HORRID HISTORIES - The Vi the Imp Development

Vi was essentially the result of adding Karolyn to a Miitopia playthrough. The team was Keaton, Basil, Karolyn and then Ruby, and Karolyn was chosen to be the Imp class. I loved how it made her look even more like a horribly uncouth gremlin, but I didn’t want to change Karolyn, so I made it a separate character. A lot of sketches were made with her being more on the psychotic side like Karolyn, but it quickly shifted to being more peppy and cutesy, because it was a comedic contrast to her line of work.

Vi's first draft was drawn June 1st 2021, where she'd look like this

VI IN IMP COLLEGE

Vi was in Imp College, and her goal was to attain and keep her pitchfork and wings (which was basically like a diploma to them), and be the highest ranking imp of the lot. Reaper would make a ton of imps to carry out his work, and he had to educate them. It took some doing, too, since Reaper's never had to make imps before. Many imps had to be put down upon creation.

Initially the story idea was to have her in Imp College to study scares and reaping, but it was way too similar to AAAHH!!! Real Monsters (Which I still consider to be this show’s spiritual forerunner as opposed to Helluva Boss), so it was changed to more of a workplace comedy.

AUTUMN NIGHTS WITH QUEEN MAPLE

Vi was briefly drawn as the Deer Woman from Native American legend, taking place in Autumn Nights with Queen Maple.

This could still be a separate character, now that I revisit it. Guess we're adding another to the Karolyn family once I do.

An early idea for her story in Autumn Nights with Queen Maple was that she was integrated with the scythe itself in a Pyra/Mythra fashion, and served as Maple's good conscience. Vi would be in full power of the scythe, so nobody would misuse it. She was also once acquainted with Maple's rival The Emperor, and tried being his moral light, but to no avail. I'll be going further into this when I do a page on Maple's history.

VI THE IMP

As Maple would form into something else, Vi slowly got phased into her own little series.

 I was scrolling through older art, and found this, and figured this can use a remake.

 An animated adaptation of that old piece was made.

  This ended up being one of the better performing animations on my platforms! So I made more of her and dug up the old stories to revamp them.

   I've delved into it in the Pitch Bible post, but the world of Vi really took it's own form. A longer form short is on it's way as the series is finding a voice. It's taken on more of a war story approach to separate it a bit more from Helluva Boss, since that comparison's been brought up more times than I'd like. Even better, it'd give me more chances to do some sick action segments with a cute girl character. At the end, I just wanna turn this into something I'd love to see out there-- grippingly-fast action, playfully comedic sexiness, cynical bashing, and underlying optimism. Oh, and minimal whining, kinda sick of characters complaining about their mental problems with words, I wanna SEE how horrible they are, not hear.

It's interesting to me how I aimed to make this the anti-conformity show, revealing her butt and having many people get shredded and having it be about the underworld-- like a good underground cartoon I can just be unhinged with... Yet on YouTube of all places, it's nearing 100K views, which was unheard of for me. Pikmin Bits was my most voted for series, yet Vi kinda does just as well if not better, despite being an original property. Like Vi herself, guess it's all about not following a crowd-- even a crowd of Pikmin. (Don't worry, I'm not canning Pikmin Bits)

With this, I'll just keep going with what I'D personally love to see in a cartoon, and have it draw people who think similarly. Which is a line of thought that I think cartoonists in general can benefit from.

 ~KARO '24