DXT2 Round 4.5

Best view is full view
Here are the individual pages just in case motionbook doesn't work/cooperate: sta.sh/2mwqom62ptm
I would've loved to put more things, but the Xrosses/Fusions took priority this round. Eitherway I'm fairly proud of how things turned out. Played around with the copic marker tools to do some slight shading.

Commentary on individual pages
(The page numbers may not align completely since page 1 here is page 0 on the little page line up on motion book. I'm gonna label these in the order they appear, in both here and the sta-sh link, so I hope it won't be too weird/confusing)

Page 1: Knowlmon is one of those Digimon that can traverse the digital space unharmed. Back when he and Athena lived in the Digi-world he was her main source of transport between zones. Athena has personally developed more seamless means of shifting(without the painful-lookng skin peeling), but is showing Alex the basics.

Page 2: Flashback!! The little snake Digimon shown is a fan Rookie I made for Mervamon called Ophiussamon. What that Mervamon did to little Athena will(hopefully) be explained in due time. The page also shows off Knowlmon's ability to project the thoughts/memories of one person onto others. Convenient for lengthy back stories that maybe boring without any proper visuals. The more direct visuals of these memories plays an important role in terms of contrasts as shown later on.

Page 3: Rosy's folks were, a Sirenmon not unlike Danny DeVito, and a BanchoLilymon. Rosy didn't have that much self-awareness at the time, so there's some distance to the memory. She was definitely there, and definitely experienced it, but it feels odd to recollect on it due to how far back it goes. The training regiment is the origin behind this round's multitude of non-core related Xrosses for Xue's army. Arkhammon shows off his architectural background by building the training equipment needed for everyone's training. "Release the Kraken" has proven to be a highly effective means to multi-task.

Page 4: Not much to say here, this page is full of references to previous rounds. It finally kind of addresses the fact that all of the Lock Zone related Digimon keep being absent whenever Al and Xue's X-Viruses are involved. Well, not anymore!

Page 5: As Alex says here, this is just a second-hand account of these events. So there's a less direct 'in there' feeling as Athena and Rosy's flashbacks.

Page 6: I hated this page, it was one of those pages that killed the pace of the whole working experience because too much time was spent on it. In this case, I had to rework the latter half due to an inconsistency/plot hole. Although, I am content with the changes as it focuses more on Alex and Xue's sentiments over the implications of their X-Virus infections. Even if the infection is suppressed in servers outside of Versandii(ie;OCTs), they'll have to go back to their home-server eventually, facing a slow and insidious overwrite. The others are like: "Hey don't let a potential crappy future bring ya down, you're fine now right?" or something like that. . .

Page 7: Now for someone completely different! I've been wanting to show these characters for a very long time since they were partially shown in Jojo's flashback in DWC, and mentioned as 'missing' by Barx in Round 2.5. Special thanks to Bauldeury for letting me use Middle Zone, and Morgomon for this .5 round.

Page 8: Big vague dark blobs are good for whenever you just don't feeling like drawing a big evil army of soulless/corrupted minions. It's pretty inconsistent within the story, but Breaker is meant to have strained speech, like he grunts and growls each word out. This, combined with his faceless face makes him come off as very beastly and scary, so his more articulate brother does most of the talking/social interactions.

Page 9: "Go play hero some zone else" Uuuugh. I got the impression that Middle Zone, with it's Dark Lord that regularly corrupts the souls/digicores of nearby Digimon, especially dissenters, would have locals that would largely prefer to stay out of said tyrant's way. But these knights will do whatever they want.

Page 10: If it wasn't obvious from the previous page, Breaker's strength as a geomancer really shows here. Slayer, on the other hand, handles feathers and feather-like accessories. Maybe the army got reset/purified in partial Royal Knight magic? Or were they too far gone in corruption to ever come back properly? My optimism says the former, but it's not really my Zone, and I forgot to ask Bauld what would happen to Morgo-minions upon defeat/death. I admittedly fell back on the popular 'revert back to egg' defeat option of most Digimon narratives.

Page 11: Apologies to Bauldeury if it turns out Respawn Garden has nothing to do with Digieggs. I tried my best to follow the Middle Zone Map shown here I was told that Morgo resided at the Destin-Gates. So the many trials shown are: venturing through Dice plains, Strong Iron Mines, and the Shadow Woods with some implications of heroics here and there. Breaker channeled me and was like "I just wanna go straight for the boss," and got it out of the way ASAP. The scary thing about Breaker's geomancy isn't the scale in which he can use it, but the delicate precision in which in can manipulate the earth within this large scale.

Page 12: "Fight me for it. In this pit--that used to be my basement." is my favorite line in the whole comic. Nothing much happens here besides Slayer falling into a trap.

Page 13: Not one of my favorite pages, what with the cluttered Digimon ambush on Breaker and Morgomon's imagine spot of a loyal Slayer and Breaker holding zero spears/swords. Despite the goofy visual, Slayer's wall-eyes were intentional to illustrate how badly the 'voice' is messing with his mind.

Page 14: On the other hand, this is one of my favorite pages this .5 round. Art-wise, I hope it reads well, and apologies since the content in this flashback is pretty dark..(Lemme drag you away from your dying friend with the exact same hand that I ran through his stomach : DDDDD ) But it's essential for finally explaining some things like: one, the origin behind Xue's stomach wound from Round One and two, why Jojo was so large and hostile in the same round. It also shows why the chain necklace that Xue used to wear is nowhere to be seen in this current setting.

Page 15: Things aren't working out as Morgomon planned. Notes from his creator implied that Morgo had spent an extremely long time hiding behind minions, a trap-filled dungeon, and an insidious voice in the lowest quarters to make sure any and all opposition would be worn out by the time they reach him. "When you get out of the room, the voice leaves your head, but not without damaging your willpower."

Page 16: As a fighter he was described as "May use a gladius" and "He is more the type to use some poisoned attacks, and just wait for his opponent death, saying some random evil speech. Or using curses against weak, condemning to a dirty fate." Unfortunately I couldn't include any poison fog since the deadline was drawing in closer, and I was leaning the most towards using the voice to trigger the flashback in page 14. Every idea involving the poison fog would've taken up too many pages. I was able to use the gladius, though I regret making Morgomon's 'evil purple' since it makes it a bit hard to see on his cloak. Slayer can use Feather's Edge(special thanks to DevonianFossil for the help on the name) to transform any one of his feathers into a blade of his choosing. In this case: a gladius to jam through a Dark Lord's face.

It's pretty apparent that these knight guys are ridiculously powerful, the later part of this .5 was too show this off. Emphasizing how seriously bad it would be if these two met up with Alex and Xue in person, especially if one recalls the past events shown in page 14.
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Digimon(c) Bandai/Toei
Morgomon and Middle Zone as a whole belongs to (apologies for any mess ups.)