"I fell behind on submitting stuff" part 2.

YEAH RAZ
PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH
WOO HOO!

*coughs*

I decided that I wanted to try and draw all 20 of the Whispering Rock campers before, I dunno, some time. "This is a great idea," I said but not actually acted on. The motivation kicked in after seeing some BEAT MY FACE SAD and then ADORABLE art in the Psychonauts tag on Tumblr of Clem and Crystal, so I set off.

(This commentary turned long, buckle up)

Most of the campers are surprisingly dimensional with just the snippets given in the game and the inferences then made by the player, but there was also so much back-end stuff done to give them more atmosphere. Probably the best example is the...what was it...Campster? Something like that; they're profiles made by the Double Fine peeps who then basically did an RP with the campers. Clem and Crystal's are effing tragic when you read them all play out: they are implicitly suicidal in the game despite their peppy personas, and when reading the comment back-and-forth for the profiles, Crystal outright snaps and rattles on about how hopeless life can be. The two are bullied and teased by some, looked at as annoying by others, and still somehow just manage to trudge through it, masking their real problems. The silver lining is that after being re-brained there's an inference that the situation has made them look at life a new way.

After drawing a few poses, I was like "I really need to see what these two look like when I draw them". It's fun to research early-2000s 3D rendering and just the bizarre visuals of the 'nauts, and figure out how to translate that to my own style. So then I sketched some heads and stared at the page and it suddenly just hit me how much I want to weep at their story. They're kids, implied to be maybe in middle school, and just - uggghhhhhh I want to cry.

Hokay, sorry that turned long; I can occasionally have lots of feelings about fictional characters.