Quicksand Fans

Illustration of the story "Saving Isis" written by jadokast.

---

Tasked with observing a house belonging to a high value target, Sgt. Gardner proceeded to infiltrate the house to recover a secondary target known as "Isis". Isis, as it turned out, was a busty model captured by the Iraqis. Isis had planned her own escape through the upstairs window. Flabbergasted at how a model in heels could outrun an experienced operator, Gardner followed Isis towards the river. Once he established who he was, Isis calmed down, but her heels dug sharply into the riverside mud. Quicksand! Sinking quickly to her thighs, she followed Gardner's instructions as he prepared to pull her out. His rescue attempt was cut short by a burst of gunfire from two Iraqis crossing the river in a rubber raft. Isis screamed and struggled to get free while Gardner took a knee and aimed accurate bursts towards the raft. Isis let out a nervous laugh while this was happening. She couldn't believe what she had found herself in - capture, escape, captured again by the quicksand, almost rescued, almost shot.

lol.
I wondered how this was going to look when I saw the Title! Very nice!

I wanted to illustrate this years ago, but didn't have the technical skill to pull it off, and even this wasn't quite there, but it was close enough to how I visualised the scene. Doing the illustration was quite interesting, as I read the story years ago and, while I vividly remember how it went, the way I imagined it wasn't quite what was written down (I always thought it was a night mission, for some reason). One of the things that really stuck out to me was how elaborate the setup was, with very fine operational details that added depth to the story, while also accentuating the parts that interest you (and us) the most.

As I envisioned it; it started as a Night mission and progressed through the day into an early sunset. I was going to insert DangerGirl as the rescue BlackHawk pilot in a "freelance" desert tan (pink) MH-60 with an Emblem reminiscent of Quicksand Visuals "Sinking Girl" on the doors. Kind of a nod to our community here. In a note either here or somewheres else, she was quite adamant that it would NOT be pink.

Pretty damn cool!