a Picture #5: Foes From Another World Ch. 21 Scene-Healing Venom

There is a huge gap between early 2000's and present where I didn't really consume much new anime. I primarily stick to the classics (90's/80's Golden Age) and a handful of recent series, but there are quite simply not enough hours in a day to binge all the anime there is. Not only that, some of them probably aren't worth the time...anime went from a comfortable niche to "mainstream" and heavily commodified. Some shows have very little character development and just seem to revolve around "HEY HEY HEY LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME I'M CRAZY LALALALALALA!" or take so long to even produce there could be references in the narrative that fly over the heads of people that weren't even born back then. I never got into Naruto and its associated spinoffs and sequels, but it falls into the category of what I label "fast-food anime". You got the fancy restaurant cult classic movie, the local family eatery iconic series, and then there's the Whataburger multi-decade, sometimes on-going franchises that have become so entrenched in pop culture now I'm seeing freaking cereal boxes at work featuring them... I used to have a friend at work who wouldn't shut up about how much he liked Naruto and how much of a badass Orochimaru was and how he was his favorite character...

Sehkmet would fold Orochimaru like a lawnchair! He would beat him like a pinata. He would drop him like a bad habit. That being said, one of his powers as a reformed villain in AoD includes healing on-par-or in some cases even surpassing-Halo II. I had this drawing planned out awhile back before WorldEmber 2023 but I got the chance to refine it and complete it and use it for multiple articles. I had a older sketch using a different composition as if seen from the side.
The scene in the narrative starts out with Cye walking down the hall and glancing to the side and noticing Sekkie in a room with medics observing him. This takes place in FFAW Ch. 21 with the Weeping Death in full swing and the guys scrambling to assist the best they can. I wasn't quite satisfied with the preliminary sketch so I abandoned it and experimented with a different angle in a thumbnail. I liked it more than the original because you see more of Sehk's face and Armor from the front. So I started redrawing it on a larger sheet and then the challenging part started with all the little details, the foreshortening, and composition.

Prototype Sehkmet and Rithind Sketch by Mardrena

Healing Venom Revised Thumbnail by Mardrena

Healing Venom Sketch by Mardrena

The OAS was kind of infamous for alot of design inconsistencies and was known for being-erm-"passed around" for use in training up-and-coming animators back in the day. I had to consult a TON of references to get the features and proportions of Sekkie's Armor just right. I would go as far as to say his is probably the most intricate out of the Four Dark Warlords. Anubis' surcoat covers most of his upper body and Dais and Cale's Armors have alot of broad plates, but Sehkmet's has so much going on.
Probably the most annoying part was his collar. Sometimes its drawn with a little plate in the center close to the neck, sometimes its not. Thankfully I was able to find some original character design sheets online to go by so I went off of those for most of the smaller details. Shoutout to Archdruid Unacera and her Souls of the Seasons fansite, one of the true OG's of the fandom and proud member of the Old Guard! I didn't put a great amount of detail into the medics since they're not the primary focus. They are used to conventional methods of medical care: surgery and homeopathy. Magic is a very new thing for them. I wanted to at least convey a sense of awe and wonder and made one a older veteran and the other a younger trainee.

Inkscape Stroke and Swatch

Healing Venom Lines by Mardrena

Healing Venom Block-In Phase by Mardrena

Healing Venom Shading Stage by Mardrena

Healing Venom Power Stroke Stage by Mardrena

Senior Medic by Mardrena

Junior Medic by Mardrena

Four Swords Close-up View by Mardrena

Sword Crossguard Close-Up View by Mardrena

Sekkie's Face Close-Up View by Mardrena

There are people far more versed in OAS lore than I...apparently they're not the ones editing the Samurai Heart wiki page, because some dingus wrote that "Sehkmet wields six identical swords" when...they're not. The two he primarily wields from his back are VASTLY different with snake-head pommels and the cobra motif on the crossguard. Looking back on this now I realize I drew the detailing the wrong way: they should be upside down with the heads aligned with the point. I can fix it easily in Inkscape but I'll worry about that whenever it's time to make a Core Cast page for Sehk...
The four on his waist have a bit of a bevel on the inner edge of the crossguard that sometimes shows up in artwork, sometimes not. I neglected to include them here because the detailing doesn't show up in most OAS stills. I cheated a bit and drew one pair of swords on one side then duplicated and mirrored them and manually tweaked the palette to match the angle of lighting. Power stroke really pulled its weight with the reflections in the metal such as the grip, pommel, crossguard, and blade. I had fun tweaking the paths for that wild messy hair of his and those squeezably soft muttonchops...

Medical Jar close-Up View by Mardrena

The jar was actually quite challenging since I entirely freehanded it and eyeballed it based on those "milk-jars" you see sometimes at local resale shops or Tuesday Mornings... This was using the 1.2 version of Inkscape because the 1.3 version where the "Shape-Drawer Tool" was introduced was NOT available for my beloved Windows 7, so I had to do it the old fashioned way carefully stitching paths together on one side, duplicating and mirroring, fusing nodes, and using union/difference/combine to create the separate parts of the jar. I had to tweak the opacity quite a bit for the glass and used Power Stroke for the reflections from both the room light and the venom itself. Venom from the Snake Fang Swords is typically portrayed as being bright pinkish whether in liquid or vapor form.

BlackInk Background Time

Background Wall of Traedeskaton Room by Mardrena

The background really wasn't too complicated: this is meant to be a room in the Traedeskaton which is primarily composed of a blue-black marble. I used Perlin Blobby Noise and Ruins to add the marbling then used a wide yellowish airbrush to add sort of a soft overhead light. I added the cel-shaded tweaks after exporting.

The Final Piece

Full-Size

Healing Venom (Scene from Foes From Another World Ch. 21) by Mardrena

Sekkie Portrait Sketch by Mardrena

I've mentioned how I avoid social media in the past and it's probably a good thing. I've heard of the scourge of "art-fixers": slovenly, talent-less hacks who relish in plagiarizing superior artists and providing destructive criticism. It's all well and good I avoid platforms because were I to cross paths with an "art-fixer"... I'd legit turn them into a hood-ornament faster than Clara Harris did her cheating husband...and I don't even own a car or drive! #ClaraHarrisDidNothingWrong...
I can just imagine some petulant idiot whining "WhEr3 Ar3 H1Z EY3BROWZ!?!?" when...he literally doesn't have any! Look at the original design sheets: he's supposed to have this kind of snaky-look to him. His canonical YST lore describes him as being the "least-human" of the Four Dark Warlords. In the modern era he'd probably be teased for being the "weird kid" at school. That's probably the real reason he descended into villainy in the ancient past: not because he was caught in battle against overwhelming odds and called out to the darkness for salvation...but because other kids in the village made fun of him. No step on Sehk!

Scene from FFAW Ch12 (Sketch) by Mardrena