BEHIND THE SCENES - "When a Bulbmin Grows Up"

Welcome! This time, we're looking into production deets on "When a Bulbmin Grows Up".

This idea came from reading the Piklopedia entry on the Bulbmin, and noticing a horrid detail. I sketched out some initial poses and gestures to get a good feel down.

I texted the idea to a friend, "I've had this thought that might be a bit unsettling - Considering that Bulbmin are behaviorally Pikmin in their adolescent stage, and that they eventually succumb to their Bulborb instincts as they mature, what if a particular Pikmin forms a close bond with a Bulbmin, only to later have to be the one to take it down when the time comes?"

Slight side note, I found this in the file where Notch takes a pedal off.

 This was a sketch for a Discord server I was once gonna start with a friend, called "The Creation Castle" or "Castle of Creatives". We wanted to gather some artists of most sorts and have a place where they could show their stuff and potentially make connections. We were also gonna have an official centerpiece where their OCs or personas would be drawn by me into a castle window, which is where this sketch came in. I added my OCs, Keaton and Basil as starters. We'd also have silly prompt competitions, where the victor would get a comic strip drawn by me of their choice. The idea fell through, since I was already busying myself with other projects. I have trouble keeping up with conversations anyway.

Back to the main subject, I had some shots I wanted to redo since they looked a little sloppy for my liking. Here's how some looked in earlier versions of the animatic:

  Since this was an important shot, I wanted it to look cuter.

I also wanted more parts that were outright animated, so I also had to redo this shot:

  I felt Karo wasn't clear enough in this, so when doing the animated version, I just had her directly pointing like a sergeant instead of just beckoning.

Here's the original shot of the exit geyser:

The angle wasn't as strong as I'd like, so I redid it to pan upward, and still have other Pikmin shown in the scene.

There was one more shot I redid to make it less sloppy.

The first sketch I did for this shot, to get the point on paper.

The angle of the shot where Karo's typing out the Bulbmin Piklopedia entry was changed. As was the overhead of Karo typing.

On the part where a missing Blue Pikmin tells his story, one of the enemies mentioned was supposed to be a Bumbling Snitchbug, since I hated 'um.

This was cut, since Bumbling Snitchbugs only care about the captains, and the Blue Pikmin was all alone. The layer name for this drawing was "oh right..." after I remembered that.

These are the original gestures of the Bulbmin becoming hungry.

The smile on Blue was gonna be stretchy. I redid it to be more cutesy, so it's worse to hear him get crushed.

The first shot of Part 2 was probably the most changed. The original photo was of Notch killing a Bumbling Snitch bug by himself, to show he's a champion... next to a close-up of Karo's hips.

However, it felt more appropriate to change it to a doodle of him and the Bulbmin that he drew with his nose, to show he misses his friend.

This felt too eerie.

In the shot where Notch and Karo saw the cave, Notch's pose was different, and the Gamepad was in a different position.

Notch was given a less silly pose, since this pose felt less like he a chance to see his bestie again, and more like his fav got into Smash Ultimate.

The Gamepad was lowered, so Karo's hand had to be offscreen.

One segment that was scrapped entirely was Karolyn hopping out of the Ship, and gathering the proper allotment of Pikmin just by kicking the Onion. It wasn't drawn down past the sketch of the Ship, since it wasn't especially needed.

 Karolyn's pose had to be more questioning, and the Pikmin stems were removed.

After Notch jumps away from the Bulbmin's attack, there was a shot where he recognized Notch's pedals, which triggers his conscience to think of him. In hindsight, I probably should have kept this in.

Karolyn's irises were gonna be creepier.She was gonna spin, too.

 This was redrawn, since it looked really awkward.

 Same with Karo's face in this shot.

 When animating Karo chucking the Purple into the sky, extra visual precaution was lined out.

That's about it for the changes. The last few shots had to stay in, since it was the last night of production, and I knew I'd be up until 5AM finishing the editing and sound mixing. Had I given myself more time, there were a few changes I would have made.

You may notice that when the big Bulbmin looks to Notch one last time, Notch's stem was a leaf instead of a flower, I would have liked to have changed that. But I guess we could use the excuse that his life is flashing before his eyes, and he's seeing Notch the way he was when they first met.

I would have made the Joy-con treasure's joystick just lightly tilt to the side... THEN explode. And the Bulbmin's stem next to the radio at the last segment would have been placed in a cup, like it was in "Captain KARO's Cake". But ya gotta let some stuff go and finally friggin' sleep.

Thanks for reading all the way! This Pikmin Bit was one of the longer ones, and I'd definitely like to do a longer animatic again sometime. I do have one in the works, and I'm going to update this Patreon with the deets on that as it progresses. I'd love to see ya there!

~KARO '24