3 weeks, I said.

Be done in no time, I said.

I think I might've jinxed myself. I'm surprised it didn't go on to be 3 months! With getting inspired with the cameo appearances, surprise visits from the family, impromptu plans and component failure ("on" button on CPU became stuck. Was a simple fix, but took out a couple of days) cleaning the blasted thing up on Photoshop, time flew by!
Oh, well.

If the drawing seems a little heavier on the left, that's because I started on the right to avoid getting more smudges than necessary (guess which is my dominant hand). Despite laying it all out on another sketchbook, it just came out like that, but you know what? I'm cool with it.

In the series, Mirage was willing to spend an eternity to teach fear to Aladdin. But if I learned something from Spongebob Squarepants (yes, Spongebob and that Why U No meme inspired me, along with another brainstorm sketch I did) is this: people get used to things. That's the point of this piece. With time, Asael got used to Morbia, much to Mirage's chagrin. She must've felt a bit like a failure, if she wasn't so busy obsessing over Agrabah.

Looking up Fire Cat pics inspired me to include ElKatib. Getting the details right were critical for me, and took its fair share of time. His expression was gonna be different (read: funnier, like scaring each other out) but I settled on that look. He didn't think much of Asael, but they got along.

I noticed something. Up until now, I rarely drew clothe-less individuals until I created Asael. That scene where he's fetching one of Mirage's famous black slippers was gonna be different and lighthearted, but I went all bad-ass on it. This warranted me to seriously observe contracted and expanded back muscles to get it right. Same deal with his feet and toes and the cross-legged sitting position.
I tried to purposely make him skinny on the scared scenes, and bulkier in the "I'm used to this" scenes". Time did pass, wasn't night and day.
Yeah, I gave him a little mop-top with the Fire Cat.

I already drew Mirage in that pose once before and thought of basically Copy-Paste it in place. But after drawing her here from scratch, her hands and correct mouth shape being especially hard, I couldn't just get rid of her.

Maybe it was the new type of paper I was using, but cleaning the thing took longer on PS. Thankfully, it was raining and decided to stay home and eat left-overs, so I had time to dedicate. Had to start over twice.

Now to beat my 3+week record!