09-2024 Artist Commentary

Chumi, halfway done with grad school!: Greetings! Salutations! Artist Commentary, commence! Let’s talk about our Midnight City intermission and then… the conclusion(?) of Vriska’s Hellish escapades.

Kim, thinkin’ about fantrolls: This commentary might be a pretty short one, fellas! Not a whole ton of new assets here, BUT these couple last two chapters have definitely given us a lot to think about… ohoho!

James, Director: We’re finally at the end.

Chumi: It’s been a learning experience for everyone, thank you for following along with us! I had the pleasure of doing the Jasprosesprite sprites (heh) for the first part of this month’s update! I used to be really into making sprites, so I jumped for joy at the opportunity to do at least one character! They deigned me worthy to do the catgirl!!!

Kim: I just knew Chumi would be the perfect artist to do Jasperose’s sprites bc if it’s cute girls you want, it’s the name of the game for ol’ Choomer. >:3

Jasperosesprite^2 Sprites by Annie “Chumi” Lee

Chumi: I’m a bit proud of how cute these came out! While drawing, I did take a glance or two back at the old Rose talksprites from Act 6. I wanted to inject a bit of their essence into these new sprites because hey, she’s still half Rose. It mainly comes through in the hand-in-front-of-mouth part of the Laughing and Pleased sprites. At the same time, Jasprose has a much more animated face! I wanted to combine an expressive face + poses that wouldn’t be too out there for a (half-)Rose to pull off.

Haven: They were soooo perfect. Chumi really outdid herself with these.

Andi: She is so much more animated! Even in og Homestuck, she always had this mischievous grin. It’s very cute. It sorta gives her a toony vibe, which og Rose would never dare express that side of herself in front of others. It seems being part cat tends to cure the siblings' highly strung stoicism (and depressive tendencies.)

Chumi totally killed these sprites! She’s so adorable. I like that this sprite sort of has an old nostalgic feeling. The simple roundness of the face and sharp angles of the elbow. Ahh, to return to our openbound roots again.

Chumi: THANK YOU GUYS HEHE. 

Fefetasprite Sprites by Haven

Haven: Fefetasprite... Before her tragic departure to sprite city.

Chumi: She’s adorable… Her big ol’ sweet eyes! Dear, sweet, precious Fefeta.

Kim: I love the way Haven drew her here, she’s like especially oh so kittey :3

Midnight City half by Haven / Vriska’s Room by Floralmarsupial

Haven: Was very fun to revisit Midnight City, excited to do more photobash backgrounds in the future. 

Chumi: Not gonna lie, I LOVE HOW MIDNIGHT CITY LOOKS IN THIS BACKGROUND. It’s the deep, saturated purples…

Kim: I’m also a big fan of the photobashing art of the Catnapped bonus comics!!! So glad Haven was able to have another chance to do this kind of style again.

CG by Andi R.

Haven: yay

Andi: The script asked for a shitty little doodle of Davepeta initiating their glomp and I was like, “damn that's easy.” Turned out cuter than expected. GLOMP!!!!!!!!!

CG by Andi R.

Andi: Nothing special about this, just that I had to draw a higher detail than usual Davepeta arm holding the 8 ball. I did try to give it a touch of hussnasty. The CGs in general are fun to look at so I was glad I could  draw another.

Kim: And with that, as we reach the ~~grand finale~~ we got a handful of new sprites for Vriska(s)!

Vriska Sprites by Kim Quach

Kim: Something about these expressions of hers are so cute LOL. It’s unusually modest of her and we don’t get to see a bashful Vriska very often!

Haven: I was on call with Miles looking over the update before launch and when we saw these we both started losing it. Every new sprite we saw we started hollering.

Floral: Heyo!! I did this BG. I always really loved the environmental work in the dream bubbles! There’s always so many contrasting elements to them. Mostly with this BG I wanted people to place themselves at the bottom of the hill, looking up as Vriska and (Vriska) have their wordless exchange. A little cinematic stage setting.

I did a little photobashing with this but mostly I actually painted this one out! Yahoo!

Kim: Then, I did some small edits to this BG so that we have a little bit of ~immersion~ I really liked the idea that we would be entering from Vriska’s POV, no character sprites involved. I figured it would add a bit more to the viewer’s confusion and mystery, just as Vriska is feeling… Where is this? What’s going on? What is… THAT?

Kim: Then… as we approach closer we see somewhat of a familiar silhouette…

Kim: Wait a minute…

CG by Kim Quach

Kim: That’s not Terezi–!

CG by Kim Quach

Kim: Then… REVEAL! (Though I kinda feel like half of us already saw this coming from like a mile away LMFAO. It’s okay, it’s about the SHOWMANSHIP 🕺)

Chumi: We got you good!!!! 

James: It was sort of a last minute thing to add the Terezi Track to this section, but I think it's really funny. Music is technically an art thing, right? It’s just Terezi’s theme in a major key. I don’t even think you get a full loop of it if you are reading at a normal pace.

Kim: Oh (Vriska)... I actually went back to re-read that part in Homestuck where Vriska was just laying it into (her) so I could further understand how (Vriska) felt for drawing these sprites, and… OOF…

(Vriska) Sprites by Kim Quach

Chumi: Omg… she’s just a baby…

Kim: (Vriska)’s sprites look so little compared to adult Vriska’s sprites now LOL. 😭 I already talked about it in the previous commentary, but (Vriska)’s sprites here (or the instances where she’s supposed to be 13-years-old in this entire novel) are supposed to be in reference to her Alterniabound sprite!

Alterniabound Vriska Sprites from Homestuck

Kim: Blast from the past… I think you can better see the comparison here versus how she looked in her younger sprite from chapter five.

Funny enough, I thought I would share it here as a bonus– there’s a version of (Vriska) that’s just an edit of her earlier 16-year-old sprite due to an internal miscommunication.

Scrapped (Vriska) Sprite by Kim Quach

Kim: But since we were already referencing her younger Alterniabound sprite in the Doc Scratch chapter, we figured it would be consistent to keep those proportions for (Vriska) here too. Which, I think is a smart move to really sell the point home that Vriska has just been too harsh on her younger self… You’re an adult now and you have to forgive the kid within you.

Also, complete sidebar, but has anybody ever mentioned how insane (Vriska)’s hair is. She’s got like three different hair styles in one. I didn’t realize how incomprehensible it was until I had to draw it here LMFAO.

Chumi: And that’s all from us folks! Again, thanks for sticking with us as we did a pretty experimental set of updates. We’re pretty proud of the work we’ve done, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as we had fun making it. See you in the next commentary! 

Kim: Wait wait but I need to know what happens next, noooooooo—-------- (Kim is eviscerated on the spot)