Chumi, what would a bald nymph look like: Hello everyone and welcome to the COMMENTARY!! We released a whole lot of stuff during the month of November, so that makes for a whole lot of comments… Thoughts… Let’s get into them.
Kim, can’t make a bald nymphsona: These updates have been so ly’lac-ful… 🥹 I’m so happy y’all get to see more of her antics, because we really cannot get enough of how endearing she is. And the people NEED to know too!!!!
Haven, we see 2 bald nymphs very early on the caretaker and meemaw are right there: YO, welcome to Derse, It’s quite lovely this time of year!
Ly’lac Sprites by Haven, Annie “Chumi” Lee, and Kim Quach
Chumi: I had the distinct pleasure of throwing together a bunch of Ly'lac's sprites alongside my fellow good friends and teammates! Haven did the first standing one, I threw together the rest of the top row based on his sprite, and Kim refined her laying-down sprites in the bottom row. I’m a pretty big fan of the inverted Derse jammies, it looks spiffy!
Kim: Same, same! Huge props to Haven for proposing the idea! It’s fresh, spiffy, and new but still feels classic!
Haven: She’s a little different!
Panel 915 by Annie “Chumi” Lee and Kim Quach
Chumi: Owch, blasted right out of the tower… At first, we talked about whether or not we wanted her hair splayed out all silly, but it didn’t quite look right. I also needed a little help with drawing her hair and making it look 3-D LMAO. Thank u to Kimbo for helping me fix it!
Kim: I gotta admit, Ly’lac’s hair took a good second for me to wrap my head around LOL. When Ly’lac updates started happening I made it a mission to draw a Ly’lac everyday until I Got It. Here’s a little snippet into my practice canvas:
Kim: You know what they say, a Ly’lac a day keeps the doctor away…
Panel 917 by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Panel 918 1 & 2 by Annie “Chumi” Lee and Haven
Panel 919 by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: I quite like how cute she came out in this panel! Nothing else of note LMAO.
Panel 920 by Annie “Chumi” Lee and Haven
Chumi: I remember there was talk regarding the colors of their Derse rooms. Rose’s purple and Dave’s red are very… intense, saturated colors that fit the vibe of Derse as a purple, dark moon. Something about the light green just felt off to me, but at the same time I didn’t want to stray from the implicit rules of a dreamer room. Thus I left it up to Haven’s discretion LMAO.
Haven: A glance at championsTirade’s dream room! This guy is intense. Satyr Divine is here too, that was Floral’s input. I tried to keep the rooms dark but still wanted them to have their specific pops of color.
Panel 921 by Annie “Chumi” Lee and Haven
Haven: A peak at cloisteredConnoisewer’s dream room...! Aw, look at how happy she is to see her friend. Awww.
Kim: Ly’lac’s tiny little smile is my favorite…
Storyboard by Haven
Haven: This is the first flash I boarded by myself! It was really crazy to see it all come together. Initially it was just going to be static panels but I begged and pleaded with everyone to let it be a flash. Begging/Pleading = “Wouldn’t this section be really cool as a flash? I just think it’d be so dope if this part was a flash guys...” everyone: yeah we agree.
Kim: We can’t help but love swaggin’ out… It’s fun making our comic, okay!!!
Floral: I was the compositor for this flash and it took me overall 5 days to fully put together! It was a lot of fun, and while I was the secondary compositor for the 8r8k flash as well, and between the two I tried a slightly different workflow. One of the nice things about animate is you can just place .psd files, and the layers can be imported directly on the stage meaning minimum placement. Every time I work in Animate I feel a little bit more confident and I can’t wait to make even more flashes!
Flash assets by Haven
Haven: I drew most of the flash assets for [S] Ly’lac: Look. It was my second time working so closely with Floral on an update like this since the intermission and we were like a well inked machine. It was very fun honestly, excited to work on more flashes later, simple ones (and some not so simple.) Also, isn’t Vrissy’s Derse purple hair streak sick? When we got that in there I was like Hell Yes........
Horroterrors by Fai
Chumi: We had the opportunity to commission Fai for some new horrorterrors, and we LOVE how they came out! Their eerieness, how gigantic they look…My personal favorite is the last one. I like the teeth. Also, that’s us! We’re Furthest Ring Studios!
Haven: Fai is one of my absolute favorite artists, I’d wanted to get him for something on this project for months and the second we had a chance we immediately reached out. Please check out his work if you get a chance, he’s one of a kind.
Horroterrors by Logan
Floral: I also helped make the final horrorterror! I ended up just splicing a bunch of different little creatures into here, since I didn’t want to over think a design, especially with the tentacles which should feel immense and fluid. I thought it was funny everyone kept saying it was a frog but the eyes are actually from a Tarsier.
Chumi: The color-version looks crazy…
Kim: I’m a BIG fan of these FRS horrorterror originals. It really delves into the body horror spookiness a lil’ bit more with the mishmash of species and the human limbs… It’s horrorterrors, we gotta get FREAKY.
Panel 923_1 by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: Here we get a nice view of the front yard! Old ladies are about, pests are chewing up the garden, and Ly’lac knocked out in her front yard… Logan made the front yard asset and I played house with it (put the sprites in).
Elder Nymphs concept art by Haven
Elder Nymphs Sprites by Andi, Chumi, and Haven
Chumi: The old ladies!!! We love them dearly. I drew the one on the rock and forgot that means she can’t stand up or get up off of it LMAO. The rock is part of her now.
Kim: I imagine it just inexplicably moves around like Spongebob on the boulder. They used to ride these babies for miles…
Aside, I’m also really fond of all the unique nymph grannies we get to see! I was excited for this update to drop because it also got a chance to display the many ways a nymph can evolve into. Some more-or-less squid-like… Maybe not even squid at all! They’re all different varieties of beautiful nymphs, even in their old age. 😌
Haven: The grannies... I love them all so dearly. I drew most of those Nymph Elder sketches back in 2023, It was pretty exciting to see the team put them all together and finally make them real.
Nymph concept art by Haven
Haven: As a bit of a bonus, I sketched up some drawings of how I imagine some of them would look before they were too old to live on their own.
Kim: THEY’RE ALL SO AWESOMEEEE. Haven’s got the magic touch for unique nymph designs!!! Also I'm so fond of all the doodles of Ly’lac interacting with them too… They love her!!! She’s the baby!
Chumi: Not to say that they aren’t currently baddies, but… THEY WERE BADDIES….. The seahorse pic especially made me laugh.
Original Front Yard Asset by Floral
Floral: This was my first draft of the “Front Yard” asset but after realizing we needed way more space and it would be much clearer for Ly’lac run offscreen to the left instead of the right. The added space was also great and allowed for a garden. We didn’t have designs for what the foliage would look like, so I opted for the sulfur alchemy symbol along with a crescent moon.
Panel 923_2 by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Panel 924 Thumb by Floral
Panel 924 by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: I thought it’d be cute if she had a dent in her head, and I’m glad people liked it too! Her mantle is squishy!! Thankfully an explosion of this caliber would never leave a lasting mark, let alone kill her.
Panel 926 By Haven
Haven: I wanted the farsphere ui to look a bit like a psp with a bit of that frutiger aero feel.
Beyond Anon Comic Thumbs By Floral
Concept Art By Haven
Haven: The cast of Beyond Canon! Well, some of them. Vriska, John, Rose, Roxy, Jake, Kanaya, and Calliope are nymphs.Terezi and Jane are monocorns, Dave is a pegatulp, and Karkat is a stallion. Dirk is just a horse.
Chumi: SO CUTE. Jake’s a cube.
Haven: This was the first sketch I did of one of the comics, testing the art style we wanted to work with on them. As cute as they were on the regular I kind of struggled to make the violence look not so viscerally disturbing LOL. We opted for a more cartoony look.
Beyond Anon Comic Sketches By Haven
Beyond Anon Comic By Haven
Haven: In the midst of development a friend of mine happened to show me the Wigglypaint art program and I realized it’d be perfect for these.
Panel 929_1 By Haven
Haven: I snuck this panel in pretty late, I just wanted to provide some visual information on Ly’lac’s alchemical process. She’s got the symbols memorized and all she needs is space to draw them out.
Ticking Slimebomb Computer by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: This asset is supposed to be reminiscent of one of those computers from the 90’s that have see-through parts.
Chumi: Whoa indeed. You can see the bomb embedded in the monitor!
Panel 933 by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: The tablet in this panel is the Complaint Tablet to Ea-nāṣir, called the world’s oldest customer complaint. Except I put a red overlay on it. Dude was not fucking about with the quality of his copper.
Panel 934 by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: Here’s a sketch of the Ly’lac aura-farming panel as the people have been calling it. The final panel’s angle is different, but the general idea of a silhouetted Ly’lac with glowing marks is retained! A very important moment for our girl.
Haven: She’s been symbolized.
Nymph sign concepts by Haven
Haven: Speaking of symbols you’ve seen them all now! Here are some of my early drafts of the three nymph symbols.
Nymph sign concepts by Kim Quach
Kim: It all started from this little sketch in 2023…
I remember there was a big discussion between the team whether or not to bring back the ye olde classic Homestuck shirt designs to our characters! Since the Omega kids were introduced with no shirt designs, it was a pretty noted difference in this new generation of kids. Even Ly’lac didn’t even start with a sign! So what does it mean as the story approaches closer to the game that she suddenly got one…? Hmmm…
Could be nothing!
Storytelling crypticness aside – as you can tell our new Deltritan kiddos have their own set of funny signs! Have you noticed the patterns between them yet? :) Shirt designs are a pretty iconic motif to Homestuck, but we wanted to bring them back in a way that wasn’t just retreading Troll territory again…
If there’s anything I’ve noticed about troll signs, they’re a lot more alphabet-like and lines-based. I proposed that the nymphs and satyrs should have distinct design languages between their signs! Nymphs’ being a bit more “magical” and organic. Haven really took it away from there next!
Nymph sign concepts by Haven
Haven: Yeah, it’s that number again.
Ly’lac’s Wand Asset by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: Here’s the full-size of the wand! It’s a mash-up of Rose’s Thorns of Oglogoth turned white. Wonder how the nymphs got their hands on those!
Hagsnabs Concpets by Floral
Floral: Here were the concepts I churned out trying to figure out what direction to take with this little guy, you can see what’s closest to the final in the upper right. I wasn’t shooting for cute when I was first attempting the design, but once it was cute it was perfect.
Hagsnabs by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: Here’s the full-size of the hagsnab, and a prototype that was red! I wanted it to be reddish to camouflage with the seaweed seen in Ly’lac’s front yard. Alas, there are a lot of bright colors going on in that area already.
Panel 942 Thumb by Haven
Panel 941 by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Panel 942 Thumb by Floral
Panel 942 by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: My attempt at a hero-mode Ly’lac with a dramatic angle and pointier limbs! DEATH BEAM!!
Panel 945 Thumbs by Floral
Panel 945 by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: Lineless art for a change! Why not!!! Fuck that thing up.
Panel 947 by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: As many have already pointed out, the beam seems to have caused the hagsnab to grow not only in size, but also lumps and extra limbs. I tried to make it really gross-looking! Poor thang.
Panel 948 by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: Everyone’s clapping! Yay they are so proud of her!! I knew that I MUST draw the little seahorse granny, so she ends up being on the ground. She doesn’t have hands either, so she can only really flap her wings and wiggle her tail.
Panel 950 Thumbs by Floral
Floral: This was the very first thumb made for this panel, it was a bit more mischievous and I think wouldn’t have been iconic as the final panel, which was just so arresting.
Panel 950 by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: Her smile… She’s so proud as well! I’m so happy people liked it HEHE I wanted to give her a very cute smile because she’s just the cutest. Also I did not intend for this to look like Speed in that one gif where he tries not to laugh. A happy coincidence!
Haven: So damn cute.
Panel 949_01 by Kim Quach
Kim: When these updates were slowly rolling out into the public, and everyone was coo’ing over the hagsnab I felt so bad knowing, “oh no… they don’t know we set up the hagsnab to hagsplode…” The poor thang…
Panel 949_02 Thumbnail by Haven
Panel 949_02 by Kim Quach
Kim: I love that we keep drawing Ly’lac with dot eyes. There’s just no better way to get across the feeling LMAO.
Panel 950 by Kim Quach
Kim: I’m getting so good at drawing explosions and blood splatters it’s almost getting concerning.
Panel 953 thumbnail by Floralmarsupial
Panel 953 sketch by Kim Quach
Panel 953 by Kim Quach
Kim: Another panel I’m pretty proud of! I love how strange nymphs are. Yeah just eat the dead. That’s pretty normal, right. I did my best to convey how absurd this moment was and I’m quite happy with how this panel came out LOL. Sometimes you just gotta break out the scribble mode every now and then.
Panel 954 thumbnail by Floralmarsupial
Floral: I love this thumbnail so much, Ly’lac looks so beautiful.
Panel 954 by Kim Quach
Kim: Fun fact this panel went through a ridiculous amount of iterations, because 1) I kept getting confused where Ly’lac was standing (my fault LOL) and 2) I kept redrawing Ly’lac to make her expression funnier. As you can probably tell I care a lot about the showmanship of visual comedy LMAO.
Scrapped panels and background for Panel 954 by Kim Quach
Kim: While I’m at it, I wanted to get a chance to show off the BG for 954, just because I like how it came out! Isn’t Ly’lac’s neighborhood so pretty?
Chumi: I would like to live here if I were underwater!
Haven: I love the alchemical symbol flowers.
Panel 955 by Haven
Haven: Caretaker stopping the old ladies from overeating... the scheduled times for feeding are very important for the health of an old nymph
Chumi: The animation on this page goes crazy. Haven did an amazing job with this one!
Panel 956 Annie “Chumi” Lee and Haven
Panel 957 Thumbs by Floral
Panel 957 by Haven
Haven: This is probably the favorite of all the panels I've made so far. Really happy with how this one came out.
Chumi: Ly’lac’s extra disgusted gagging face is so cute and silly like it’s not that serious!!! The grannies just wanna feed you a little food!!! They love you!!!
Panel 958 thumbnail by Floralmarsupial
Panel 958 by Kim Quach
Kim: And now they’re gonna eat HER next, NOOOOOOO!!!!! …. Just kidding, they’re just smothering her with granny kisses because they just wuv sweet lil Ly’ly’ so much.
Panel 960 by Kim Quach and Haven
Kim: This panel just absolutely kills me. Just fucking explode them I guess! Thanks, AA. Haven really topped this one off by adding the explosion LMAO.
A little aside – ain’t this an interesting lil peek of what a nymph skeleton looks like! Or just A Bone I guess. One bone.
Haven: One bone, one stone.
Panel 961 Thumbnail by Floralmarsupial
Panel 961 by Kim Quach
Kim: They’ll be fine.
Panel 962 by Kim Quach
Kim: And there she goes…… (cartoon run away sfx) Something really funny to me that everyone just goes off and minds their business afterwards. Just another day at the old nymph home.Chumi: The seahorse granny is sleeping so peacefully… We’ll see you guys next time!