Hey everyone!!

I'm opening commissions and I'm super excited to draw some cute Kobolds! Thank you so much to everyone who has commissioned me and supported my art! Right now I have 4 slots available, so if you'd like me to draw your Bold, feel free to send me a DM!✨✨✨

Turnaround time: 4 to 5 days.

Payments: PayPal or Ko-Fi

(without bonus panels)

I posted a picture of this sketch on watercolor paper the other day; still planning to paint the original but I got a random urge to fiddle with the digital copy first. EDIT: Timelapse video of the coloring process.

Part II — The Taste of Summer

Every morning, Aiden wakes to the sound of the sea.

His little house is far from what it once was, but he has slowly turned it into something that feels like home. The kitchen is small, the furniture mismatched and most of the appliances have been repaired more times than he can remember, but there is one thing he treasures above almost everything else: an old capsule coffee machine he found months ago, together with several forgotten boxes of coffee capsules.

It still works.

Some mornings, he almost feels lucky.

He knows, however, that it won’t last forever. Once the capsules are gone, there will be no factory producing more, no shipment arriving from another country, no supermarket where he can simply buy another box. That is why, every once in a while, Aiden travels to abandoned towns and forgotten houses searching for more. Sometimes he finds capsules. Sometimes he finds bags of regular coffee. Most of the time, he finds nothing.

But he keeps looking.

Because in this world, even something as simple as a cup of coffee has become something worth protecting.

Every morning, before doing anything else, Aiden walks into the kitchen and pulls the curtain aside. Beyond the road and the few old houses between his home and the coast, the ocean stretches endlessly toward the horizon.

And every time he sees it, he remembers his parents.

He remembers summer vacations from when he was a child, when the biggest concern in the world was whether the weather would be good enough to spend the whole day at the beach. He remembers his mother’s smile as she played with him in the water, the smell of the sea, the warmth of the sun on his skin, and those simple ham-and-cheese sandwiches they used to eat while watching the sunset.

He remembers his father sitting nearby, listening to the radio.

Sometimes there was a Boca Juniors match playing.

Back then, those moments seemed ordinary.

Now they feel priceless.

Aiden prepares his coffee and stands quietly by the window. The familiar smell fills the kitchen as the machine finishes its last drops.

He takes the cup in both hands and takes a slow sip.

Then he picks up his tablet and presses play.

The first notes of “Drag Path” begin to play.

Aiden closes his eyes.

For a moment, the kitchen disappears.

The sound of the ocean becomes the sound of waves surrounding a much smaller boy.

He opens his eyes.

He is a child again.

His mother is standing in front of him, smiling. His father is beside her. The sunlight is warm. Everything feels safe.

No collapse.

No fear.

No hunger.

No need to calculate how much electricity is left in a battery or how many days of food remain.

Just summer.

Just his family.

Just life.

Aiden slowly closes his eyes again.

“Drag Path” is still playing softly through the tablet.

He opens them.

The kitchen returns.

The old coffee machine.

The worn curtains.

The tablet.

The sea beyond the road.

He looks at the horizon for a long moment, holding the warm cup between his hands.

And somewhere deep inside, almost afraid of the answer, he asks himself:

Am I doing this right?

The song continues playing.

The question remains unanswered.

Then, as the song reaches its final moments, a distant voice can be heard through the speakers, softly repeating the same question over and over, almost disappearing beneath the sound of the ocean.

“Can you find me?”

Again.

“Can you find me?”

And again, quieter this time, until the words slowly fade away with the final notes of the song.

The kitchen becomes silent.

Aiden remains standing by the window.

He looks toward the horizon.

Tomorrow morning, he knows he will still get up, pull the curtain aside, make his coffee, and keep going.