… For something special coming down the line in a few months’ time!

Apologies on the lack of a page this week — we’ll return to our regularly-scheduled program next week for sure. But this week, I wanted to take an opportunity to begin the reveal of a wonderful new project in the world of the Western Deep.

When chapter 2 concludes, Rachel will be taking a short hiatus from the comic — a proper vacation, actually, as the fact of the matter is she has been living and breathing Beyond the Western Deep for over four years now, with weekly page arting for three of those years and very few breaks in between. So, before Rachel returns to work on chapter 3, we will have a brand new artist working on a fun side-story that takes place between those two chapters.

Nessian

That artist, as many readers might have figured out just by looking at the artwork, is none other than the amazing Jerome Jacinto! We’re all incredibly excited by the work he’s done so far for this side-story, and we can’t wait to share more with you as we get closer to the end of chapter 2!

I won’t be revealing much about this side story in this first post, save for that it will be roughly chapter-length, will feature a completely new cast of characters, take place in a new location within the Four Kingdoms, and will tie directly into events in the main storyline of Beyond the Western Deep following the events of chapter 2. It has a very different tone from the main story, thanks to the different cast of characters and the new location, and the work Jerome has done so far has us very excited about it.

This week, for guest art, I wanted to showcase some incredible artwork from Saraa Luna done a little while back! So, as some of you might have seen, Rachel did some art a little while ago that saw some of the main cast of BWD represented as human characters. Saraa took this as inspiration for a series of pieces portraying both Quinlan and Dakkan’s more human sides!

shiitaketissues_quindakhuman

shiitake_quinhuman

shiitaketissues_dakhuman

I honestly don’t know what to say aside from OMG THEY LOOK PERFECT! Quin’s red-headed hair and freckled face (not to mention his nervous posture), Dakkan’s mischievous disposition — it’s all just too perfect. Thank you SO much, Saraa! This is truly some incredible work, and we just love it :)