Welcome To My Stew Induced Feverdreams

Page 1

Panel 1 - A small inset panel with an extreme closeup on Kris’s wide eye. They think only one thing: “Oh no.”

Panel 2 - The entire rest of the page is a single black void. Towards the bottom of the page, a tiny Kris freefalls into sheer blackness.

Page 2

The page is, again, a single panel of blackness, punctuated only by the blurs of falling motion. In the middle of the blackness, Kris continues to freefall into nothing. Two strings of thought twist around them like a DNA strand, each word its own thought bubble:

“I can’t hear or see anything it’s just dark dark dark I’m going to die and never come back”

“It’s quiet and peaceful I’m finally free free free I’ll never need to worry about hurting ever again”

Page 3

Panel 1 - Another panel of blackness, with only soft blurs of motion. Kris continues to fall. Their thoughts are disconnected from them as they do so: “I don’t think I’m breathing.”

Panel 2 - Closer in on Kris as blurry stars whirl by in the black. “Am I dead?”

Panel 3 - The blurry stars brighten, as if Kris is tumbling through the cosmos. Again, the camera peers closer. “Ralsei can’t reach me here?”

Panel 4 - Darkness and motion streak past Kris as they fall helplessly, weightlessly through nothing. “Am I just here?”

Panel 5 - Closeup on Kris as they look miserably out at the endless darkness, and think, “Alone in the dark, forever?”

However, the white panel borders are starting to distort and split. Something seems to be creeping out of the panel borders themselves.

Page 4

Panel 1 - Extreme closeup on Kris’s eye, their expression suddenly becoming fearful. “Wait.”

Panel 2 - Again, on Kris’s face, looking afraid. “Wait.” The panels are splitting like glass, fingers creeping out of the borders.

Panel 3 - Again, a closeup on Kris’s face, their eyes wide. “Oh god!”

Panel 4 - Kris freefalls through blackness. The silhouettes of white hands creep out more from the panel borders. “I’m. I’m not alone?!”

Panel 5 - Kris’s thoughts explode out of the thought bubbles entirely as the borders around them splinter and crack into reaching hands. The hands grab at them from outside reality itself, fingers collapsing their arms, their legs. Their face is a panicked scream, and their thoughts a mess of words around them: OHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGOD THERE’S SOMEONE HERE WITH ME!

Panel 6 - The void becomes a black hole, a swirling mess of black and stars that form an enormous, coiled snake with sparkling scales. At the center of the singularity, the black snake stretches its jaws open as if to swallow Kris again, light pouring from its throat. The Gaster-esque hands continue to spin around the singularity, and Kris is pulled, impossibly stretched towards the center of the vortex. Their thoughts swirl around with them, an endless scream: GETMEOUTGETMEOUTGETMEOUT!!!! HE’S IN HERE WITH–

Page 5

Panel 1 - A mid shot as Jockington suddenly pulls Kris back into reality with a sharp POP! He’s holding Kris by one foot, and Kris dangles helplessly upside-down. “Goooooal! I got ‘em I got ‘em!” Jockington says around Kris in his mouth.

Panel 2 - Full shot as Jockington carefully lowers Kris back to the ground. They’re surrounded on all sides by the beasts…Catti on one side, Susie on the other, and Noelle between them, looking worried. Ralsei also looks on from the foreground.

Panel 3 - Ralsei runs up to Kris as they lay on the ground. They’re alive, but staring wide-eyed and unresponsive…

Panel 4 - But finally, they take in a big GASP of air, arching their body up as if finally realizing that they exist again. Ralsei leans down next to them, his cloak billowing out around him. “Kris! Thank goodness, you’re all right!”

Panel 5 - Ralsei puts one hand on Kris’s chest and carefully holds up their head, trying to keep them still. They’re shaking, staring wide-eyed at nothing, and keep quietly murmuring the MERCY command over and over between gasping breaths. 

Panel 6 - Ralsei continues to hold them still, and says, “Easy, Kris, just take deep breaths!” Kris starts to come back to reality and does so, breathing heavily. They’re still shaking, and they look frightened by the experience, but they’re starting to recover. 

Page 6

Panel 1 - Ralsei continues, “Don’t worry! Noelle was able to break up the fight.” In the foreground, Kris sits up more, and looks towards the beasts. Catti and Susie are both sitting in loaf positions, glaring at each other. Noelle stands between the two, looking down at Susie.

Panel 2 - Full shot as Kris fully sits up, and puts a hand to their chest. Behind them, Ralsei continues to try and steady them. “Wh…wh-what…h-happened…” Kris finally says in a quiet, shaky tone.

Panel 3 - Full shot of Catti, sitting in a loaf position. She shows off the black void side, dotted only with staring cat eyes. “Do. Not. Touch. Void side,” she says simply. 

“Lucky we know, magics to locate souls in there!” Jockington adds.

Panel 4 - Closeup on Susie as she shoots back, “*Unlucky* you fell on Kris in the first place, clumsy cat!”

Panel 5 - “Greedy idiot,” Catti retorts with a snarl. 

In the foreground, Noelle steps up to interfere again, and says, “Hey, what matters is that we got Kris back okay!”

Panel 6 - Wide shot of the whole gang sitting in the empty area, darkness and mist surrounding them. All of the beasts look at each other, and Kris finishes catching their breath. No one says anything for a moment.

Page 7

Panel 1 - In the foreground, Kris turns to face Catti and Jockington. They say, “Well. It’s clear you two are quite powerful. I think it would be smart of me to ask if you will accompany us.” Catti and Jockington sit in the middle ground, listening curiously. 

Panel 2 - Full shot of Catti, Noelle and Susie all in a line. Susie looks at the chimera and sputters, “What?! Recruiting *them*? No way!!” She snarls at the idea.

Catti just snarls back at Susie and says, “Accompanying *that* beast?”

Panel 3 - Closeup on Catti as she turns back to Kris. “Distateful. Why?” The distaste is clear on her face.

Panel 4 - Full shot of Kris sitting cross-legged on the ground, with Ralsei sitting just behind them. “We’re on our way back to the light world. You said you were hungry for humans, for your magic?” Kris says. “If you come with me, and follow all of my commands, I’ll let you loose on the light world. You can devour all the humans you like.”

Panel 5 - Closeup on Catti and Jockington. The snake excitedly darts around Catti’s head, his expression eager and pleading. “Catti, Catti, say yes, Catti! Humans breakfast, lunch and, dinner!” he yells. “We could learn, so many new, spells! Say yes yes!!” Catti just looks thoughtful. 

Panel 6 - In the foreground, Catti turns back towards Susie, and protests, “But…that lizard…”

Susie just sneers back at her and sticks her tongue out, almost childish. 

Page 8

Panel 1 - Full shot as Noelle again steps towards Catti. She says, “I’ll be coming along, too. I could show you more ice magic, if you’re interested?” As Catti looks up at Noelle, Jockington taps impatiently on her head.

Panel 2 - Catti then glances back at Jockington, who nods at her with a big smile.

Panel 3 - In the same framing, Catti finally relents, brushing at the fur under her chin with her claws. “Hmm. Fine.” Jockington grins down at her.

Panel 4 - With that, all of the beasts, Kris, and Ralsei get to their feet. Jockington gives a little “yaaay!” at the decision. In contrast, Susie groans under her breath. 

Panel 5 - Full shot as Ralsei continues to help Kris along. They look tired, but much more back to normal now. “Well done, Kris! After your ordeal, I’d say you’ve earned a rest for the day,” Ralsei says.

Panel 6 - “Let’s find a good camping spot!” Ralsei continues as the two walk through the beasts to the lead. Catti and Jockington look down at them with some uncertainty, while Noelle leans in closer to smell that they’re doing okay. 

Page 9

A single wide shot of all the beasts walking away from the camera and off into the mists. Ralsei and Kris walk in the middle of them, leading the way. Berdly, on the far left, starts spouting off his own thoughts: “At last, a proper black mage is in the party! As lead tactician and smartest beast, I shall incorporate this into my calculations henceforth!”

Catti just has one response to this… “Already, regret.”

Here are some of the Paint sketches Toby drew to help me with specific Tenna poses! I love seeing his drawings LOL, genuinely really good and evocative 👍

There was a time when I was struggling to capture what he wanted for these specific Tenna poses… Until Toby acted them out himself, and I thought, "Ah, it's like that. I understand." and then I was able to make them just how he pictured them.

When looking through the renders and choosing what to share, I laughed at these two… Remember when Tenna had a gun? Remember when he bent over in a very specific way that might remind you of another, different image? No? Maybe you don't…? Well. Don't worry about it.

These ones are cute… Tenna is pretty cute sometimes! Has anyone ever thought this? Actually, before people knew he was going to be a strange 3D sprite the Whole Time, I was worried people wouldn't like the style and it'd sour people's views on him. I'm glad that didn't happen.

Toby thought it would be funny to have Tenna do some really smooth, mocapped animations sometimes - specifically free to use ones that often pop up in other things. An extra funny part to me is how many frames these take up in the game, and how his tails are stuck to his legs…

Speaking of mocap, Toby wanted Tenna to use custom mocap animations as far back as 2016 - Ten(na) years ago! I got an Xbox Kinect at the time and learnt how to set this up, but then never used it. Here's a look at messing with mocaped stuff again in 2022. So Normal.

Don't bother trying to help him here, he's just being dramatic 🙄

I particularly like these poses - I think I improvised most of these just based off the context they get used in… I always liked posing his tie and coat tails as if they were also parts of his body he could move. Which I guess they are?

After I rendered out the individual poses in high quality, I'd force the color palette to be limited to just a few shades and then I'd shrink the result down to pixel sized sprites. Like these! I'd tidy them up a little, but they'd really get improved on at the pixel scale by Clairvoire.

As well as Tenna's sprites, I also worked on his intro "movie"…! Seeing people be completely overloaded by this on first playthroughs would always make me laugh. In game, there's a ton of extra editing done by Everdraed, but my unedited cut looks like this ⬇️

This was the entire storyboard I had to work from, and I'm realizing now that there's the note "put him in car etc" that I never did and actually don't know what it would mean exactly. Working on this had me listen to the accompanying audio many times, but it's good so it's okay.

Here are a bunch of random clips of the Maya project for Tenna's intro movie. This is how movies get made, I think!! Yeah… Just like this.

Say it with him, folks!!

For the 3D Ralsei clip from the intro, Toby really wanted it to look a certain way, and drew more sketches for guiding me with this part than any other. They genuinely helped.

Remember how Toby's original storyboard has the note "covered in slime and shrinks"? That meant I had to learn how to make 3D slime. You can see my tech advancing here.

I'm really happy with how the final Tenna animation at the end of the intro movie turned out! It wouldn't look as good if it wasn't for some 2D animation to reference from SmallBuStudio, so thank you to them for the help! Tenna is cute… Huh, I already said that…?