Everyone could see that Aryan was working extremely hard. Half an hour had passed, and he had made quite a lot of progress in the storyboard. However, half the time had gone, and yet he was not done with that. It would be difficult to complete the panel composition.
Nina’s team was seated nearby, and Nina sketched steadily in her seat. She did not seem anxious at all. She was a talented artist, indeed. Her strokes came down on the drawing board resolutely; they were precise, so no corrections were needed. Her draft was beautiful, and everyone could see what the final product would look like.
Two assistants helped her to erase the extra lines. Nina’s artwork did not need much correction, and there was not much redundancy. Therefore, she did not bring many assistants with her. The two next to her had nothing much to do anyway. It was easy to see her talent and the effort that she had put in to develop her reputation over the years.
Elena withdrew her gaze from Nina’s screen and stared at Aryan instead. When compared with Aryan, Nina was still behind in terms of speed. However, she was almost done with her final illustration, while Aryan had not even completed the storyboard.
Layla sweated anxiously by her side. “What should we do? What should we do if we can’t finish the illustration?”
“Elena, what do you think? I’m not sure if our team can progress to the next round.
“If we can’t make it through this afternoon, then we would have lost our chance to proceed to the next round tomorrow.
“Aryan should proceed with his drawings as usual and stop worrying about Rufus.
“We can talk about Rufus’s part tomorrow. If we can’t make it through the round today, then any corrective measure that we can think of is pretty much useless.
“Can Aryan hear us? Elena, is there a way to tell him to make sure that we qualify today and worry Rufus later?”
“What should we do? The storyboard is not done yet…
“What to do?” Layla rattled on.
She was not sure when it had happened, but the noise that chattered in Elena’s ears had finally disappeared. Layla had quieted down. Elena did not know what was in her mind, but she did not hear her voice after that. Layla’s body had also seemed to have grown bigger, and the space between them was tighter. Their two bodies were close to each other.
However, Elena had no time to wonder why Layla seemed bigger or why the space between them had become crowded. She could not care about anything else other than Aryan.
Aryan did not draw the thumbnails at his usual speed, but Elena could see that he had put in all his effort. However, the thumbnails that he did that day seemed more detailed than his usual ones. Time ticked by. It was already one hour and forty minutes into the competition.
Finally, Aryan was about to start with the panel composition!
“Wow!”
Suddenly, loud gasps broke out in the auditorium. Elena’s heart tightened as her eyes locked onto the big screen. She did not even dare to breathe!
She finally understood why Aryan took more time to create the thumbnails. He was not slower than usual; he had added one more step to his usual technique, and that was to which was to mark the draft! Ordinary people might not be able to understand it.
Furthermore, Aryan had only tapped lightly on the screen, so other people would not be able to see it plainly. Even if they noticed it, they might think that it was some unimportant dots! Nonetheless, Elena could see them clearly! Those were not insignificant dots but markings of distances for the draft.
When Aryan completed the thumbnails and began to work on the draft, those markings immediately played its role. He did not even need to think about the shape of the face, limbs, and body of the character. He quickly got it done by joining the markings that he made earlier. It was so done perfectly that the inker would not need to work much on it! “Oh, my God! Is he… Is he human? It was like the work of a robot!” someone exclaimed from the auditorium. “Is he the god-like artist from the legendary September Studio? That’s so terrifying, how did he do it?”
The discussions among the audience made Nina, who concentrated on her illustrations, frowned. She would never lose her focus when she worked, not even if there were external disturbances. However, she had to turn around to peek at the display screen, and its scene almost took her breath away.
She was dumbfounded! The scene reminded her of TikTok videos of drawings that were fast-forwarded. Nina suspected that Aryan was even faster than those fast forwarded videos. No, he was faster than videos that had been fast-forwarded ten times its original pace!
The pencil made strokes on the drawing board speedily, and the result was a completed illustration. There was no need to edit the background, and it was all hand-drawn. He moved at top speed. It was as if there was already a completed artwork, and all he needed to do was to glide his pencils over the artwork to trace the lines, and the drawings would emerge into a finished piece of work. It was terrifying…
“Miss MarshMarsh, please focus!” The assistant by her side reminded her quickly. “Someone is about to hand in their work!”
Nina’s mind cleared, and she looked to the side. Sure enough, a team near them was about to submit their work! She would not be the first to hand in her work! Nina picked up her pencil quickly. She had done well in the beginning, and she even almost completed her work. However, the sound of Aryan’s pencil screeched on the drawing board bothered her so much that she could not continue with her own illustration.
“Miss Marsh…”
“Shut up!”
Nina closed her eyes and tried to calm herself, but she could not do it. No matter how hard she tried, she could not calm down! He was just too fast; extremely fast! She had never seen an artist work so quickly. She had never met such a worthy opponent!
“Miss Marsh, you must continue!” Even at the risk of a reprimand, Nina’s assistant anxiously reminded her again.
Nina knew that she had to continue with her own work. However, she could not do so! She could not continue with her drawing!
Finally, she stood up and handed the pen to her assistant. “You! Carry on!”
The assistant was a little stunned, but she knew that Nina would not be able to complete the drawing in her state of mind. The assistant took the pen and took Nina’s seat to continue with the unfinished task. As for Nina, her eyes were glued on the boy, seated not far away from her. Her fingertips trembled as she observed his fingers as they danced across the drawing board.
In the auditorium, most of the spectators had gotten bored with the competition and were about to leave. However, they stopped when they saw what was on the screen behind Aryan. Many of them returned to their seats silently.
It was a legendary scene. Aryan had completed a 60-grid comic within 70 minutes. Among those 60 grids, 40 of them were so perfectly done that the inker would not need to make any corrections. Those grids could be colored immediately. No one had ever heard of such a technique! When the bell rang to signify that the time was up, Aryan drew his last stroke, and the entire auditorium shook with disbelief!
“Good God!”
“Amazing!”
“Legendary…”
The last stroke seemed to have struck a chord in Elena’s heart.
“It’s done! It’s done!”
“Well done! Aryan made it!”
When it was all over, Elena turned to hug the person next to her and planted an aggressive kiss on that person. Everyone had become so cute and pleasant in her eyes. Even Layla, who had always been a chatterbox, looked so sweet that she wanted to take a bite out of her. She really did gnaw hard on her!
“I love you! I love you, love you, love you. Love you all!”
Wait a minute! When did Layla grow so tall?