#krumpel

After about like..a year or more? of knowing Snufkin through his yearly travels south (then back north obvs) He agrees to guide Krumpel to Moominvalley. It's a tough trip for the both of them. He doesn't travel with others, even experienced travelers. The peace and solitude is a big part of his life and his self-care and traveling with others disrupts that. It forces him to change his habits, his routes, his schedule and being responsible for another person, even if just implicitly, doesn't appeal to him. Krumpel has grown up in towns and cities their whole life and has never traveled a long distance by foot. They know very little about nature, travel and safety in the wilderness. They have to leave nearly everything they value back in Stenhammar and make a major adjustment not just during the trip, but in Moominvalley. There are little to no comforts to be had in the wild and no real way for Krumpel to just relax and catch up with themself. They both are outside of their comfort zones and the further from Stenhemmar they go, the more tense things get. They can't just cancel and go separate ways. Things get hard for a period but they do reconcile and make it to Moominvalley.

I had a suspicion that people were confusing Krumpel for Moomin and so I came up with an alternate/different version of Krumpel to remedy that. I hated the idea of people looking at my selfshipping art and thinking it was snufmin. It was like people looking at photos of you and your love and believing it was a photo of your love and somebody else. I'm so attached to Krumpel though. I love Krumpel like they're a part of me (because they are). When I think of Krumpel, I think of the critter that I've *been* drawing. So maybe I"ll just make some adjustments to make it more obvious that Krumpel and Moomin do not look alike and shouldn't be confused. I like this version of Krumpel, they look more like me and I might still use it, but I don't think I'll change Krumpel permanently.