10-2024 Artist Commentary

Chumi, enjoying the fall weather: Welcome to the Artist Commentary! I love this update a lot!!!! It has a lot of standout moments, and I think the audience felt it as well because the reactions on social media were pretty crazy LMAO! Things are coming to a head in the story, but let’s take a second to get the artists’ takes on what went down.

Haven, shivering in the fall weather: where is vriska 

Kim, can do 10 push-ups: A lot of people were blown away by these two scenes side-by-side, and you can thank our lead writer and board artist for this update, Floral, for that! When she proposed this update to us, I can tell you now without exaggeration, I literally had my jaw dropped and was yelling the entire time reading the script. The writing, the overall pacing, the right amount of anticipation per page… Floral, you absolute mad man…

Chumi: Thank you Floral! We love you!!

Haven: wrote and boarded it all out, floral really went crazy on this one

Haven: we start on jade and rose, jade is forming a space power forcefield to protect the kids inside the ship. The first part of this for me was figuring out how we wanted her forcefields to look. 

Haven:  then onto the sketches, reused the troll meteor memorial park image i made for a previous update. 

Haven: we tossed around what position everyone would be in during these scenes so we’d have a better grasp on the flow of the action during.....the big action scene that is on the way.

Haven: this update was my first time drawing Candy Jade and Rose, their designs have really grown on me. I love Jade's paw print gloves.

Haven: this panel showing “how rose ‘sees’ things now” was added late into this update's production and floral didn't have a description other than “haven go wild” 

Haven: generic troll soldier #612 casually bumps into a god.

Haven: i’d probably have about the same reaction.

Haven: went through a couple versions of this, the initial version with her looking down on him with the setting sun and a troll rebellion flag waving in the background was very cool and dramatic but i couldn’t figure out a way to get it to feel right. The final version has one of the rebellions massive crab tanks looming behind that i’m excited for you all to see more of.

Haven: sometimes very blatant symbolism is the way to go.

Haven: IT’S A TROLL THAAANGG i love these guys.

Kim: Then we move onto the second half of the update!

Kim: A majority of this was entirely boarded by Floral with only a few additions/revisions (and a rough color pass) by me! As you can compare, the final released product has a few more extra panels compared to the above boards for readability and added suspense.

And in this part of the update, we finally see Jane in a different part of her ship for once LOL. Funny enough, due to my own oversight, I thought she WAS going to be in her office again and I thought to myself, “how many more times are we gonna have to draw this got dang room again!” Since this was a location designed within the previous team, we didn’t have a proper design of the room to go off of that wasn’t just the panels itself.

So, I ended up making a convenient isometric for reference of Jane’s Crockership office.

Jane’s Crockership Office Isometric by Kim Quach

Kim: Even though we ended up not particularly needing it for this update, I figured some diehard fans and the fanartists would appreciate this LOL.

Though, that leaves us with… what about this NEW room that Jane is in?

Crockership Bridge Concept Sketch by Kim Quach

Kim: It’s funny knowing there’s so much more to a room that you don’t actually end up seeing in the final product. But hey, it doesn't hurt to be prepared!

I think this is also the first update I had to properly draw these two in Guardian Mode myself, so here’s a few old sketches I have lying around from when I was trying to practice drawing them.

Exploration Sketches by Kim Quach

Chumi: Zoowee mama!!!

Kim: Something I’ve been having fun with whenever I draw Jane in Guardian Mode is that with the ominous absence of her eyes, it gives a bit more fun opportunity to stylize her glasses. There’s something condy-like about the sharp “eyes” that I quite like about it.

Kim: As you can compare from the sketch, I was considering, “should this button have a label? Does this laser have a Stupid Name to it?” But after some thought, it probably would’ve been too corny for Homestuck. If you can think of a better name for Jane’s dumb cake laser, feel free to send it my way LOL.

Another point of interest is the framed photo of Tavvy here. On this page, Candy-Jane reflects back on the life she has lived here on Earth C. Her ‘accomplishments,’ her family, her friends, her future… Or rather, more like coping honestly. Even in this picture of Tavvy here, it’s not exactly the warmest family picture. The way I imagined it, it’s like the only photo Jane could even get of her son was one where she was interrupting him in the middle of doing something… to top it off, he’s not even that ecstatic to see her. v_v

Oh, Jane… This timeline hasn’t exactly been your brightest.

Scrapped Version of Homestuck: Beyond Canon panel 682

Kim: It was specifically noted in Floral’s boards to keep this panel entirely silhouetted. Sorry janejakers, this moment is not about them being kissy kissy LOL.

I did consider having little hints of detail just to give this panel a bit more visual interest, but I think it gave away too much. Though, at this point everyone already knows Jake’s here to put a stop to Jane, but not how. Explicitly showing the arm behind the back would’ve taken all that mystery away!

Kim: I think just the hint of it in the silhouette clueing into the viewer’s imagination made this a bit more suspenseful, no?

… You can tell I put way too much thought into this.

Scrapped Version of Homestuck: Beyond Canon panel 683

Kim: The secret scrapped version of this panel where the shot is a bit more severe… I wanted the impact as people turned to this page to be like, “OH SHIT!” BUT, Floral noted to me the bullet doesn’t exactly go through her brain. Jane was doing some crazy life powers shit to stop the bullet from going all the way.

Chumi: I won’t lie, I’m a little sad this panel was changed. I love the splatter. Ah well!

Kim: There were a lot of pretty tricky angles in this update, and–like any good artist–I usually make my own references. I thought it would be fun to show you guys a couple of the funny references I used for this update LOL. For the panel above I actually used Vroid–a free program you can use to fully customize 3D model characters :-)

Chumi: WHOA IT’S JISHEN

Kim: (excuse to show you my fantroll) If I had to be honest, it’s actually way easier to pose Vroid models in the photobooth because using the asset store’s 3D models make my CSP explode.

Kim: For this one, I wanted to get the tilt of her expression and the grip on the gun just right. Taking my own ref pics is the easiest and quickest way to get that angle I need, and well– lets just say the resulting ref pic is the funniest picture I now have in my camera roll.

Chumi: AAH!!!

Kim: POV the art director of Homestuck: Beyond Canon is in his pajamas as he beats you to death.

Kim: I feel like I can’t take credit for how insane this particular gif came out because this is just one-to-one with what Floral pitched to us in the script.

Animation Thumbnail Rough by Floralmarsupial

Kim: Girl you are so crazy.

James: I like her little pikmin spike

Kim: I feel like at this point I’m just gonna be known for drawing all these cunty panels LMFAO.

I wonder if it’s also obvious whenever I work on a panel because I’m also a big sucker for linework. I love utilizing varying line weight and am heavily inspired by Andrew’s older traditional work that was much more line-involved.

Another interesting observation, you can tell from above the final doesn’t look that much different from the sketch. Any attempt I did to polish this any further made it lose its texture and edge that I liked about it v_v I think when it comes to Homestuck, you gotta make sure to maintain that careful balance of keeping that nice scratch to it.

Kim: This panel wasn’t a part of the original boards either, but I proposed we include it! Making it clear that Jane grabbed the gun but also quite literally has the upperhand now lol. I got storyboarder brain and I love the excruciating anticipation of making people hold their breath between panels... When you know something’s coming but you can’t help but clasp your hand over your mouth like, “OH NO…”

Kim: I think it’s interesting this is the second instance of this entire update where you see Jane’s eyes... The last one where you see livid anger in her eyes, the second where vivid clarity dawns upon her.

Kim: The ship here was actually plucked from a prior panel (page 355)! I drew the rest of the background, Floral actually helped with the animation here. There’s something so funnily disgusting to me about the way these guys get dumped like pez out of the ship. Like a mother bird feeding pellets to their young.

Kim: Apparently there’s a greatly debated point of discussion around this panel than I anticipated people would ever be interested in over who wrote this letter. And y’know what, I’m gonna refrain from answering any questions because I think that’s part of the fun. Plus, y’all will get your answer soon enough LOL.

See you guys in the next commentary!