@nickolaidas Hey, thank you! That means a lot. I'm glad it's been accepted here (this is my favorite thread- and although this piece stopped being sketchy last week, I really love coming here and showing progress). Especially because it's SO hard sitting on my work when everyone here is so brilliantly grinding away and showing their progress.
@rumpenstiltzkin Thank you! A majority of the grunt work was Clip Studio (pencils, inks, base colors, shadows), then I took it to After Effects to add some particles and fractal effects (for the rays and the water texture). The final will feature a little Photoshop in there too (with animated Photoshop layers in After Effects). I'm sure I could do a lot more in CSP, but I'm pretty comfortable in After Effects and Photoshop from my day job.