CatComixzStudios

Character Design - The Champion

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

Once I  settled on the "Quizard Duel" concept, it wouldn't take long for that  idea to be immediately followed by, "Hey, I could just straight-up put  Seto Kaiba in." I needed someone for Leon and Luca to duel, after all,  and they'd need to be a real heel.

Enter, the Champion.

Character Design - The Quizard

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

For  the longest time, I struggled with what I wanted the "Media" section of  the Fair visit to include. As the outline was getting further along,  though, it made sense that this scene would be the part where Luca  starts to finally embrace her time here. But how to make that happen?

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I plan a lot of stuff with my writing - particularly the most important plot beats - but stuff like the pins Leon and Luca won last chapter? I actually didn't have a strong concept for when I added it to the script. Thankfully, I trust future-me enough to figure out what to do with the odds and ends of my scripts.

Needless to say, the pins will be /pretty important/ for this chapter.

We also see the twins again! They're much less interested in sitting together, it seems.

Thi...

Environmental Design - The Coaster

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

Staging  for the coaster section of the chapter. I had a time and a half trying  to figure out what to make the actual carts look like. It's just kind of  a vaguely space-themed thing. The real point of this section, of  course, was seeing the paradox bubbles completely envelope something ...

Environmental Design - Treebase Bathrooms

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

"Hey Timmy, what's YOUR favorite piece of KttFF concept art?"

"I like the one where Gage sketched out a WHOLE PAGE of details for a bathroom!"

I  honestly couldn't help myself. It was genuinely such an interesting  challenge to design a restroom that can accommodate so many different &n...

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I knew Leon would come clean to Luca about /not/ using her holo-tablet for studying history, and instead looking up stuff about the key, though I didn't initially expect it to happen this early in the chapter. Honestly though, I feel this is a good chance to re-establish the budding friendship between these two. No hard feelings and all that.

Character Sketches - C2 Finalizations 2

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

Luca's  turn for some development practice! It'll never stop being funny to me  that some of these characters, I've drawn for YEARS now, and yet I still  don't feel like I know how to draw them.

I  leaned more into Luca's diamond motif for her finalized ear shape. I  intended to...

Character Sketches - C2 Finalizations

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

Mostly  a study of how actual cat ears work, along with rechecking the  proportions of Leon and Luca. AND getting more practice with Luca's leg  structure. Every once in a while, I just kind of forget how digigrade  legs work.

We also get our first peak of Ms  Shepard's height i...

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If there's one thing you can count on with me, it's that if there's a more simple layout to go with on a given page, I'm ABSOLUTELY going to leap at the chance to do something way more unnecessarily complicated.

Oh well. At least it'll give me more of a chance to show off some of the background building designs I've sketched before the end of chapter hiatus.

The city we're entering here, Fassdoon, is up by Lake Icatsca, and is a part of Meowdesoda that has a TON of the state's lak...

Environmental Design - Spring Fair 8

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

A bit  more finalization, along with testing out some more alternative designs  for the main Fair grounds platform. This would ultimately be the last  of the sketches I did for the structure of the Fair grounds area, though  there are still tons of little details and specific locations tha...

Environmental Design - Spring Fair 7

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

I  consider this to be the point when I truly had a strong foundation for  what the Fair would look like. I realized by this point that I didn't  have to make it mono-colored; in fact, by using a bunch of different  colors, it would help with navigation for those visiting! I also started &...

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The cover thumbs for Chapter 3! This one was a struggle. I had a lot of ideas in my head for the framing, but few of them really conveyed what I was aiming for. Thankfully, I was finally able to settle on one... functionally the first one I /did./ Go figure.

As per usual with the other chapters, many of the elements I used for this cover page aren't strictly going to be reflective of certain designs in the actual chapter... especially since I haven't /designed/ a lot of those elements y...

Environmental Design - Velvinn 3

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

By  this point, I was being better about using reference to inspire parts of  my setting. It's fitting that much of the stuff here was inspired by  Ratchet and Clank, since that was one of the major inspirations for  KttFF!

Some of the structures I would end up  making use of fo...

Environmetal Design - Spring Fair 6

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

It  took quite a while to figure out how I wanted the Titanwood trees to  look. The base was inspired by rainbow eucalyptus trees, but none of the  canopies I tried felt quite right. Eventually I settled on the wavy,  blobby forms, which I'm pretty happy with.

I  also tried a to...

Environmental Design - Spring Fair 5

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

...  Huh, still playing around with those modular tree base designs by this  point. Well, in any case, as you can see, I figured out a more simple  alternative instead. And one I'm proud of! Unfortunately, looking back,  I'm becoming aware of so many design elements (like the awning under ...

Environmental Design - Spring Fair 4

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

FINALLY,  the Fair is starting to look like it would in the comic! Though I do  admit I am sad I never found a spot to show off the expansive sprinkler  system of the Fair, it's at least worth it to see the other elements of  its identity come into play.

The Fair would  finally ...

Environmental Design - Spring Fair 3

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

It  doesn't read very well, in hindsight, but I LOVE the top sketch. It  gives a view as Leon and Luca walk along one of the tree platforms and  looks over to the Fair at the center. By this point, I was also starting  to get into the idea of making the Fair multiple floors... but still &n...

Environmental Design - Spring Fair 2

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

The  Fair is starting to take shape! I reached the point where I aimed to  include a bunch of criss-crossing walkways reaching out from the central  platform to some HUGE trees... but struggled to figure out a good  iconic look for them. Along with that, I needed to figure out what the &nb...

Environmental Design - Spring Fair 1

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The  story will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please  enjoy this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

Now we come to one of  my FAVORITE things got to design: The Spring Fair! These are the  earliest sketches for what I had in mind, and it's safe to say it  shifted drastically. The connections between some HUGE trees were a  constant, but at this stage, I don't even think I had a strong id...

Character Design - More Fair Background Fodder

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The  story will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please  enjoy this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

Another set of  designs that I had a blast working on! Notably, there's a pair of cameos  prepped here - Riiser in the bottom center, and the McElroys bottom  right. Adapting real people for my story is a fun challenge.

I  also made a specific effort to work out some of the NPCs Leon...

Character Design - Spring Fair Background Fodder

[Originally drawn around Aug 2019]

Looking  back, I like how these all turned out (at least in their final  incarnations), but I was drawing most of them during a summer vacation  where I was EXTREMELY SICK, and just wasn't feeling it. Still, it did  lead to some concepts I really like. The Health And Safety (HAS) Officer  in particular is one I like; instead of traditional police, KttFF has  professionals trained in community-first conflict reso...

Environments - Velvinn 2

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

A detail that doesn't  often get explored in (what little there is of) solarpunk media is the  question of "What are the winters like?" Solarpunk often has a lot of  visual focus, and winter can often be considered a bit drab, since a lot  of the nature elements that bring the life to a green city are...

Environments - Velvinn 1

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The  story will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please  enjoy this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

Despite how much  brainpower it takes to create these environments, it's easily one of my  favorite parts of developing the comic. This is where the real magic  happens in terms of developing this world's identity. This is where I  found out what works, and what doesn't.

This  p...

Character Sketches - C2 Redesigns

[This is being posted as part of the hiatus for KttFF’s second  chapter. The comic will resume with CHAPTER 3 on August 24th, 2023]

Despite the fact that I’ve been drawing Leon for over a decade at  this point, I’m /STILL/ constantly shifting around details of his  design. Proportions are still a major detail that I struggle with. I  keep trying to find good look for him.

Luca is more of a recent creation, and she’s shifted so much since  her incep...

Environmental Design - Orb-Its

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

The Orb-Its concept was  actually one of the earliest of the series, one that serves as a  summation for the solarpunk elements of the comic. Open to all,  customizable, free to use, and encourages people to get out and explore.  Naturally, ships are still a thing; there's still a need to ...

Ask #6

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy this READER QUESTION for the series!]

Another reader question, this time from AtomicBritt, creator of Cirque Royale!

Time for a lesson on the wonders of future medicine!

Alien Sketches - Plakzaken

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The  story will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please  enjoy this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

The Plakzaken are  probably one of my favorite alien designs I've come up with. I lumped  together a ton of plant aspects to come up with their final concept, and  it provides such a fantastic degree of variety for a suitably alien  creature.

Like the rest of the aliens in KttFF, &nb...

Ask #5

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy this READER QUESTION for the series!]

Melody's not quite as sure about her future as Leon is, it seems...

Thank you to ArtUniverse01 for the question!

Environmental Sketches - Paradox Bubbles and Flora

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

Since we got a name for them, /technically/ at the end of the Chapter 2 Intermission, I figure there's no longer a need to hide it! Everyone say hello to the PARADOX BUBBLES! Don't worry if they freak you out; you won't remember them. :)

I  did some explorations of how exactly I wa...

Characters - Leon (Poncho version)

[Key to the Future’s Fate is currently on HIATUS. The story  will return with CHAPTER 3 on AUGUST 24TH. In the meantime, please enjoy  this CONCEPT ART for the series!]

More poncho studies from  around the time I was starting the comic! Again, it would be literal  years before he actually gets to wear it in the comic, and, naturally,  both Leon and the poncho look very different.

At least Leon actually has his iconic tummy here.