Comic Sketches: May 2022

Heya there, my fellow Vasted Errors! How's it hanging? 

Been a second huh. You might have noticed that this month, we'll only be covering the May updates. "But Eddie," I hear you say, "aren't you trying to catch up to the comic???" And you'd be correct! However, once I took stock of the number of panels and the amount of concept and animation stuff we had saved for these two specific months, I noticed... well there is a lot of it.

I really don't know what happened, we kind of went crazy. That, coupled with my aforementioned busy schedule this month, means that I'll be pushing the June behind-the-scenes content to October, bundling it together with July, August and September. Yeah that's right, FOUR whole months for the price of one.

I think this works out nicely because we don't have a lot sketches to show off for the Murrit crafting section, due to the nature of sprite panels. But with this adjustment, you'll get a reasonably sized post this month AND on the next one! And I'll be fully caught up with the backlog by the time November rolls around! Hooray!!! Unless I somehow end up having a shitton of stuff to say and the post size gets out of hand. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Now, with that out of the way, let's look at some boards.

Penned by our illustrious Tyson, we are AT LAST yeeted out of the past, cannon-balling straight into the present as we transition from the tail end of this flashback and into Dismas and Laivan and their planetary shenanigans. Yet another sequence featuring the much beloved Long Panel, animated bits and dramatic, action packed shots. Wowza! Also, those tiny character doodles are just cute.

These are pretty much just there to be moody, scene-setting glamour shots. Deserved, because those BGs are very nice to look at! Keen-eyed viewers will notice some similarities between that second panel and one of our SBB backgrounds, which was a bit of a fun intentional call-backsies on our end when we were brainstorming ideas for where Jentha could walk through in her journey.

And already we're kicking things off with some certified Tyson commentary! Wow does this guy have his fingers on every pie.

TYSON: The Jentha walk first pass! Walk cycles are always a bit meticulous even with practice, which is why they're saved for little silhouettes like this (and Jentha, whose simple design is a blessing to animate. Sorry Laivan and Murrit, your patterned clothes are too much for me. You can never walk, ever.)

I actually had a hard time translating the dragging-slouch of the head that I liked from this rough's walk into the final pass, you can see the finished panel is more bouncy. I do like how it ended up more seamless, though, so it works out fine.

Jentha's self-isolation pilgrimage eventually brings her to the edge of those famed RENAISSANCE RUINS, where she'll be setting up shop permanently up until the fated night of the Game. Because why wouldn't she stumble into a historically relevant location tied to her ancestor? We love the cyclical (and opposed) nature of character choices over here - Mosura blows up a whole metropolis for as-of-yet undisclosed reasons, Jentha walks herself there in order to avoid blowing up a whole metropolis on accident in the wake of a lingering traumatic childhood event. 

Good stuff.

As a bonus, here's a concept sketch by Xam of Jentha's cute little getup, which we'll unfortunately not be seeing a lot of. RIP purple butterfly smiley face backpack you'll always be famous

We were so excited about the #WORMREVEAL that we just had to give them a big long panel spotlight. Look at that face! Isn't it adorable?

I really enjoy how that last shot gives such a clear sense of scale of just how enormous this fella is. And unless I'm forgetting some off-hand remark in one of our over two thousand pages' worth of comic, I believe this is the first time the actual species of Jentha's lusus has been mentioned. They're a bit of a rare breed, which is also the case for a good chunk of the main cast as far as parental figures go. Needless to say, we don't see a lot of compecados, three-headed chimeras or collective amalgam of souls prancing around Repiton on the regular.

I think the only ones who have totally normal lusii are Laivan, Taz and Arcjec. Can the rest of these guys like, calm down maybe. 

There's that confirmation that the big giant yellow ball of goo in the distance during [S] Ellsee: Enter was, in fact, Jentha's lusus. Which I don't think people had any doubts on at this point? Oh, well. I have to say, fucking off into a cocoon for several years and leaving your vulnerable charge unattended is not the BEST parenting strategy I've ever seen.

Jentha's been having a really rough time of it. If only some long-estranged childhood friends would show up in the nick of time to provide a much needed assist!

Also shoutouts to the onesie (also designed by Xam) that we can barely see in this singular panel. It was originally Austin's idea and was actually featured for the first time in the Reminders of You album cover, but didn't have a concrete finalized design until this update. Also it is very cute.

Oh thank god the cavalry's here. At last, Murrit's voyeur info-scrounger tendencies are put to a good cause! We even get a little bit of spades-flirting as a bonus, back when things weren't so complicated between her and Dismas. Simpler times.

This is one of those scenes that had been established for a loooong time, but still felt nice to actually show in the comic. A contextless passage in Jentha's introduction definitely doesn't hit the same way as witnessing the culmination of an entire flashback journey, knowing all the events that lead up to this exact moment. I think we're all very proud of how this overarching section turned out; it did wonders to further establish a lot of intricacies about several characters, plus really give a lot more weight to Dismas and Jentha's relationship and why exactly they mean so much to each other.

No sketch for this panel for obvious reasons, but here's an earlier draft of Dismas' planet that Kohi was hammering out before Xam finalized it. Labyrinths are cool!

Before we wipe over to a certain bronze-blooded fellow and whatever he's up to, let's take a moment to appreciate the absolute nasty-ass beast that Heather conjured up from the depths of their very wrinkly brain. That is a certified FREAK right there. What does it even needs all those mouths for??? Scary to consider. Vast Error would truly not be the same without their special touch when it comes to creature design.

Oh jeez that's not a lot of space to maneuver around in a fight with a big fuck-all monster. Good thing our favorite Rogue is of a speedy disposition.

Honestly, what else is there to say about this sequence other than holy shit that was cool as hell.

Okay maybe I do have a little bit more to say about it. So happy Dismas is finally beating the "can't fight for shit" allegations after he got his butt handed to him by skulltitandad all the way back in page... what was it? I can't even remember, that was AGES ago. In Act 2! You guys remember Act 2?

I admit, completely wiping out on a crater is not the best way for an audience to be introduced to someone's combat prowess, but we have to keep in mind that skulltitans are terrifying nuclear-energy-spewing monsters. I think most people would straight up not have survived an altercation with one of them, so kudos to Mr. Mersiv for powering through over ten years of this bullshit. And just so, here we see that he can definitely put his money where his scarred mouth is. Look at him, parkouring all over the place and slicing this beast to bits, WHILE his arm is broken! That has got to have earned him an Olympic medal or something.

Guess all those years doing Murrit's dirty work paid off.

Sick landing. Going to let him get away with all the dorky hard boiled monologuing just this once.

TYSON: This one’s kinda messy, but it's the only WIP I have saved for this panel, so it'll have to do! I was on a bit of a crunch that week between other projects, so I tackled this one a little differently to save time. By duplicating the single finished frame several times, I used the transform tool to adjust the limbs to where I wanted them to be, and then sketched over it - a combination of some janky puppeting and drawing. Sometimes I do this for a first pass if I'm particularly worried about getting the proportions right. 

It also helped that this was a straightforward movement with only some subtle follow-through, so the only in-betweens that were super different from the final pose were the first two-ish frames.

Two pages absolutely PACKED to the brim with that good juicy lore. Let's break this into a few different sections:

The finer details of player planets are always a bit in flux. Though their base ideas and general vibes have been mostly figured out for years, we fill in only as many details as we need for a given scene - meaning, until it's time to actually show a specific land mechanic, everything's fuzzy at the edges. Once we knew that this Dismas section was coming up, me and Austin sat down to have a LoLaS brainstorming session, which is when we came up with the main design concept of it: he starts at the heart of a shifting roguelike (haha get it) boss-rush style maze, and his objective is to make his way up and out of it, which we thought was very fitting for a character like him.

Also he's literally stuck inside a cave with monsters. Subtext is for cowards.

Second point to note, Dismas is doing a LOT of anger misdirection at his denizen here! Full disclosure, Forcas is a bit of a smartass, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to blame him for Weird Al kill-stealing your dad, dude. We've already gone over how his little revenge quest against all skulltitans is really just about him (not) working through his feelings over his abusive parent, and this is certainly in keeping with that trend. He really doesn't like examining this in an honest way. 

Like... I don't know. Maybe read some books on processing your emotions? Can't even tell him to go to therapy because Repiton SUCKS at therapy.

Finally, we get a bit of exposition on the Mind and Heart aspects! We've gone on record multiple times about how we like to put our own interpretative spin on the aspects in Vast Error, and that last page does its job in highlighting some pretty grounding things about those two in particular. Also highlighted here: there's really no such thing as a "destined" role for the players to fulfill. 

Destiny and fate get thrown around as a concept a lot in the comic, but the truth of the matter is that, in the end, it's all about choices. Things that might seem fated have only come to pass through either happenstance or the concentrated effort of certain individuals making some - that's right - choices, big or small. Something to chew on.

OH MY GOD IT'S GRANITE! HI GRANITE!!! What an honor to be in the presence of the world's first pangolin grandpa to know RSL (Repitonian Sign Language). To celebrate, let's take a look at this adorable concept art:

Once again designed by Heather! He even has a little cane and everything. God I love Granite.

Always appreciate a zoomed in moment to focus on character expressions. Watch as Dismas, in all his bullheaded and needlessly confrontational wisdom, gears himself up to engage in a downright vaudevillian act in the next couple of pages:

We will never ignore the opportunity for a funny doodly panel, that is a promise.

We will also never refuse a funny Simpsons reference because it is in our contract, otherwise Austin will kill us and steal all our socks. In that order.

And just like that, we are back to two fully functioning arms. Hooray!

Look, sometimes you just have to expedite a broken bone recovery through hand-wavy magical potions. It was either that or have Dismas in a cast for the rest of the comic.

But most important of all: he now has a backup bandana to replace his last one, which was burned in a tragic fire spitting incident. Iconic look RESTORED.

Granite also introduces us to an important concept moving forward, that of LAND LOCKS. The Game is ultimately a system focused on the personal development of its players, and to that end, makes it a point to gently push them towards mutual collaboration. Every planet has a handful of hard stopgaps that require the help of different specific players, so we will definitely be seeing some interesting pair-ups in the future.

Oh not this guy again. What do YOU want now, Murrit?

Sorry to all the fans that were expecting another big Dismurrit log, you were fake-outed. 

AUSTIN: The line "you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't" is a deep cut Simpsons reference from season 1, episode 2 Bart the Genius, where Bart is asked the same question Murrit poses to Dismas in this page, with the phrase being his answer. I always intended to use that line in the comic, as it very succinctly summarizes Murrit's character to me. It's also why I asked SplitSuns to sample the song Deep Deep Trouble in Deep Sea Trouble, back in early 2018. It's all full circle, baby.

Overall, a pretty good snippet of dialogue! And very narratively important, as we're about to see in a few more pages through an echoed conversation with our favorite dog boy...

That's right. It's Laivan time, baby.

I think he really lucked out as far as player planets go. LoCaD is so pretty and filled with adorable beaver consorts in cute little houses, what's not to love? Thank god he's exactly the kind of repitonian weirdo who doesn't mind all the water. My man's PRIMED to fully appreciate all these natural wonders.

Oh, Laivan. This man has a terminal case of "refusal of the call" if I've ever seen one. Totally on brand for our resident self-assigned sidekick to ignore the huge, important main quest of his own planet and go help some NPCs fix their houses instead. He sure likes trying to put run down things back together!

Some extra tidbits of LoCaD worldbuilding here. I find it very fun to come up with the specifics of each player's planet, since they're meant to be heavily reflective of each character's overall themes and lean so much on pure Vibes - the image of a submerged planet populated with underwater ruins, locked in a permanent struggle to stay above water, never building up and away from the core issue, but desperately trying to patch over the same structures instead... it really tickled my brain.

And just in case you forgot what his strife specibus was, here's Laivan with a GUN.

TYSON: Here is the messy first pass I had for the scope fish shot! This was just to scope out how the timing and overall panel would work out, since honestly I was going into it a little blind and hoping for the best. I ended up just polishing this pass, and was pleasantly surprised at how straightforward the process was. There's less inconsistency to worry about since most of the panel is obscured, and most of the complicated action only happens within a few frames. I'll have to think about taking advantage of smaller panel framing for animation if I happen to be boarding on future updates, because this was really fun to do!

Good lord that is a massive fish. A massive fish with a very pretty necklace that has definitely nothing to do with the whole planet locks thing we just talked about.

Once again, kudos to Heather for coming up with an endless supply of fantastic creatures for us to put in this comic. Another absolute unit, this time equipped with a freaky lightbulb tongue!

Yeesh, Laivan really is kind of a lousy shot. No wonder he managed to hit Serpaz on the leg in the middle of the woods that one time.

And with this spectacular KER-FISH, this is where we say goodbye to the last of our Xam sketched panels! What a way to cap things off. Round of applause, everyone.

This should be all for this month! Thank you guys so much for your patience with the delayed rewards, I really appreciate it. The Q&A answers and sketches both should be going up next week too, then it'll be back to our normal schedule in November!

See you all soon! Stay cool.

- Eddie