collab: rare sight

Collaboration with
...and indirectly sort of with
I made the pencil art for this; RockGaara picked it up in one of her livestreams and inked + colored it. She made some really good changes and fixes that made it look much more like what I had tried for, too, and checked with me the entire time (having patience with my coloring preferences, too XD). It was my first collab with anyone but my sister, and it was really exciting

Not going to spill details about my own scenario behind this, apart from a crossover battle where Sonic just downed a Koopa airship in a pretty epic way but also went down himself, and nearly drowned before Mario could fish him out. I'll be drawing it eventually, anyhow. >3>

BUT gave me a STORY response to this picture when I last posted it. It's über sweet and gave me more ideas for my comic.

Writing below by

It was hard for Sonic to pick out what aspect of his situation he liked least: that his whole body felt so sore he could not move a muscle, that he was falling out of the sky a thousand feet up, or that he was going to land in a big body of water and, in the event that he survived the fall, drown to death. "Still," he thought, looking up at the explosion from which he was falling away, "at least I get a good show on the way down."

Still, Sonic could not get too upset despite the unpleasant scenario. His plan had worked. The enemy had taken a good, hard hit. Even if he died...even if he died in the water, the last place in the world he ever wanted to die...he could do so happy knowing that much. It was thus with a certain sense of relief that he felt the water overtake him; at least now he could just get it over with. There was a certain temptation to not even bother holding his breath. Yet before he could decide, he saw something in the blurred, unclear world beneath the water. A figure, swimming toward him...he could not make out who or what at first. Friend? Foe?

Mario.

He felt the plumber's strong arms pull him up, felt those legs kicking, kicking, kicking tirelessly upward until there was no water to kick in anymore, felt each step on the hard rock surface. Looking up at Mario's face, Sonic found it hard-lined, determined in a way the hedgehog rarely saw in the otherwise lighthearted hero. There was another detail he noticed. "You lost your hat," he coughed teasingly.

"Better that than something important," Mario answered simply, looking down at Sonic with a gaze both steely and comforting.

Normally, Sonic would have waved him off, gotten out of his arms and onto his own feet, but he knew the farthest he would get was some weak wiggling with his legs before falling over. For the first time since infancy, Sonic the Hedgehog did not feel like getting onto his own feet. Still... "Um...don't. Y'know. Don't tell anyone about this, OK?"

Mario simply grinned, shook his head, and kept walking.




Mario (c) Nintendo
Sonic the hedgehog (c) Sega
Pencil art by me
Inks + color by
Writing by