I knew how I wanted to answer this one pretty quickly. A big part of Aqua’s character in KonoSuba is how, despite being a goddess, nobody sees her as one or treats her like one. Even in a city devoted to worshiping her, nobody recognizes her divinity. I don’t see any reason why that would change in the Near Hentai Studio, and I think it’d be a little weird to see her running a church to herself or something with a bunch of followers. However, I thought it’d be a good chance to illustrate a water-themed character still being innately drawn to her, the only question was who to use. I ended up settling on Nessa, someone who got to debut around the start of the year but hasn’t appeared in anything since then. Funnily enough, her one other appearance in my work also has her working alongside a KonoSuba character, though a different one.
Here’s the One-Shot I did for December, selected from nominations sent in by my supporters. Of course the holidays referenced in this comic have now passed, but it was more timely for my supporters. ^_^; This one presented a couple of unique challenges. First, was that I have very little experience working with the Fairly OddParents style (I’ve drawn it before, but it’s been ages). I did my best to find a compromise between my more realistic approach I usually use and the uber-stylized designs of the original characters. Also, the last panel was left completely open to me (except the dialogue). I decided that, since the pic was presented as a message from the Studio versions of characters, I should use Siat Wildstar, who’s sort of the mascot of the Studio. Since her panel is all about looking forward to the new year, too, I decided to work in a “look forward” theme, with her training three new characters (or, in Kefla’s case, a combination of two characters already in the Studio). Darkness is the last of the main KonoSuba girls for me to bring in, and Nessa’s a popular new character I’ve gotten a few requests for. Seras in the first panel is also new, though she’s been nominated for NHML maybe a dozen times. It’s also fun to bring in Mrs. Claus from the comic I did with CCat for Christmas 2018, paired again with her favorite boys, Mace and Jackie.