you summon storms, you play with nature, now watch it hurt you

you sent this days ago and I keep coming back to how PHM literally is about a ship called the Hail Mary and the only astronaut on board is a guy named Grace and he's meant to die to save humanity

but Sunshine is the movie that's about religion and spirituality and faith. because imo just having lil referential names like that doesn't amount to anything. every time I see someone talking about PHM as religious allegory, I'm mostly confused because I don't see it.

there's only one moment in PHM that feels inexplicable in a way that feels beyond the natural world, and it's not even deistic/theistic, it's Grace getting a vision of the future from seemingly himself. it's internal, it's private, it's a message from his own intelligence, not a cosmic force.

compare to Sunshine which has a lot of similar grounding of its universe, hard science, logic, even a similar mission to PHM. but what gives Sunshine that cosmic horror/wonder element is that it takes all that time to ground the story and then veers into the abstract and supernatural. hell, Pinbacker's entire existence feels like something supernatural happening.

If Sunshine's Searle mentioned to Dr. Ryland Grace "sooo I think the sun might be, like, an Entity and I want to commune with it, I've been slowly incrementing how much I look at it from the observation deck lmao i guess I got a lil sunburned"

you don't have to dance alone anymore

extras:

it must be lonely, being on top of the world;

alt version under cut

Little Companion (2021)

This is the second Outer Wilds comic I've ever done. You can see I was still a student back then, since it's in full colour lmao

This comic's inspiration was from a concept art: As I was cruising online for find references for Outer Wilds character, I found a concept art of the Hatchling drawn by artist Sojyoo, who draws them with a little plushie attached to their leg, showing "their approximative age and how they cope in space."

I found this idea quite adorable, and did a little sketch of the Hatchling hugging the plushie... and with time, I thought about telling a little story about it. I thought it was interesting to explore the idea that a teenager has to live through this, and having a childhood memory by their side for reassurance. After all, don't we all feel a little bit of comfort with an old plushie?

Then I thought about Solanum, who is also not quite an adult yet, and I thought that he would appreciate that childish comfort as well...

I absolutely cheated when drawing Solanum's mask. I believe I drew it in 3 different angles by tracing a reference, then copy-pasted it on the various panels. If I were to redo that comic, I would've probably just simplify the mask... but hey, it looks accurate!

Also, that lullaby that Hatchling sings is an actual polish lullaby. I am not good at writing songs, so I was looking for an existing lullaby that talks about stars or space. I found this one on an obscure website, and found a flute version on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orOmQPHrlp4