08-2024 Artist Commentary

Chumi, hi :) : Welcome welcome to the Artist Commentary!! This month, we’ve got two more parts to the Vriska saga to talk about. Let’s hop to it!

Kim, heyyy (: : Two pretty heavy chapters at that! The writers for these chapters had a very clear vision for how these would play out and I did my best helping direct the art and amp up the feelings they wanted to convey through them. Big shoutout to our programmers for patiently working with us as there were a lot of special programming effects involved.

James, Director: Yes it was crazy this time. 

Kim: One of the first things y’all have probably noticed for this chapter is that Vriska is notably AGING!!! The team really wanted to emphasize how Vriska is literally changing during her time here. She isn’t here in limbo, then stepping out back at square one like nothing had happened and it’d all have just been a dream– the events in here are affecting her. They’re real to her.

The first glimpse we see of Vriska’s now adult talksprite she should be about 20 years (~9 sweeps) old now!

Chumi: ALL GROWN UPPPPP… I love her…

Kim: She’s a lot less toony proportioned now! I considered how adult trolls were depicted within Homestuck itself (think like Condy, the Handmaid, etc.), and they’re notably always drawn more realistically proportioned; compare to the kids that are always stylistically exaggerated. In a meta way, it’s like she’s even maturing shifting genres from a kid-like cartoon style to something more appropriately Young Adult genre LOL.

Andi: Big Vriska! All grown up :D

Kim: Here you can compare the sketch to her 16 year old talksprite. She’s noticeably taller and sharper with bigger horns! I especially wanted to convey that she was mature even in face compared to her younger sprite too. No more babyface Vriska!

Kim: The sketches I make for the talksprites are so much taller than they need to be because it helps me pose them more naturally, but half of it gets cut off anyway LOL. Thought I’d throw them here as an interesting bonus.

Haven: It’s a spider! It’s a pirate! It’s Moooooooomfang! 

Chumi: Hell yes… Her sprites are awesome…

Haven: First sketch I did for them. I wanted this thing where the face switches when she waves her hand past her face.

Haven: When the sprites were being finalized I lamented how small they had to be shrunk down to work in the VN.

Haven: Ideas I had for the transition from Mindfang to Spidermom, since my first pitch for the whole vibe of the interior of The Point was “it’s like some silent hill type shit” I wanted to delve into some body horror from the start, luckily Floral picked up what I was putting down with this. I had a blast drawing all these.

Kim: It’s funny; when we were preparing our asset list to dole out assignments and I saw that Mindfang and Spidermom were gonna be this fucked up amalgamation of Vriska’s mother figures– I just knew Haven’s striking art style would be the perfect for the job. And, as always, he knocked it out of the PARK!!! Exceeded beyond my expectations!!!

Haven: Initially I had a whole thing i wanted to animate with the hair transforming into the spider until I remembered I don't know how to animate things

Haven: Here’s what I had before I realized my horrible mistake.

Kim: I see the vision… I wanted to volunteer to help animate it, but unfortunately I already had a lot on my plate at the time. What could have been…

Chumi: Alas!! What could have been! It’s okay, what we have now looks sick.

Haven: These are two of my favorites, this route originally only called for like 3 sprites but as I read the script I got more and more ideas

Kim: I also wanted to point out what I particularly love about the design choices for these sprites is that Mindfang (or the part that appears as her) still appears as this ambiguous silhouetted figure. She appears to Vriska how she remembers her… No eyes, no defined person, just this awe yet ominous concept that lived in Vriska’s head. Spidermom, though? Vriska knows and remembers her all too clearly; the brightest and most defined part of the sprite.

Haven: I wanted the background here to be kind of surreal/storybook looking, a reminder that we’re in a place between belief and memory.

Kim: And with the closure of the Momfang chapter, this brings us to… MORE SPRITES OF… SPRITES!!! What’s such a treat about this visual novel is the opportunity to give talksprites to characters that never got them before, or unique new takes on talksprites of old beloved characters.

Kim: This guy is so neon he is flashbanging my eyes lookin’ at him LMFAO. Jokes aside, If you’ve known me for long enough, you probably know that I’m a big fan of the beta fishes. I’m scoopin’ up every opportunity I can get to tangentially draw them, even if it is just half of them… Half of Sollux too, but he’s chilling in the Candy timeline– one’s not as rarely seen as the other!!

Chumi: Reading this guy’s writing quirk is a nightmare…

Floral:: I was in charge of Scratch’s Parlor, and Oh My Lord, this beat my ass. Photobashing is such hard work honestly because it’s so easy to get lost trying to find the perfect pieces that you forget the whole point is to manipulate! This absolutely was the longest I took on a background.

Kim: This honestly looks so seamless, I didn’t even realize how much of this was separate pieces LOL.

Floral: I was also in charge of Doc Scratch’s sprite, which was its own challenge too. He is not a guy that looks good face-on at all! It took time staring at his original sprites, but finally this sort of upper angle worked perfectly. It captured the most important thing, his perfect posture!

CG by Annie “Chumi” Lee

Chumi: I got to work on the CG of big ol’ Doc Scratch! Miles requested that his head be stark white with no shading, and for it to loom over Vriska on the chessboard, like a big gaping hole in the picture. I think this gets the job done quite well HEHE.Here are some drafts!

Chumi: The very first draft, made by Floral and titled bigbaldasshead4chumi.psd.

Chumi: There was a moment where we considered using real-life hands for a scary Master Hand look. I almost started taking pics of my own hands in gloves LMAO. After a few more tweaks, we eventually landed on what’s featured in the game, including the hands folding Gendo Ikari-style. I really love how it looks, but when experienced together with the text, music, and sprites… Cannot be beat.

Kim: I DO love the uncanniness of the photobash style though. It vaguely reminds me of Hylics. Maybe in the future we can do something fun with that! In spirit of Homestuck’s nature, I wanna find more places where we can get experimental with it, heheh.

Chumi: Some folks might have noticed the variation in chess pieces. I wanted to have fancier pieces for the important people in Vriska’s life, so they got to have their lusii featured on the board! And also some generic pieces as well! Not everyone can leave a deep impression, too bad!

Kim: This chapter overall is pretty gruesome, but not for no reason. It was relayed to the art team that in order for this chapter to really sell the point home, the visuals were going to have to be as tough to look at as Vriska felt during this moment.

Kim: The sprites here visually had to represent Vriska at her lowest point, when she was 13-years-old going through all this bullshit. I tried to proportionately replicate her Alterniabound sprites to really flashback all of us to a time when she was younger, especially making it clear to the viewers these are distinctly different from her current adult sprites.

Vriska has kind of narratively represented that she has always been stuck in limbo of the past, but going forth from here– hopefully it doesn’t have to be like that anymore. She’s moving forward and she’s finally growing up, inwardly. Metaphorically and literally! Though, not just Vriska, but Homestuck as a whole too. And I’m glad you guys can be here to join us watching everyone grow up too. :’-]