Eliza never quite fit in. So when things get hard, she has an escape: a world of her own creation that lives in her imagination and on the p
My beloved webcomic :)
Eliza never quite fit in. So when things get hard, she has an escape: a world of her own creation that lives in her imagination and on the pages of her sketchbook. But what happens when Eliza escapes to her imaginary world like always, but finds she can't get back out? Her imagination is weird, overwhelming, and dangerous! But When she meets a toddler and a master thief who are willing to help her get home, Eliza must face her hardest challenge yet: learning what it means to be a friend…
This scene would take place in between the characters flying with the hemulan and crashing at moominhouse. Instead of crash landing at the comet party, they land in the dried up sea just outside the forest.
I was disappointed with how dulled down the dried up sea scene was in the show, as were many other fans. So I decided to take a one week break from my own webcomic (Imagine That on WB), and put my skills to good use on a scene rewrite. I tried to keep it in the style of Gutsy’s Moomins in terms of how the characters speak and such, but pulled inspiration from the book too. I hope you enjoy!
artfight 2024 3/6 mass attack 1 for lots of people under the cut plus as many bonus thoughts as i could remember
mel for ~ariadn3thread not pictured: the hours i spent looking for the perfect pathetic teacher oc
the nice kids who are actually friends (top left):
frog for @kattitude130 1. wanted to keep it ambiguous if the frog is real or not, but the shoebox she brought it in does have air holes 2. this is one of my oldest bookmarks i love you definitely-not-jade harley 3. the frog backpack behind her is obviously hers
keirah & wren for @fruiitlins i wasnt really sure if they’re the right age to be in this class but whatever theres also a nine year old in this class. maybe theyre visiting? i wanted wren to be eating & trading food but couldnt get the angle to work 😖 i really like how keirahs vest turned out
brandy for @bradbradleyart she brought the sunflowers with the overgrown roots & the tamagotchi
percy for @buttercupart i thought their design was cute BUT why do i have 3 distinct glasses-wearers turned away from the camera the same way????
the “bad” kids (middle)
lyolya for @sempegzrd love her stupid little moustache & the sunflower sweater & all of her design so much. kids who cant seem to do anything right i love you forever
thea for @millacm another one of my forever bookmarks! i like how small and mean she is. kids 👏 who 👏 suck!!
jèzu for @snippit-crickit who suggested that the argument is over someone stealing his soccer cards. i love that so much its canon to me, i think maybe he just lost them because his desk is a mess but the others refuse to back down from a fight (he has a bag lunch & sportsball instead of a backpack, and his shoes on the floor)
sawyer for ~eekke shes everything to meeee. she doesnt like school & shes labelled a problem child so she’s stuck in the front row right in front of the teacher. but shes still got her little seashells even here! (i think she’s got the old style tin lunchbox)
the “protagonist zone (top right):
lauta for ~bodefode shes here, shes listening to her friends but to clear she Is bored. of course that’s her hat on the shelf, and right underneath is her backpack & skates
millie for @ruffolive im not psyched about this pose but i love mille & arins dynamic so i couldnt Not include her. child knights forever
corrin for @cupboardgods im obsessed with her story. girl who needs a nap!! i forgot to draw the pattern on her pjs 😭
eliza for @como-draws of course shes in The Protagonist Seat, and shes drawing the other main character from her comic
sports diversion (centre right)
ida for @lazyy-sage probably my oldest bookmark. the entire framing of this scene was for her to get to watch sports
arin for @ruffolive once i drew millie, i couldnt Not draw arin
loner kids (bottom right):
hartley & kerrilyn for my beloved mutual @saffalilac i could write about these two forever BUT ill try to keep it short. hartley is the only one in this class who actually cares about school enough to take out his homework but hes too tired so he fell asleep. in contrast kerrilyn is wide awake slamming coffee but couldnt care less about class. i drew her swinging her legs before i realised they were completely covered by the desk (both backpacks are in the same in nook. do not separate them!!)
teo for @ffuscous hes reading a lil mystery book & hes the only one that notices the teacher is trying to start class
outside:
carrots for ~10907 & pepper for ~kariyahi
carrots is fighting for her life out there, pepper is extremely winning. i had fun figuring out cute sports outfits
there was going to be a whole team of teens playing outside but i gave up. the court & net are netball style but my netball-player friend tells me you cant jump to shoot 😭 edit: actually no apparently its because you have to be in the goal circle
decorations include 1. the water cycle and 2. generic handmade science poster 3. various paper cutouts 4. dying pot plant
the framing of this was ofc vaguely anime inspired, but the desks were purposefully australian primary school desks
i already said when i posted it but this was the result of an existential crisis where i realised that if i didnt draw my bookmarks, i might never get to draw them. and ive always wanted to do a kid oc mass attack. this did awaken something in me so im gonna try to keep doing at least one mass attack next year
ARGH I LOVE ORIGINAL CHARACTERS!!!!!!! werewolf tearing shirt.png
Okay, okay, so if you follow my private Twitter account I know I said I wasn't going to share this publicly BUT I remembered I have an oc blog and you know what, I figure the only people who are going to see this are the people who can handle my cringe anyways, so I made it an unlisted youtube video. I made this in 2 days and It's set to the tune of Harpy Hare by Yaelokre because sometimes I get to be a basic bitch, as a treat.
I planned some of the animatic visually in my head before I started but 99% of the frames ended up being stream of consciousness, just whatever I came up with in the moment. Including the designs for three characters! I knew that if i tried to plan literally anything I would have ended up not finishing or maybe not even starting this. I did still try my best to make it cohesive and I wanted it to be mostly understandable, but at the same time I know nobody knows my ocs the way I do so it's very possible this is just a mess to everyone who isn't me lol. But that's why i'm here to ramble on and on and on and on.......
So first point of discussion! The two mystery characters in the beginning! I tried to make it clear in other parts of the animatic but those are Silas' and Finlay's parental figures, respectively.
The first character who appears is Faust. That was supposed to be a placeholder name but I can't get it out of my head so they are Faust now. They are Silas' caretaker and the person Silas' parents trusted to take care of him when they gave him up. Faust took Silas out of the desert (despite his many protests...) and raised him among mostly deerkin. Culture in the Southern Havens is very concerned with manners, fitting into norms, and being knowledgable about highly specific superstitions, among other things. So despite Silas' best efforts, he is literally fucking Blue, has horns, and is also neurodivergent, so he never stops feeling like an outcast. Plus, the forest roof is so thick that it's really hard to see the stars at night, which depresses him because in the desert the entire world looks like a night sky! Secretly Faust would like for Silas to think of them as a parental figure, but Silas never really does; he views them more like a permanent babysitter than anything. Faust is also perhaps overly gentle on Silas and though he will express that he wishes he got out more he can't bring himself to actually push him to do anything that makes him uncomfortable, partially out of affection for him and partially because he feels so guilty about bringing him to the forest in the first place.
The second character is Finlay's dad, who is... a character! You will notice that he is absent from 99% of the animatic, just like how he was absent from 99% of Finlay's life!
In many of the frames I was very intentional about the use of lighter and darker tones and there's no way I can talk about every instance in this post so, I guess pay attention to all that for symbolism! The one thing I will mention are Silas' eyes! Which become dark but gain brightness again when Finlay gives him hope for the future, and they stay bright even when he loses that dream because in place of romanticism he gains clarity.
Last couple of things to note before I move on!! For the parts with Faust and Finlay's dad, I designed the side decorations after the types of patterns that each culture that they're associated with (Southern Havens & the Farlands, respectively) tends towards! And, I also indicated time passing using both Silas' horns and Finlay's hood (it gains stitches as he gets older). Finlay's hood also symbolizes when he's hiding his true self vs when he's not >:)
And actually I think we are now at the last point I wanna discuss so!! THIS GUY!!! THIS FELLA!!!!!!!! I'M REALLY REALLY HAPPY I MADE SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY GIVES ME AN EXCUSE TO TALK ABOUT THEM!!!!! So get ready for a lore dump on this guy...
This is why animatics / comics are great for me because it forces me to actually design the characters I need to design LOL
OKAY! SO! In terms of direct relevance to the animatic, all that's important to know is that this is the spirit that haunts Finlay! Or at least, the one he believes is haunting him... he's not really sure anymore....
So let me explain the character's deal! Firstly, and this goes for pretty much any spirit, pronouns don't really matter, so anything is fine. I also haven't given them a name yet (rip), I need to figure out those naming conventions first. For now they're just Finlay's Spirit. This spirit's shtick is that they seek out those who have been (or feel as though they have been) "left behind" and offer them belonging and love in the form of.... weaving their souls into little stuffed dolls for their oh so beloved collection. According to the stories, their grounds are littered with shallow, hastily dug graves wherein they dump any remains of the body they deem disposable. When they pull their hood over their face, it disguises them as kinfolk, usually taking a form that represents whatever type of belonging the victim yearns for (for example, for Finlay it was a parental figure). When they approach someone they frame it as "come with me i'll give you a home :]" or possibly "let's make a deal :]" but if the person refuses they will drop the act and take their soul (or whatever it is that they want) by FORCE if ya know what I mean!!! (Which is actually not very common, even for evil spirits. They can usually respect no as an answer specifically because they make it so hard to do. Guess this guy REALLY likes their doll collection. There's only one real way to get away from them and it doesn't look like Finlay is gonna figure it out anytime soon...)
Design-wise! Their true body is obscured and amorphous. They cover themselves in stitched-together fabric scraps with only their face and seeming hundreds of arms/hands ever peeking out of the ensemble. Their fingers are sewing needles and they move very stiffly, almost as if they are moving at a lower frame rate than everything around them. (This remains as a subtle tell when they're disguised!) Their teeth are thin and pointy and stick out in such a way that their mouth almost appears sewn shut when closed.
Like just about any evil spirit they simply get pure joy out of tormenting poor kinfolk. So oftentimes, they will torment a victim for a very long time until the person has finally lost their hope and can be willingly taken. And then they get to remain as a sentient functionless doll and the spirit gets to revel in all their misery for the rest of eternity yayyyyy!!!!!! :]
Finlay has only had one verifiably real encounter with this spirit when he was a child wherein he refused it and it took after him as if to kill him. But it disappeared suddenly and Finlay has been terrified of it ever since because he knows it could be anywhere and anyone.
I do want to make it clear that even though this character does physically exist and is a part of the narrative, they're also... kind of a symbol in themselves? Like, in a META sense, Finlay's trauma does not LITERALLY come from this spirit, but from what the spirit represents. Does that make any sense!!!
In writing him it's a really careful balance for me to strike because I want everything to be grounded in reality but I also want that reality to be exaggerated for fantastical and storytelling purposes... ya know!!
Okay well!! That's everything I can think to talk about for now, but please feel free to ask if you have any questions about anything!!!! Because that would be fun!!!!!
Until next time! :]
