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Rooftop Dinner Date
🕑 Added 2025-08-22 16:00:12 +0000 UTCZen and Raine having dinner on a New Edinmire rooftop overlooking the city at night, suggested by MarvTheHugPharaoh!
I kind of love painting cityscapes. It's probably only because I don't often get the chance, since I run a fantasy webcomic. They're a lot of work to draw, but there's something about a nice city landscape that feels relaxing and melancholy, to me at least. Particular after dusk, with all the windows lit up. There's a certain dichotomy to it: the chaos of a busy city, but quieter at night, especially when seen from far above.
I rarely get the chance to be in cities personally (usually only when I go to conventions or on vacation) but I enjoy it, at least in small doses. Every time I look out at a city at night, I tend to find myself picking out a random window or car driving by and wondering what's going on with them. When I paint backgrounds like this, I try to invoke that same feeling. I attempt to add enough details that hopefully someone can look at it and wonder what might be going on back there.
That might just be me, though! :D
Here are some more city background art: Rainy Modern Raine | Lo-Fi Hip Hop Kat | Snowy Overpass | Rooftop Laura | Cyberpunk Raine - The City
Comments
StaggyTheBoyscoutSlayer
I get what you wrote in the description. Sometimes, like when I stop at a traffic light, I look around and see people. I then realize that they too have a life and I wonder what they'll be doing later in the day...
Muddypaws
I see where you’re placing that hind foot mister!
Ranbowshep
That is a very interesting suggestion, and I would vote for it. If you ever get the chance to, you probably would have to shorted it a fair bit though!
Sir Reginald Lee IV
This is magnificent. I'm sure I've said this before years ago, but what I love most about the Modern AU is how perfectly it blends with the traditional Twokinds aesthetic. Like, this feels exactly like how I'd imagine the TK-verse would look and feel a few hundred years after the comics take place. If making the main comic wasn't already so much work, I'd happily champion a spin-off that makes the Modern AU official and public, largely to see more of these sumptuous cityscapes. Sadly, I can't afford to submit official sketch suggestions, but some I've wanted to see for ages are more slice-of-life scenes, kind of along the lines of "Summer Festival". My suggestion for that would be a scene in Grand Saria Terminus, New Edinmire's central railway station (which I imagine as either something hyper modern like Berlin Hauptbahnhof, all black steel and arching glass, like a shopping mall with trains running through it, or like plans to rebuild the original New York Pennsylvania Station; Classical Romanesque pillars and intricate latticed ironwork soaring to glass vaults, but with tasteful hints of LED flatscreens in brass cases) with little vignettes of our characters' lives intersecting; Kat, Laura, and Willow frantically sprinting to catch their train, Trace and Flora at a burger kiosk, Clovis rubbing her temples and explaining to Brutus that you don't give people tips to win the Find The Lady game, Mike and Evals at their part-time station porter jobs helping Keith and Natani with their luggage, Scythe and Maren admiring a poster for beachside vacations, the list goes on.
CrimsonQuill086
Don't jump up and down. DON'T jump up and down... I am jumping up and down right now. Seriously, where do I BEGIN? I've ranted and raved about how much I love Raine in wholesome scenes enjoying herself. But EVERYTHING about this is so beautifully meticulously sketched out, I HOPE this gets coloured. I can SEE how much you love drawing city scapes here! Especially with those great skyscrapers in the foreground and the high up view, that is a view to dine on for sure! I love the arch bridge in the background, and the distant lights fading towards the horizon really selling the immensity of the urban environment! And as for the focal point? Good grief. I love Zen here. Chill, roguish, relaxed. Lounging around after a good meal, and just enjoying the present company, listening to Raine talk excitedly about whatever it is she's speaking of-magic, research, college, whatever it is, maybe even her books and fanfics (okay probably not the fanfics) but she is so animated!And that smile, that damned smile...they're just so chill. I am for sure a Raine/Red shipper due to Red's potential and active changes for the better. That remains so. But I understand and adore the Raine/Zen ship as well. And this is just such a cool scene...Augh. I ramble once more and will continue to do so,...Tom, it's glorious.
Revan Delmore
Thank you for the extra discussion on cityscapes. I really do enjoy your renditions of them. While I would never want to live in a city, I have a romanticized vision of how awesome city-nights could be. (Side tangent, it reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from Jack Reacher when Tom Cruise is at Rosamund Pike's downtown office in the middle of the night, and he's making comments about the people he can see working through the windows in the adjacent building).
Chris Yost
Nice to know I'm not the only guy who does all that
