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This comic is my homegrown doujinshi (fan comic) based off of the Playstation game "Final Fantasy 7" by Square-Enix. I'm not making a profit from my work. It's free, it's for fun and it's here for everyone to enjoy.
Got a question? Want to leave a personal comment, make a suggestion, or donate some fanart or fanfiction? Mail nicole.wehmann [AT] gmail [DOT] com.
Growth started as a fanfiction and can still be found at various online sources for people who want spoilers, though I recommend that you don't read the story if you haven't yet. I decided to create a comic out of the story to try and improve my artistic skills. Hopefully, the artwork will get better as the story progresses.
The main characters of this comic are Yuffie Kisaragi, Vincent Valentine and Nanaki. Other characters from the game make small appearances, but the story is about these three, nobody else. I bent the canon to establish Sephiroth as Vincent and Lucrecia's son, which is important for the plot. See question #11 for the big 'canon universe' question. I like to think this story remains inside of an in-canon Alternate Universe, and takes place post-game.
About me - I'm American, married, and living in Germany as a civilian. Any more about me can be found at the very out-of-date website www.eccentrik.org.
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
Yes, it will be ten chapters long in total with an epilogue. The comic deviates in some ways from the fanfiction. Y'know, in that there is a tenth chapter.
Yuffie Kisaragi, Vincent Valentine and Nanaki.
No, they're mentioned in passing, but they are both dead in this story, and will remain so.
Well, that's the point. I want to get better.
My email address is nicole.wehmann [AT] gmail [DOT] com. Please title your email with something appropriate if mailing about the comic, such as "FF7 COMIC."
Leave a comment, vote for the comic, rate it. If you're feeling really generous send me gifts of money, olives and fine looking men and/or women.
Yes, I do, as long as your site has something to do with either FF7 or comics and is in good taste. Go ahead and email me if you want to do a link exchange.
The first time I played Final Fantasy VII, I found the optional character Yuffie early on, but didn't find the optional character Vincent until the end of the game. So, the second time I played the game, I took Vincent into my party early on, and I also made Yuffie "date" Cloud just to see what would happen. I also watched the dialogue more carefully. It gave me some ideas, especially the message that popped up when Vincent learned his fourth limit break ("I'm becoming less human.") Besides that, I always liked Nanaki as a character. It's a pity you can't kick Cloud out of your main party!
Wanting my art to get better is the first reason. Reading other good web comics, and watching other amateurs' artwork get better with time also was a motivator. Doing a web comic is hard work, and there are only two possible results: you either give up early on, or your art gets better. So here we are!
Not anymore! The story was written BEFORE "Advent Children," "Dirge of Cerberus" or even any of the "FFVII Compilation" was released. I kind of think lots of things about the FF7 universe went sour when the creators tried to overexplain everything, so no, this isn't canon anymore. It takes into account ONLY the game universe, and makes some "fandom" assumptions - Lucrecia had GREEN eyes, Sephiroth is Lucrecia and Vincent's son, Vincent still has Chaos inside of himself and Nanaki never found Dinne, that canon mate of his.
I use cold-press (very smooth) watercolour paper which I buy in bulk at my local art store and then cut down manually to roughly A4 size. I draw with a mechanical HB pencil and go over the lines I want to keep with india ink. I erase pencil lines over light areas (skins, whites) with a white vinyl eraser and leave everything else alone after the inking. When the ink is dry, I fill in most areas with a solid block of colour using a watercolour pencil. Then I re-colour over the solid blocks with my shade tone, usually a brown, blue or purple. I use a wet brush to moisten the pigment and make it look smooth; when all of that is dry, I scan it in and typically darken the image in Photoshop, and then add hair highlights, text and occasionally special effects using a tablet and stylus. And there you have it.
Incidentally I don't actually think my style of colouring is very good compared to things like typical CGing. It does take me significantly less time to work with watercolour pencils than anything else, though, including my computer - and considering the frequency and speed that I update with, that's crucial to this comic. No, I don't usually draw ahead of schedule - I usually complete a page one to two days before it's posted here on the site.
"Aerith" is the US spelling of the name. "Aeris" is the Japanese pronunciation of the same name. Personally I like Aeris better, so I used that one. It's a well-enough known quirk in the fandom that I don't think it really upsets the flow of the story.
"Lucretia" is a mistake I made. I really thought her name was "Lucretia" for a while there, until "Dirge of Cerberus" came out. Since I lost my old working files in a HD crash, however, it's very difficult to correct in the earlier pages of the comic.
Yuffie's eyes are "naturally" purple in this comic. They glow whitish when the mako poisoning comes into play.
No. Please see question 12 for the answer as to why - mainly time constraints, coupled with a loss of all my tones when my HD crashed. I can tell you guys with certainty that my lineart has improved drastically since the black and white days. My colouring might not be the best, but believe me, the comic lineart did not look better in black and white. ^^;
Sorry, but I am much too busy at the moment to take picture commissions. Template commissions are negotiable, if you're willing to pay me.