Rita Fei Illustration
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AERYS

"The lands we traverse have always been alive with magic. Our ancestors might have perished long ago, without even a handprint to our legacy, had we not learned to draw power from the earth and its creatures to carry us through those harsh and unforgiving years. These powers saw us through the dawn of our species as we thrived and came onto our own. We developed technologies that functioned in tandem to magic, and this vitality surged and coursed through our cities as it did through our veins.

After centuries, however, that magic has been dwindling. Devices dim and machines fall silent as the flowers wilt, the rivers run dry, and the birds fall dead from the trees. Their energies trickle through our fingers even as we scramble desperately to retrieve them.

This is a world building project done for my final year at Emily Carr in 2016. It's about a place and time built up by magic and adventure and grandness that has fallen from its former glory, and about its inhabitants struggling to keep their own inner darkness at bay. At the same time, it's also my attempt to explore what fascinates me about the complexity of human experience and the ways in which we consolidate our differences. It's about the connections we make, the things that drive us apart, and what helps us to rebuild. Each of these characters (6 in total) have come to represent something different to me, and the aim of this project is to try and translate that into narrative form, into something tangible. 

Kira

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Olesya Kadnikov

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Rielle moore

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Tolui Khangal

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bass (Rhys Bassili)

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Tasha will always know me too well to not see me coming. 

On some level, I must find this reassuring.

As long as we keep finding ourselves at a stalemate
As long as she continues leading her shots just a little too slowly
As long as I repeatedly misplace that one step so that it echoes a little louder than it should

...then I don’t have to lose the only real family I have left.

As long as we engage in this perpetual dance, we never need to face what comes after.

“Father?” He cracked the door open, light spilling into the darkened room. He almost missed the shape, hunched over in his the office’s armchair. He’d always loved that chair, loved the regality of the tall back and whoever was sitting in it. And while he recognized the figure of his father in the chair, he did not recognize the weariness in his brow, the defeat in his sloped shoulders, the limpness of his hands.
“Father, are you alright?” He asked again.
The figure looked up. His cheeks were streaked with tears.
“I am undone. My hands I have dirtied beyond absolution, so that you may live without ever having to dirty your own.”

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Value sketches of possible key scenes
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Rough storyboard sketches
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“They were magnificent once,” Olesya mused out loud.
“They still are.”
She laughed harshly before she could stop herself, the sound ringing off the hulls and echoing back at her. “They’re dilapidated, forgotten. They sit here, rotting into the earth, replaced by ugly monstrosities that propel themselves through the air with clunking engines, barely managing to stay afloat. In what possible way can they measure up to the glory they once held? We conquered the skies!”
“What they are now does not erase what they once were.”
She had stopped and turned on her heel to argue, when he flashed an easy smile at her. She tried to summon the scorn that had filled her just moments before, yet found herself smiling back. “How do you manage to say so little and still infuriate me so?”
He shrugged, continued his slow pace through the yards. “An acquired skill.”

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  • Illustration
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  • Gen:LOCK S2
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