Comic Sketches: June 2022

Hello dear Errorers! It's... October already, wowza. Feel like this year zoomed by so fast.

Anyway, I'm super excited to get into this month's commentary because we've got some JUICY updates ahead of us! I know I said that we were going to combine some the crafting updates with the June and July ones, but it turns out that, once again, we had way more material than previously expected. Just miles and miles of sketches and concept work and WIPs and GIFs all over the place. AND we had a lot to say about these bad boys to boot! So we'll leave the entire crafting section for next month's dev post, which honestly is probably going to end up decently sized on its own too. We really can't shut up about this dang comic.

Onward to the commentary!

This is the tail end of Tyson's boards, wrapping up the Laivan sequence from May. He's got such an eye for interesting, eye-grabbing shots! I love that one with the little fairy-lights as a foreground object, it's such a nice touch.

Like I mentioned last time, this is the point in the comic where we started to switch around the panel sketches between multiple artists, after Xam officially bowed out to take their much deserved Vast Error vacation. Tyson also handled the sketches for this upcoming scene, the absolute madlad.

The wettest dog you've ever seen. A sopping beast. Absolutely miserable.

And here is another one of those famed land locks. I just love how this whole area turned out! When we were in talks of how to handle this part of Laivan's planet, Charlie came up with the idea of taking some aesthetic and mechanical inspirations from the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series, specifically for some sort of waterfall mechanism. The brainstorming kind of evolved from there, and we arrived at this locked valve deal you see in front of you! And Tyson crushed it on the color keys above, as always.

...Not that Laivan himself seems in any way moved by all of this carefully designed Game stuff. What a party pooper. We thought very hard about this!!

I guess that's the downside of foreknowledge. Being aware of what's in store and having access to a peek behind the curtain has a way of snuffing out the sparkle of immersion.

God these dogs are weird. What is even their deal???

With Laivan safely deposited back on drier land and Mutt having swam out on his own, all is well with our canine pair, giant fish or no. And these industrious beavers are right back to it! Godspeed.

Hold onto your butts, 'cause this conversation's about to get meaty.

First off, we were very excited about the chance to finally spotlight Laivan and Ellsee's friendship! Those two plus Arcjec and Taz were kind of a little friend unit when they were kids, and despite the insane collective group fallout, they stayed close throughout the years. What a relief to have a single uncomplicated relationship up in this clusterfuck, whew.

Second, the main thing of note here is the confirmation that Arcjec's memory issues have been a known and discussed factor for a long time - at least between these two. Which isn't that hard of a leap to make, because you would for sure notice if your sibling/pale crush suddenly started not remembering jack and also shit. It seems that Ellsee is also making a connection here between these brain scramblies and the conversation they had with White Noise a little while ago, about the Naught-Father and all the stuff THAT guy gets up to behind the scenes. Hmm.

Thirdly, I think we can roughly see why Taz and Ellsee aren't exactly on the best of terms at this point anymore. Yikes.

Oh, and Arcjec smokes now. Let's all just gloss over Laivan's slightly stalker-ish activities in his recounting of the Arcjec Encounter, he did that for a good cause.

For those of you who don't know, this shot is a direct homage to a certain scene from FLCL, which I'll let Austin talk about because I've never seen the damn thing before. Take it away!

AUSTIN: The cigarette itself is really just a visual reference to the anime, which doesn't actually have an exact meaning beyond looking cool. A lot of FLCL is like, just completely up to viewer interpretation. In the comic, the writing is changed from never knows best to nothing is bliss. It's sort of a similar phrase, but I chose that spin on it because it's directly tied with the themes of the story, with Gaiaeon's plan and with the idea that in trying to be faultless, you really can only be nothing. To Gaiaeon - and maybe even to Arcjec sometimes - that is peace.

AUSTIN: Admittedly, I don't think that the FLCL scene itself has much to do with the VE scene, but there's some similar feelings between it and the talk Laivan describes has happened. Also, Bran-New Lovesong was the backing track for the Laijec scene in my head from inception, so it all just kind of clicked.

Very cool. Other than that, I guess we all just have to live with the fact that Arcjec is canonically pretty tall. I know this is heartbreaking for a good portion of the fandom, but if I've learned to live with this reality, so will you. In due time.

These earlier smoke WIPs were penned by our lovely team member and fellow animator Lupa and later finalized by Tyson! It looks so fucking smooth. Good job on that smoke, you guys.

Other than Laivan's intensely homosexual behavior, I think one of the main points of interest during the rest of this conversation is the way he seems particularly prone to pierce through Arcjec's defenses, as Ellsee notes. Could it be that whatever force is messing with Arcjec's brain has deemed Laivan to be inconsequential enough that he's left well enough alone? Or maybe it's just that Arcjec never really had any deeper issues with Laivan in particular, so there's nothing to exploit there. Who can say, who can say...

We also get a bit of a spiel on the nature of repitonian friendships! If you guys hadn't gleaned that by now, these people are WEIRD about intimacy. It's not at all out of the ordinary for platonic relationships to have this transactional quality to them, due to the way feelings are so compartmentalized within quadrants. You're not supposed to just spill your heart out to any old friend, that's weird. Luckily for us, Laivan has a long-established tendency to be a bit of a weirdo, so it's not like that's going to stop him.

To Ellsee's credit, though, she is totally within the right to not want to hear all the juicy details of her grubby brother as a subject of romantic affections. Read the room, dog.

Here's some more concept work! Color keys on the left by Tyson - the finalized panels turned out so gorgeous, and the credit for that beautiful palette goes entirely to our mans. He really nailed a mood there, the perfect atmosphere for such a soft, tender moment tinged with bittersweetness and nostalgia.

The Laivan outfit on the right was concepted by yours truly! Y'all know by now that I'll grab any and every opportunity available to put these people in some dang clothes. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, Laivan's jock-adjacent fashion sense was fun to mess with in conjunction with those goddamn camo pants. A challenge, to be sure, but I believe we prevailed in the end.

Oh not THIS guy AGAIN. 

That's right folks, it's time for...

The Alt!Murrit scene. Intense!

This update marks the point where we started bringing Victoria in full-force as a member of the creative team, and let me tell you, what an amazing addition she has been! I think I can speak for Austin and the others when I say that she is both a powerhouse in her own right and an absolute joy to have around. Between the coding, the sprite work, the sketching and the storyboarding - which you can ogle right above you - I can't imagine doing this without her anymore. Shoutouts to Victoria and her very own Homestuck fancomic, Burning Down the House, which is a banger that you should definitely check out. Also, the upcoming sketches for this scene were handled by Ciro!

Getting back into it, MAN is that Gaiaeon panel at the bottom impressive. I remember seeing it for the first time and just feeling my jaw hit the floor. Having it laid out next to all the other normal-sized panels really puts into perspective how massive and unfathomable this dude's supposed to be.

If you were left a little confused on the specifics of how Alt!Murrit managed to get in contact with our Laivan, why this echoed conversation between them happened to Laivan in the first place, and the exact point in relative time when Alt!Murrit jumped into the driver's seat, that's because it's kind of the intended feeling! 

Probabilities are weird and mostly insulated from the true timeline. The only way those two streams can ever cross is if some truly nonsensical, anomalous reality bending shit is going on, because this "pollution" is, in theory, not within the realm of the possible. If left to their own devices, these diverging branches will shoot off and wither on their own. But if we were dealing with some external interference of cosmic proportions - perhaps originated from a being powerful enough to snuff out the very idea of possibilities - well... then who knows what could happen to the formal structure of reality.

AUSTIN: I know some people were surprised at how short Laivan was with Murrit in this scene, since he's not really the aggressive type, but this has been building up since Act 2. Laivan's had to shove it off for the Game's sake up until now, but I'd say he's never really been okay with Murrit's less savory aspects. To that extent, people sometimes see their relationship as more chummy than it might be in reality - it's not that there isn't friendship there, but they got close because of their shared circumstances. There's a lot of shit Murrit does that gets under Laivan's skin, it's just hard to tell on the surface because, well... Laivan is Laivan.

Concept art break! This is the first time we're seeing Alt!Murrit's strange rubix-cube-esque probability hopping device, the Duodechaxiom (also known as the DDA), which was concepted by Victoria. I think we landed on such a fun design, and the spinny animations in the two panels up top - made by Tyson - definitely add a lot of flavor and Oomph to those pages. And to right, we've got Alt!Murrit's finalized look, which was penned by Ciro after some back-and-forth with the rest of the team and our sensitivity reader/script consultant, Aivi!

We'd also be remiss not mention the visual discrepancies between the sketched panels and the current look Alt!Murrit is sporting in the comic. When those pages were originally uploaded, Alt!Murrit did not have the textured hairstyle we see now, which was a huge oversight on our end and rightfully pointed out by certain fans - it was a part of our internal plan to eventually depict Murrit with a black hairstyle across the board, working that in tandem with the planned future art shifts, but it totally slipped our minds to lock that in for this specific scene. In the end, we're very thankful for the criticism, because that would've been a huge missed opportunity.

Getting to some juicier plot bits here! It took some tweaking and several editing passes, but we're very happy with the feeling of Alt!Murrit's lines in this scene. 

As we all know, Murrit is a tricky beast when it comes to dialogue, not in small part due to their impulse to have complete control over the way people perceive them and also throw everyone off by launching a barrage of inscrutable bullshit at them, thus making the necessary effort to get close categorically not worth it. A huge part of how they present to their friends is artificial by design, but it's impossible for someone to whole-cloth make up an entire personality without at least a kernel of truth shining through - and Murrit is not as proficient at lying to people as he'd like to be.

The goal of Alt!Murrit, other than moving the plot forward and establishing certain mechanics, was to present a stark contrast to the Murrit we're used to seeing in the comic, who is very much still wrapped up in a metric ton of bullshit. She's a window into a possible future who illuminates certain things that Murrit would rather keep tucked away, more emotionally mature and sure of herself. To that end, we tried to be very careful in still making her sound like Murrit, only with most of the circuitous turns of phrases and stream-of-consciousness rambling stripped away. It's also no coincidence that this is the first instance of Murrit using she/her to refer to herself in the comic!

There's also the off-hand implication that Mimesis had something to do with Alt!Murrit's situation, which is later confirmed and expanded on a little during the end of the crafting section. But we'll get to that later.

Ah, here is Alt!Murrit in all their pure self glory! What a grim outfit reveal. At least they look cute in these last few moments before they're permanently wiped from existence.

The concept design was penned by Heather, like all of the pure self outfits are. The idea was for Murrit to have a Matrix-esque look, with the cool trench-coat and the dope shades and whatnot. It's always exciting when we get to showcase our personal spin on these, since they are unique to every individual character barring some vague similarities shared between heroes of the same class - like you see with Seething Shezmu and Murrit, for example. And when you think about it, it's pretty much just an extrapolation of what's established in later Homestuck acts (i.e. the god tier clothes being customizable), mixed in with a fond little nod at the much beloved fandom trend of designing "fancy tier" alternates to the base god tier outfits.

Before we get into any of the stuff that's being said on this page, let's all just take a moment to appreciate how absolutely BALLER the landscape is here. It's so fucking gorgeous, Ciro really knocked it out of the park!! Also, keen-eyed viewers will notice some familiar motifs happening on this place, what with the swan statues and all the MURK and QUAGMIRE... yeah this is Calder's planet. What better spot to find a tactical hidey-hole at than the Void player's main digs? Quick thinking there, Alt!Murrit.

Speaking of the very same, our gal has a lot of experience with her fellow Alt!Murrits. Funny how they all seem to have main character syndrome no matter the circumstance, huh? Sometimes you just can't help but experience the Horrors and decide to go out in a blaze of helpless glory.

Now, here's some interesting stuff regarding our main man Gaiaeon, That Weird Fella With The Big Ole Eyes. Fighting this dude head on? That's no bueno. Gaiaeon is not an antagonist that can be defeated through force - we are truly working on a deific scale here, and no matter how many levels our heroes get and how much sick gear they craft and how many cool powers they master, you can't just blast your way through the manifested conscious will of like, all living beings' subjective perceptions of reality and themselves.

So what do you do, then? What's the alternative? 

Ain't that the question, dear reader.

Oh, and keep that note about the "secret entrances" in your back pocket for later.

And here's the equally gorgeous color key concept that Ciro made for the rest of us! I mean, no words. This shit is unreal. It's so moody and depressing, perfect for the slimiest conservative fish-man we're all intimately familiar with at this point.

AUSTIN: I think the most interesting thing to note on this page is how probabilities are propagated to begin with. Like Alt!Murrit says, they happen because the Hyperthetical demands it, to sate the whims of unknown - and maybe in some cases, nonexistent - audiences, running through literally every possibility, every permutation of events. Even the most minute choices sprout probabilities that branch from the true timeline, and they can vary from the completely absurd to to the most minute differences... 

...But none of them are "real" in the eyes of the Hyperthetical.

AUSTIN: This is where a lot of the talk in I2S1 about being "fictional" comes into play, and I believe also heightens the whole AU concept into something greater than just a riff on the idea - Alt!Murrit notes that the reason Gaiaeon snuffs out all these diverging branches is because they can create ripple effects under the right circumstances, even coming to influence the true timeline.

To make it clear, Alt!Murrit is not being contradictory when she says probabilities can't directly interact with the true timeline under normal circumstances. What she means is only that she shouldn't have been able to chat with Laivan like that, but it's a whole different can of worms when it comes to the causal space-time consequences that originate from a "popular" repetition taking hold in the Hyperthetical.

AUSTIN: It really is just the famed Marketplace of Ideas, made infinitesimally manifest - an all-encompassing blanket of endless influence that everyone within it is at the whims of, with Kheparia and Gaiaeon being the notable exceptions.

Here is something truly insane as a fun fact: Victoria actually built an entire random door generator for these two pages specifically. No, no one asked her to do that. She just decided to code the whole thing on her own completely unprompted. It has several door models and tint options and a randomizer button. Victoria if you're reading this I love you and also you're crazy

Another fun fact, just in case someone missed it: you can actually click on each individual door in the panel above, which will prompt the Gaiaeon animation! Now you too can experience the thrill of collapsing a spontaneous branch of reality with your own hands. Disregard the sound of billions of souls screaming out in terror.

It's kind of insane how many probabilities Alt!Murrit saw in their session's span of time! That is so many Murrits running around, can you imagine.

And Austin finally gets to have his funny little Infinity War reference go full circle. I hope he's satisfied with what he's done.

Victoria tested out a few fonts when we were in the process of putting this panel together, and we had a moment where we went dang all of these look good, though. So the logical solution was to incorporate ALL of them, obviously. The shifting fonts make the panel look way cooler, which is something we always try to maximize here at Deconreconstruction HQ, plus it fits those pesky themes the Hyperthetical has going for it on a visual level too. 

AUSTIN: With the assertion that only the true timeline is capable of winning, we can assume that other probabilities are likely going to do their damndest to influence it towards that point.

Or at least the Murrits are. Because they always know.

Now, before we move on to the final sketch of That One Gaiaeon Panel, I'd like to take you folks through some of the concept stuff made beforehand! I think it's no secret that this thing was THE most work-intensive aspect of the whole month's worth of updates, and it went through several stages of development and multiple hands before we arrived at the finalized version you can see on the site. 

The very first prototype of what that panel was going to look like! Victoria put this together with remarkable speed, so the rest of the team could start building up on the idea and refining it later on. 

The main idea for the page was to highlight how Gaiaeon is above any rules and conventions - he can quite literally do anything, as he's the one who gets to decide how events are perceived, which is only heightened within the probability space. So, our immediate thought was to have him go "out of bounds", physically pulling on the panel's edge as a very visceral way to show that to the audience.

Charlie then acted more or less as an art director for this panel, coming up with the specifics of the moment and visuals that were going to be a part of it. That fucked-up neck twist and snap was directly inspired by Giygas, which I think will surprise absolutely no one.

And finally, Ciro sketched out the base of what the full panel was going to look like, with some key frames and the added interior of the lighthouse with Alt!Murrit staring at the bottom there. We wanted to make them look very small compared to Gaiaeon, and I think the dramatic angle here really heightened that effect.

With that, I now give the floor to our man Tyson so he can talk about this BEAST of an animated panel.

TYSON: Gaiaeon goo time! I worked together with Charlie’s big animation brain since he had the clearest vision for the shot, and he gave me helpful references and general direction that really made it all come together. The beginning of Ferngully’s “Toxic Love” sequence below in particular largely defined what I was going for with the sludge physics.

TYSON: A few other miscellaneous scenes from the Faith games, Hollow Knight, and - of course - Giygas himself were also kept in mind. I probably exported like 20 different versions of this, but I'll keep it down to a few GIFs.

TYSON: The first rough pass for general timing and framing. While I had a strong vision for how Gaiaeon entered the frame, I was unsure about how to twist and cut off into the scream before I got some advice from Charlie, which was implemented into later versions.

TYSON: GIF color compression was not very kind to this one! Another pass while I was figuring out the sludge-like movement. The hand and eye drip were finished pretty quickly in advance, since I was familiar with how to approach them, but Mr. Goo Tube took more brainpower to figure out.

TYSON: And here's the final (compressed) version without the added glitch effects! I noticed that at some point the timing got offset on Gaiaeon's eye glance - the "bullseye" moves a frame earlier than the X pupil does, unintentionally adding a sort of leading action and making it look better than whatever I was initially intending. Many parts of the animation process can be attributed to replaying things several times over and just going "yeah, this looks good", without being actively aware of the decisions that made it work until you analyze it after the fact. Sometimes you learn from your own work through happy accidents!

WHAT A TEAM EFFORT THIS WAS.

I hope you guys enjoyed this write-up! It was very fun to revisit and we're all damn proud of this particular stretch of the comic, it took a lot of hands and some intense collaboration. Definitely the highlight of the year so far!

Next month, it will finally be time... to delve into Murrit's fucked up mind palace as he crafts all of his insane equipment. 

Brace yourselves.

- Eddie, Tyson & Austin