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Fic-to-Art #34: The development of Sokka and Azula's relationship

When you move to a whole new country, that's when your patrons are going to vote for the prompt that makes you want to go completely bonkers and that you would draw ten years worth of art for. Yep. So you try to condense that impulse into something you can finish in... 1 week? Sorta?

I honestly barely know how I managed to do it that fast, but hey, made it on time for the end of October, so here goes! A little walk through the history of these two and the evolution of their relationship in Gladiator.

The first GIF is mainly about Part 1, the second one's first two pieces are Part 2, the third piece is Part 3. The last two GIFs, of course, are both meant to be Part 3, with the final GIF being meant as a symbol of hope in many regards. I'm guessing some of you guys will pick up on a funny little hint about just what kinds of hopes we're talking about here...

Anyway! Now I hope you guys enjoyed these crazy artworks! It's a Halloween miracle that I finished them on time, haha. If you'd like to be part of the creative process behind these pieces, a 1$ pledge on Patreon is enough to make you eligible for suggesting prompts and voting on polls, as well as reading Gladiator snippets 6 days before the next chapter goes live!

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Sokkla Saturdays no.3: Earth ( @sokklasaturdays )

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Sokkla Saturdays no.2 : Spring ( @sokklasaturdays )

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Fic-to-Art #33: Princess Jing Azula meets Mari

All prompt suggestions for this month were great... but I can't lie about how hyped I felt when this was the one that happened to take the victory.

I admit, there's always been a part of me that didn't really enjoy a lot of the "aunt Azula" or "uncle Sokka" content I saw in fandom, since it often felt like their personal lives were constantly sidelined so they could be the supporting characters to their siblings' very fulfilling families (while they often didn't get to have one of their own, and a thousand excuses were given for that, but ultimately it just felt like they'd be playing second fiddle to Zuko and Katara respectively).

I don't really feel that way about it in my own story for obvious reasons -- clearly, the story could not be more Azula and Sokka-centric if it tried :') therefore, their dynamics with their respective siblings, and their siblings' families, never really have cut across their own possibilities, whether to have families of their own or to exist for a bigger purpose besides just supporting everyone else around them.

Hence, the bond between Azula and Mari (and Sokka and Mari) have become quite valuable to me, especially after Sokka turned Azula into Mari's hero without Mari's awareness, through his stories about Princess Jing. With said stories, Sokka helped Mari accept her own firebending, and along with that, helped her learn who her aunt was long before she even met her. She won't actually learn that Azula is Princess Jing right away... but it will be thrilling for her to finally see blue fire directly, as portrayed above, and to meet a female firebender who can inspire her to shoot for the stars if she wants to.

As for everything else in this scene, weeeell... there's at least two important spoilers here that I suppose you guys might be happy to see :'D One might barely be a spoiler at this point. The other definitely is one because I'd constantly kept her role in the story hidden and secret, mostly because no one knew she was reeeally coming back, or in what capacity she would do that. You still barely know how she's ever going to wind up in the South Pole to witness Azula meeting Mari, worth noting :'D but now you know she will be there, nonetheless...

At any rate, hope you liked this piece! If you want to see its spiritual sequel, feel free to go right back to Fic-to-Art #9! And if you would like to participate in the creation of these pieces or just read Gladiator snippets 6 days before the chapter releases, support me on Patreon!

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Fic-to-Art #31: The five winners of Gladiator Brawl

This month's artwork is... maybe not so uplifting :'D Gladiator Brawl was a chaotic event, where Sokka and Toph, the most promising new gladiators, took on the old guard, The Millennium Dragon and Combustion Man, facing them in a very fierce battle. While Toph managed to keep Combustion Man on his toes, he also managed to deal damage, if not too seroius, that burned her even with her agility and defenses... whereas Sokka, driven by desperation, beat up the Millennium Dragon in a display much more violent than anything he had ever done in the Superior League to date.

While the idea by the patrons might have been to make this super epic... I can't really separate this scene from Sokka's anguish upon coming back to himself and realizing what he'd done. It's not only the way he hurt Renzhi, but how he impulsively slices off Combustion Man's prosthetic with his sword... he was basically giving some very strong signs of being A Menace in this arc, and a lot of people (notoriously, Combustion Man) certainly took this as a warning of how dangerous he truly was. Even so, Sokka didn't feel triumphant about what he did... even if this was a catalyst for more character growth for him, in the end.

Anyway! From left to right we have Combustion Man, Twist of Shadow (first time I draw her, she was the fifth winner!), Sokka, Toph and Ruan (the Sentinel Knight). Revisiting these moments of the story is certainly wild when I'm in the middle of writing and posting some MAJOR battles... and this was one of the big challenges, as far as mass battles were concerned, in the first two parts of the story. We've dialed up the action by a lot... but perhaps that's why it's good to return to the story's roots at times, and remember the foundations upon which our newer developments were built...

Hope you guys liked this artwork! If you'd like to be part of the creative process behind these pieces, a $1 pledge on Patreon makes you eligible for suggesting prompts and voting every month, as well as providing you with access to snippets of the upcoming Gladiator chapter, 6 days before release!

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Sokkla Digital Oil Painting: The Slate (Inspired by Seyary Minamoto’s “Gladiator”)

Ahhh, so long time no see. My life has been a bit chaotic as of late, and this painting took me way longer than it should have, but it’s finally finished! 

Conveniently, me finishing this lined up pretty closely to Seyary posting her 300th chapter of Gladiator!! So this is to celebrate that, even if it was on accident! 🤣

This artwork is based on Chapter 90 of Seyary Minamoto’s “Gladiator”, and it is a depiction of one of my favorite fights. I’m pretty sure Sokka is supposed to be using Wolf’s Bane in this scene, but... oops 🤷‍♂️ I’m too lazy to fix it now haha. 

I was so nervous about painting the fire here, but I really liked how it turned out! I ended up just mixing the colors together in a chaotic manner, then going over it with the pallet knife. And then I used the airbrush tool to add the glow. 

There really wasn’t anything too complicated here. The perspective took me a while to get right, but this was mostly a pretty relaxing one (despite the very not relaxing moment it depicts haha!). 

Again, congratulations to @seyaryminamoto​ on posting 300 chapters of Gladiator!! What an outstanding accomplishment! She is such a dedicated and kind person; words cannot describe how lucky I feel to be able to read such an outstanding story from such an incredible writer 😊

Sadly, I cannot promise that I will be more active in the near future. But I will promise that I will keep making art! Just maybe at a slow pace 😔 I also need to catch up on my Gladiator reading! I’m getting far behind ahhhhhhh

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Fic-to-Art #29: Azula helps Sokka beat her guards at Mahjong

Sometimes, we simply need to fall back on chill moments to feel better about life, and I think my Patreons thought so too xD this month's prompt was teamwork, and I was quite surprised to see the winning prompt happened to be one of the most lighthearted moments of Sokkla teamwork in the story: Azula sneakily gives away false information about the tiles Sokka had been gathering... thus, her guards discarded the tiles he needed to attain victory. They're all quite shocked and confused by the outcome, while the co-conspirators are, of course, quite pleased instead.

This takes place on Azula's barge, unfortunately I still don't really know how to draw it without making a mess, but I hope I'll get better at it the more I do it :'D I hope the Mahjong tiles look okay too. This artwork kind of feels like a callback, or even a redraw, of one I did maaaany years ago, but Sokka wasn't in that one because that game would have been the ones Azula played while Sokka was riding Xin Long back to his house. Therefore, drawing them together here was even more gratifying than the first piece was!

At any rate, I hope you guys like it!

If you want to be part of the creative process behind these pieces, a $1 Patreon pledge is enough to make you eligible for suggesting the monthly prompts and voting on them, as well as reading Gladiator snippets 6 days before the chapter's release!

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Gladiator's Tenth Anniversary

Against all odds... we have made it! Not only is it crazy that we've managed to keep going for ten years... it's also really crazy that my internet survived over 12 hours worth of uploading the project. I was very much terrified that it would collapse at some point, but somehow it didn't, and thank the universe for that.

While I'm definitely rejoicing in Gladiator's big milestone... I also admit I'm grieving a major setback that was dealt against me and my life plans earlier this week. It felt bad enough that I nearly lost all my drive to finish what I was doing... but I didn't spend the last months working non-stop on this project in vain. So, as hard as the road ahead might be, I'll keep going in the hopes of finally finding a better future for myself and my family in due time. Gladiator can keep me somewhat sane in the mean time, I hope (?)

I'm really stoked to have endured the hurdles and challenges that have run parallel with my telling this story (as well as the challenges within the story itself, too...) so that I could be here today to say... that I'm really grateful that I chose to go all in on this journey ten years ago. Gladiator has changed me and built me up, perhaps more than anyone knows, even myself. I'm not quite where I want to be in life yet... but Gladiator has fulfilled some of my most ambitious dreams as a writer, far sooner than I ever imagined it would. I'm really glad I've come as far as I have... and I'm also grateful to all of you who have accompanied me on this journey so far. It has been an extraordinary experience, one that many aspiring writers dream of but aren't always lucky enough to live through. I certainly was fortunate to find my way to this story when I did, knowing I was making a huge commitment and knowing that, as long as I gave it my everything, I wouldn't regret it.

Thank you for sticking by me as I carry us forward through Gladiator's Part 3, all the way towards what I hope will be the most epic conclusion I could bring to this massive story. I hope you enjoy the video <3

(... also, all the new art in the video shall be posted, at full resolution, in my Patreon in due time, in case anyone wants to see it in better detail... :'D)

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Why would you do this Azula, Sokka was so cute and excited 😭😭😭💔💔

Art by Artcraawl on Instagram

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Fic-to-Art #27: Azula, Mai and Ty Lee's friendship

This month's prompt was friendship, and while the contest was fierce, ultimately the oldest of Gladiator's friendships won out. Therefore, I drew these small pieces to show the progression of the bond between these three within the story :D

The first two scenes aren't 1:1 with anything shown in the story, they're more along the lines of things I never got to write but always imagined likely between them. I'll always believe Ty Lee was the instigator of this friendship, and I can't imagine anything more suitable for her than to pick out the two girls she found interesting in school and deciding they would all be friends, while the two girls in question remained entirely confused about the whole thing.

Fast forward a few years later, and as a lot of the baggage and chaos from canon never happened, Azula, Mai and Ty Lee get to stay friends as they grow older, bonding over things that weren't depicted here (such as their experience in Ember Island, sans Zuko, where they got to understand each other better, Ty Lee's fall from grace, Mai's choice regarding who to marry...), mainly because I really didn't have the time to expand on everything. So, as tough as things could get, these three stuck it out together and no matter if Azula is too busy to hang out with them sometimes, theirs is the kind of friendship that all of them can always return to, with full awareness and trust that they'll always have each other's backs.

The last scene is my favorite scene between them altogether, and it's their conversation right before Ty Lee's wedding. It's a really heartfelt moment where Ty Lee is unusually vulnerable and very honest about what these two mean to her, and this time both Azula and Mai drop all pretenses and are completely honest about how much they care about her too. It's pretty much the crystallization of that friendship in one of my favorite chapters to write, ever!

So... there we go! Hope you guys like it! If you want to be part of the creative process behind these pieces, a $1 pledge is enough to make you eligible for suggesting and voting for prompts, as well as reading Gladiator snippets 6 days before the new chapter is released!

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All Trades Jack @ Art Station

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So lonely…

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Made this aaaages ago but I had one of those “something is off so I’ll return to it later” scenarios ;v; Originally made for a friend who’s favorite Arcane character is Ekko, and their friend who’s fave is Jinx - Both are some of my favorites from the series too so it was also self indulgent :’))

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Azula and Sokka in a modern urban style AU

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the birth of a jinx (based on Alexandre Cabanel’s Birth of Venus, 1863)