Art Block (Hollow Knight Double TF TG FtM)

This nonsense sound had been being uttered from her mouth all afternoon, as she stared down at a blank sheet of paper. Sherry had been groveling over her muse all afternoon, crushing and tossing away anything unsatisfactory. Crumpled up pieces of paper were all over her desk, and she had realized the worst: she had Art Block. She had been commissioned for such a good amount of money, and nothing seemed to be coming out right. She placed her head on her desk and sighed; at least she got the lineart down, inked, even! The person had given her a videogame character commission, of two characters from Hollow Knight named “Sheo” and “the Nailsmith.” She raised her head off of her desk, grabbing her art utensils and shoving them in her apron’s belly pocket; she felt that it had been a day.

As she stood up from her desk, her roommate quickly stepped in; Natalie had come to check on her, and bring her breakfast. The chubby, stout girl looked slightly worried. “Hey, have you gotten your muse back? That piece is done tomorrow, and it isn’t even mid-day yet.”

It’s not even mid-day yet? Sherry scolded herself under her breath; how could she feel that it was so late, even though it was still early? Natalie carefully put the cereal on Sherry’s art desk, before walking over and making a seat next to her. Natalie rested her head on Sherry’s shoulder and sighed. “If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t been feeling “in the mood” for my hobby, either.” she murmured, rotating on her side until she felt more comfortable on Sherry’s shoulder. Sherry had noticed that Natalie hadn’t been going to the shooting range lately, even though admissions had been free. Sherry rubbed her head, making sure to push her red hair out of her face.

Sherry rested her head on Natalie, closing her eyes in a desperate attempt to think up motivation for herself. She glanced over at the colorless lineart, and a flash of emotions came over her; the painter character, Sheo…. is connecting to her somehow? This drawing, this painter character was…. calling out to her. She raised her head up, making sure not to let Natalie fall, and swiftly grabbed her copics. She frantically searched through her copics, while clicking rapidly through links of Sheo’s design. She looked at the references intently, and Natalie looked at the copics to find colors while Sherry was analyzing the drawings. When Sherry looked back, she beamed at Natalie; the colors were perfect. She grabbed the copics and set to work on the first part of the drawing; Sheo.

The colors were indeed perfect; almost like they were controlling themselves, they were laid quickly and smoothly inside the bold black lines. She started with the dark gray-blue of the character’s skin, or carapace, first, and the rest of the strokes worked like magic. As she put down the skin color, she started sweating; she was starting to get very, very hot….

It started with one of her hands, which just so happened to be the first hand she was coloring. An aching feeling started as her hand was converted to a dark bluish-gray carapace, fingers fusing together into one piece before becoming segmented, the now-useless bones being dissolved to strengthen the carapace. As she colored the maroon armor, it formed and clasped around her lower arm segments. The fleshy carapace crept up her arm, converting her more quickly as she sped up her drawing. She began sweating bullets now, as the carapace covered her torso and her bones disappeared, but she was not willing to lose the muse! She wasn’t hurting, just feeling like she was incinerating. As she colored, the shifting seemed to follow her train of art progress. When her torso was converted, her breasts disappeared entirely, and yet she started to feel heavier.

She had the sudden urge to stand up; it didn’t make any sense, but her heaviness made her afraid of breaking her chair for some reason. She gained the weight slowly, and the armor she was coloring under the character’s apron, the armor formed under her own apron and seemed to fit her growing body shape like a glove, along with replacing most of her other clothes. By the end of the weight gain, she was quite a strong, large, and tall shape, with a round belly and being taller than her doorframe in upper-body height. As the carapace reached to her lower area, her gender was swiftly changed to the opposite, though it was not defined on the outside. The conversion reached down to his legs, which shrank and became undefined nubs; the maroon armor covered the entirety of the legs and what was left of his feet. He was now panting; why was she- he so hot? Was it stress? He grabbed a nearby napkin and wiped his head to dry of sweat. He didn’t understand, he still felt normal, and this was just distracting him from his muse!

He swiftly started on the character’s head, and finished it quickly as well. As he colored the head in, his own head was changed; over his face, a white mask with two nostrils was placed, and his old hair disappeared to make room for his new carapace. His eyes became a black color, his ears disappeared into his head, and his nose was reduced to two small nostrils. The hat that the character was wearing appeared and placed itself on his head, with three horns and a maroon headband to hold it on his head. He decided to color the ragged cloak last, after finding what he thought were the perfect shades of blue and grey. The cloak made itself home over his back as he colored it in on the drawing, the fur and cloth draping perfectly over his shoulders.

Finally, he was done with his…. self-portrait? His mind was blurry; he was still sweating bullets and panting from the heat permeating his body. Despite how hot he was, he quickly snapped out of it; somebody had commissioned art of him for money, him and….

“Nailsmith?”

Sheo asked himself as he looked over at Natalie, who looked stunned, almost nauseous. Sheo looked intently at Natalie; they don’t look like him, but…

“Nailsmith?” he asked again, this time directly at Natalie. Natalie was oblivious for a second, before becoming less stunned when she realized it was directed at her. Sheo saw her and smiled under his mask; it was definitely him, and it couldn’t be anyone else. Sheo asked her a new question this time, as for if they had an easel. Natalie dashed into another room, before hastily coming back with a rather large easel. Sheo gently took the easel and placed it down, before putting the drawing on it; he only needed to finish one thing.

Sheo grabbed the copics in hand yet again, and set quickly to work on coloring in the Nailsmith. He started on one of his arms first, and expanded quickly. Natalie hissed in pain as all of her fingers fused into one curved claw, and her skin was converted to a greyish-blue carapace, bones dissolving again. The rest of her arm was even more swiftly converted than Sheo’s, with Sheo’s superior artistic skill making his coloring much quicker. Her arms were converted to very defined carapaces, with noticeable segments for joints. Sheo went for the body next, reaching for his lighter blues. Natalie felt like she was incinerating as her body expanded, becoming a much rounder and much heavier shape. The insectoid carapace spread quickly, giving her a hunched-over stance with lighter colored segments for her underbelly and darker blue for the back armor; her bones dissolved to fortify the carapace to be even stronger. Her gender changed as well, but again was not apparent at all, only becoming apparent later. This had left him quite tall, even with what was going to come next.

Sheo tackled the coloring of the legs in much of the same way, in an even swifter manner, his marker strokes each being beautiful in their own right. Natalie snarled in pain as his legs shrunk to a small size, leaving him almost comically top-heavy. His legs were converted to end in sharp, feetless stumps, became two jointed, and covered in the same darker-blue carapace as his back, along with splitting painfully into four. Natalie- Nailsmith was burning up, sweating intensely, and panting heavily, yet Sheo wasn’t done yet. Sheo only needed to finish one final part; coloring in the head.

Sheo filled in the carapaced part first, filling it in with the deeper blue. The Nailsmith hissed and then cried out in pain, tears and sweat going down his face as his last remaining skin was converted. His skull dissolved, his ears and nose melted into the rest of his head, and his short hair receded back to be converted to the same insectoid blue carapace as the rest of his body. His eyes were shut with the crying and pain, and then seemed to stay shut; he was still able to see somehow…. and saw his love, drawing a picture of them both. He couldn’t take his eyes off of him, even in his intense pain, even as a large, two-tipped horn grew from his forehead. The drawing was beautiful; no less was ever to be expected of Sheo. As Sheo began coloring in his beard, the same pale beard grew quickly from the Nailsmith’s bottom face segment, covering up the entire segment and growing to about half of his height. The Nailsmith fell over and held his stomach from pain.

Sheo was finally done, the artwork was finally done! He looked at his drawing proudly; these strange, modern art tools worked their craft marvelously! He looked over to the Nailsmith for him to come and see, and was shocked to see him whimpering on the floor in pain, and sweating profusely. Sheo quickly dashed over, crouching down to try and hold Nailsmith’s head up.

“Nailsmith, are you okay?”

The weakened Nailsmith slowly nodded, and put his hand on Sheo’s; they were both feeling dangerously hot, almost like they both had a severe entire-body fever. The Nailsmith attempted to stand up, yet stumbled over whenever he tried; he was too weakened from the transformation, and kept shaking when he moved. Sheo hoisted one of the Nailsmith’s arms over his own shoulder and set to find a room where they could rest. The Nailsmith mentioned the commission, but Sheo felt that it could wait until he recovered over whatever happened to put him in such pain.

The drawing sat on the easel, and pulsed with a faint Dream Essence.