Retrospective on Chapter 5

Hey everybody, this is a retrospective on Chapter 5 of Booby Quest. I just wanted to talk about the chapter and even tell some behind the scenes stuff. Read below if you’re interested.

I really wasn't expecting ch5 to take this long but there was a lot of story I wanted to get out. Booby Quest is very much inspired by the hent@i OVAs from the 80s and 90s. Those shows all felt like independent projects that went too far with the fanservice and I liked that about them. 

The Modern stuff is more focused on just being @dult videos and nothing more, but I find the plot lines and settings of the retro OVA’s to be a unique feature. It's an aesthetic that feels like it's not in style anymore.

The one thing I really wanted to do was foreshadow Cherry a lot more in this story. I peppered in a lot of moments for her. A lot of her origin was inspired by Dragon Quest 4 (if you know you know). The original draft of the flashback was completely different from the final version. Cherry was going to live with an Aunt and Uncle both of whom were going to be allegories of Link and Zelda if they had grown up and retired. The uncle was going to die in a showdown with the Dark Lord and then the Aunt would have been kidnapped. I decided to change the idea because it was way too sad for the tone I was going for. I combined Uncle and Aunt into one character who is now the currently still unnamed Big Sis (Her name is Maple S. Pie if you're curious).

Another character who got cut was the original elf high priestess. Cinnamon was only going to be a guide to the temple and then would disappear. Her role would then be taken over by her boss, a tall blond elf priestess. I kind of decided both characters had very little screen time and fundamentally did the same job so I combined them into one. I chose Cinnamon over the blond elf because her design was more unique between the two. Now Cinnamon is both the high priestess and guide for Elfguard.

I was originally planning on three girls for the pool scene with Booby, but it was too many lesbians to handle. Also changing them to shark girls was an absolutely last minute decision that had me redrawing 9 completed pages.

Plum the fairy was another last minute decision. The original idea was to have a unicorn appear instead and do its business. It was mostly going to be a gag but I got cold feet over the subject matter. Despite how much I cartoonified the unicorn, it ended up being a line I didn't want to cross. At least not in the comic. Instead I replaced the horse with a Fairy character. I think it was the right decision because I ended up really liking Plum. If I could I would have had him present in the story from the very beginning. Expect more of him in the future.

The scene with the Dark Lord at his castle was going to have him address one of his generals, a Litch in a red cloak. The little goblin guy from Ch1 was also going to be there but the scene ended up being way too long, dialogue heavy and boring. In the end I cut them both. The Litch is currently gone but the Goblin guy will be returning. I think of him as this Jr.Troopa type character from the first Paper Mario. A villain that keeps coming back with upgrades. We will just have to see what happens with him.

The giant hand Battleship the Dark Lord is currently piloting was inspired by the movie “Star Crash”. In that movie the Villain controls this awful looking miniature spaceship that I think was supposed to be a giant hand. The visual of a giant robotic hand floating through space and destroying planets was such a cool idea that I didn't want it to be wasted in some crap ass movie. In the end, I put it in Booby Quest. Blowing up his castle was also intentional, I didn't like the design I came up with so now it's gone forever LOL.

People were pretty shocked when I wrote out Princess Macguffin from the story. But what you don't know is that I am trying to set up her own side quest. I don't want to go into too much detail but I am planning on giving the princess a spin off story that will connect back to Booby Quest. I don't know if it will work but I thought it would be cool to try anyway.

I hit a wall at some point in Ch4. One part of that story didn't work out the way I wanted it to and I ended up compromising on my own ideas. I decided to approach ch5 differently to avoid that problem and I made the story more flexible for new ideas. I really like the result and I think this Chapter is better for it.

Plans for Chapter 6

I want the next story to be more action oriented. A lot like the “Battle at Helm’s Deep” in TLOTR. I really like doing fight scenes so I may get a little more indulgent in that aspect. I even plan on the Dark Lord getting involved. I want to flesh him out and reveal more of his plans. Maybe even a face reveal :) 

I consider ch6 to be the midpoint of Booby Quest's overall story. I have a rough idea of what Chapter 6 will be but I won't know until I really get into it with pencil and paper. The working title is “Erectile Malfunction”. I am really bad at coming up with names.

Regardless I will be updating everyone on here with occasional progress reports and concept sketches.