Chumi, Hugh Morris cute pose: Welcome to the Artist Commentary! We’re alive and back from NYCStuck (just barely, as I know some team members are sick or recovering). Anyway, let’s get to commenting!
Haven, haven: Hi wow look there's a satyr here. Oh my god wait, is that 3 satyrs? Oh wait.
Floral, rubbing my big belly even though im hollow on the inside: I got to draw The Mountain.
Mountainscape Concept by Floral
Floral: Sooo excited to finally share this! The first concepts of CT’s mountainscape I made back in 2023.
Panel 1030 by Floral
Floral: And now, a final, fully colored version!
Floral: Along with some color keys to experiment! Trying to keep the unusual color scheme of the planet at a different point of the day, while also giving the terrain its own flavor.
Chumi: Honestly it looks so damn beautiful! The colors are phenomenal.
The Mountain D
rawing by Floral
Floral: Finally the perfect baby is here. I had a lot of fun designing his face, it was my first time drawing with Procreate! For the rendering style we just knew it would be funny if it wasn’t the typical mspa style.
Chumi: Our first glimpse of The Mountain! The insane murderer… I still love that line.
Panel 1029 by Haven
Haven: Splat.
Panels 1031_1 and 1032_2 by Haven
Haven: I drew a sketch of this Del’fi when we first did a full read through and Kim told me to just keep it as the final.
Panel 1032 by Haven
Haven: Very happy to be able to animate some more sprite shenanigans.
Delfi’s Room by Floral
Floral: I made the first floor the room around the time where we did the Derse update, so we’ve been holding onto it. Overall, I wanted to surround Del’fi in creature comforts scavenged from the remnants outside.
Chumi: Lots of things going on here. The huge skull in the back is an edited sperm whale skull! The sweater on the ground is an edited Jiraiya sweater. We got some curious satyr skeletons, who knew they had different-colored bones?
Death Note Poster Edit by Andi
Haven: I love this one, Light is so cute as a satyr.
Chumi: I KNOW RIGHT, the little nose patch is DAMN CUTE!!!
Del’fi and The Mountain Drawing by Floral
Floral: Little factoid, I actually drew this with actual charcoal pencils. When considering CT’s art, it just felt wrong to have him use a tablet.
Chumi: I got to see this in person! Don’t be jealous guys, but it was kinda awesome.
Panel 1038 by Andi
Andi: Are you a true fujoshi if you don’t own a yaoi paddle?
Floral: I was so happy thumbing out this whole sequence and Andi really brought it to life. These poor undead fucks.
Panel 1042 by Annie “Chumi” Lee and Haven
Chumi: Del’fi’s messy messy potion room! The draft version had photobashed potions from various games, but we went the hand drawn route instead. It does look much better this way! We also added some damn mess to the place!!!
Andi: You might notice some Yume Nikki references in the rooms. Try to spot where they are. It might even be right under your feet.
Haven: Some of the bottles of goop are uncorked and it's floating right out of them! This is because Del’fi is underwater!
Delfi’s Third Floor Room by Haven
FLORAL: Look at all this freaking yaoiz. We had a lot of fun throwing out ideas for this room. We wanted to give Del’fi a wide but pretty definable taste.
Haven: A bubbled room, safe and dry. Must suck for Ly’lac and Del’fi both when they live in the ocean and the ocean is the thing that is constantly threatening to destroy their most precious possessions. Also that kotatsu looks like it was handmade. How about that.
Andi: So… much…. YAOI!!!!!!!…( ˶°ㅁ°) /nosebleed /bricked /shot /pwned
MILES: The whole team got together and basically threw out a million billion different yaoi ideas. There was a lot of deliberation over what would make the cut, but the cumulative impression was kind of the most important thing. We wanted to just bludgeon the reader over the head with the absurdly BLful Yaoi Mass. We actually spent an entire evening, hours and hours and hours, just photoshopping these together while Haven got progressively more and more tired.
Chumi: I was out there looking through Hot Topic’s online shop trying to get inspiration! Plus googling lots of different variants of “yaoi”, “yaoi merchandise”, “yaoi goods”, etc. It was a long night.
FLORAL: To list everything.
ZADR (MILES note: this one was important to me. We all immediately agreed that this was about as necessary a time capsule taste indicator for this specifically evoked era as it was possible to be.)
Guts/Griffith - Berserk
Devilman Crybaby
Kaname/Zero - Vampire Knight
Doppo/Hifumi, Ichiro/Samatoki, Rio/Dice - Hypnosis Mic
Miyagi/Mitsui, Hana/Kaede - Slam Dunk Allen/Kanda - D. Gray-man
Light/L - Death Note
Ichigo/Ulquiorra/Grimmjow - Bleach
The Getbackers
Shion/Nezumi - No.6
Ouran Highschool Host Club
Princess Tutu
Mickey/Riku - Kingdom Hearts (HAVEN note: this one was important to me. No one immediately agreed that this was necessary other than Andi but we needed it. Del’fi needed it.)
Satyr figures and toys edited by Haven
Floral: This evil fucking Ace figure that had us all guffawing and screaming in the work call.
Satyr figures and toys edited by Haven
Haven: Everyone sent me figures and posters and I turned them all into satyrs. I admittedly don’t know each and every one of them but I edited all these little freaks. I was talking about this one here like “when your 700 pound twink secretary sits on the new copier and everyone in the office starts screaming at him.”
Panel 1045 by Haven
Floral: I love this gif, Haven utilized his tools perfectly.
Panel 1046 by Floral
Floral: Ouran was recommended pretty early in conversation about Del’fi’s taste. And while that in-universe Ouran is a non-historically accurate AU, it was fun satyr-fying everyone.
Andi: I’d recommend watching Princess Tutu. It’s pretty good. Pretty apt, I daresay.
Del’fi Worm by Annie “Chumi” Lee
Chumi: This cute lil’ thing was 100% Floral’s idea! Since Del’fi is hacking through cha.Os, a little Delworm biting through the apple would be a super cute way to depict that!
Andi: Seeing Chumi draw this Del’fi worm in real time made me scream and cry and throw up. It was so cute.
DMMD Edit by Andi
Panel 1052_01 by Haven
Haven: I did Del’fi’s desktop! The background was a bespoke Andi choice.
Andi: Are you a true fujo if you didn’t play DMMD at least once?
Chumi: Since I’ve seen people asking!!Coralstory = MaplestoryTrickstress = Trickster OnlinePlanet of Pugilism = World of WarcraftPyre El Bronco = Fire AlpacaTrench2Peak = Second Life
Maplestory and Trickster Online were my personal picks as MMO’s I played endlessly as a lonely, awkward, and computer-bound kid like Del’fi. I thought the cute aesthetics would be right up Del’fi’s alley as well. It was a bit dismaying seeing so many people not recognize these games…
Sobek concept art by Haven
Haven: A new friend, Sobek! It’s a crocodile wrapped around a pillar, bearing a crown and sun disk.
Comic art by Haven
Haven: What’s fun to note with this image is the similarity it bears to Vriska taking the omega kids away. With the flames being changed to waves, and Ly’lac in the place that Vrissy would have been in previously.
FRS Happi Design by Andi
Andi: I also wanted to talk about something a little unrelated to the webcomic real quick. I was given a chance to design our happi coats to serve as a staff uniform for the NYCstuck event! I was really delighted to have been able to do apparel, and it was my first time ever attempting anything like this! I just wanna show it off here for a quick moment.Chumi: IT LOOKS AMAZING!! We get to rep the team AND look kinda sick?? Btw, we had the cut-off logo removed in the final version!
Andi: Again, I just wanna say thank you to everyone who came!! The entire team had a great time and we’d love to do more. Your support on our Patreon ensures we can do bigger things like this and your support also ensures we can keep working on the comic! It’s all because of you!!So even those who did not make it to the event, you are also the reason we’ve gotten this far as a project at all. Years ago we couldn’t even fathom such a thing was possible. I’m very thankful for those who view our commentaries and other fun stuff here as well. It just means a lot to us.
Chumi: I also want to extend my thank-yous to you, our Patrons. We would not be able to make this comic or organize events without your guys’ support. We always appreciate the engagement, kind comments, and enthusiasm for this project. Every person on the team puts their whole hearts into making HS:BC, and it's reassuring to know that there are people out there that want to support us and make it a reality.
But enough cheesiness! There’s always more to come, so we’ll see you again next month! 👋