#instead of writing

And bonus: Concept that was Wheatley!!

…you know at some point

Yeah this doesn’t look much like him but. We ball. I’ve been informed by a friend as well as my brother that sexypedia woulda gone crazy over this.

Originally I was going off the way he was a Big Screen through chapter 8 and part of chapter 9, you know, big old god face. And then something grabbed me by the throat and whispered ‘experiment with your style’ so now we have this thing as a result. I had a lot of fun doing the sort of pseudo-rubber hose style. Close ups below along with some details.

The base design I had. I never had a tv with an antenna (though I have had a thick ass bubble tv) so I looked at a bajillion references. Given that Wheatley is a certified Yapper, I went for a more talk show set background. The style of the furniture is all Retro Future when they used eye bleed orange and had big egg chairs because Aperture had a small bit of that aesthetic in the first underground section (or second??? I struggle to remember timelines). I struggled to find any actual retro future ceiling lamps because the first 30 images were ai generated. Hate to see it. Resorted to looking at eBay.

The dials and buttons are meant to be copper, since most of the TVs I saw had gold accents and it just didn’t really work out when I applied it here. I think I’m just shit at coloring metals. I would have put ‘The Wheatley Show’ on the sign but my handwriting/cursive is too dog water.

The second design I did. I tried some squash and stretch here, and I’m quite proud of it. The antenna are being tugged down, so I know there probably should be a picture but shhh, I can do what I want. I was more interested in making it look like he was pulling his hair.

I couldn’t name this one properly. It’s also closer to a shut down, but things like dread and emotional drain fit too. I debated on doing this whole thing in black and white, as early TVs didn’t have color, but after consulting some people I decided to only do it for certain expressions. He also desaturates when unsure/uncomfortable.

This one was the one I was most excited to get to. The hands can do more than just mess with the antenna, they can change the channel and click the buttons (they’re volume buttons even though I don’t think TVs had those at least not like this). There’s a number of different backgrounds that can pop up when being fiddled with, like a weather broadcast, a nature documentary, a cooking show, pretty much anything, as long as it falls into that 60-70s approach I had.

Oh right yeah there’s a guy in there.

I wanted to make him simultaneously more and less details than the guy in the screen. More detail in the bow tie and the arms, but lacking the suit detail. This one veered closer to doctor Seuss in terms of style I fear. The white side of the face is supposed to look more like a mask, which is why the iris is a different style and the smile doesn’t line up.

Bonus funny