102 - Frozen Flame - Hornhead speech comic (Patreon)

[EDIT: isn't it funny that the official twitter just posted a tweet of this character a few hours later that I released this patreon post? What a coincidence! ha xd
The tweet: is here ]

Prologue:

At the begining of September, I got to know a new game that was still in development, but the streamer (DansGaming) I was watching got the chance to promote it. First I disliked the looks, it reminded me of Fortnite and Genshin Impact (games I don't like), but somehow the game's clumsiness, enemies, world and style maintained my interest and curiosity. Also the streamer did a good job to make the viewer entertained, as in it was something new being discovered and he kept narrating too (I like him as a streamer tbh, he's good).

Since then, the game's on my mind and I'm looking forward to it. Devs don't really keeping up the hype but asking streamers to play their game for 2 hours instead, hopefully this marketing way will be successful for them. I didn't even find any infos what the game's gonna be, f2p? How much if not? Live-service? When is it released?? and so on..

Last week, on Oct 28-30 they've made a portion of the game available for testing. The game is meant for win10, but luckily my win7 could run it too, so I was able to try out the "Open Beta Testing" period.
I only crashed whenever I wanted to check the map or wanted to teleport (which requires to see the map). I played 6 hours on first run. Yes, I enjoyed it.
Everyone's comparing it to be some kind of Valheim game cuz of the building system. Yea, kinda like Valheim, but with upgraded graphics and NPCs that give out tasks to complete. (Game's been in development for like 5 years so it wasn't a copy of Valheim.)

The game is good and... there are mostly masked characters.
Even the enemies are called "Faceless".
Yep. It was a game for me. I could see that, even when I was watching it on twitch at the first time. I really like the design of those, it's simple shaped and mysterious cuz of the blue colours. That's what I really loved about Warframe too, the orokin mysterious vibes of unknown places, trying to figure out what is it (that was in 2014, but of course, the devs didn't care, left that cool vibe and ruined this greatness 😔🤌). So depending the endgame (like if it's not gonna end, but you can keep playing and farm and such) I think this's gonna be the next game I get addicted to. At least that's what I'm feeling about it.

During my gameplay, the game kinda had some... "For Honor" vibes for me. As in the characters' design lvl were on hot ranking in my book.

The inspiring road for the comic above:

So, I'm not even into this guy. I just noticed THE SIZE DIFFERENCE and was joking to myself that my character is just about at the right height level.
I mean.. just look at this!

This character is named "Hornhead" btw... so even the name was a source material for a few other jokes. This guy is the very first npc that helps you after you arrive to the main land/map. He also shows up at a later part of the journey, and the 2nd time I kept checking his model out.... the makers did a good job. :]

SO ANYWAYS, the devs aren't native english people, which checks out at some dialogues and after this guy started talking about some "magic seed" and to go to him to get more if needed, and his last "heh" saying, THAT was the moment when I felt I wanna make something out of this situation (the fact that they keep highlighting such parts didn't help me either xd).

That was the time when this lil comic idea popped inside my head and I just couldn't shoo-shoo it away, so I gave myself in, and started sketching fast till I had the boost (which was on last Tuesday, 4 days after gaming). Funny thing is, but as I was drawing him, I kinda started to like him more. The shapes of his design elements and his colours feels good to work with. Simple and nice. -w-

If ya wanna ask, my character had ZERO drops for something to cover her chest, and the devs made the female model... pretty busty, if I can say that. There was no option to change the bodyshape at character creation. (Alright, I know I over-exaggerated her breast size, but.. ohwell xd)
And yes, at one point, I got my hands on a helmet like that in the comic.. it just got destroyed later.. :'c (I died too much against a boss)

About the comic above:

- As it's made clear, the lines I wrote in the first panel are from that screenshot above (but made it shorter to fit better). I was also trying to stick to the same colouring of the highlighted parts of the text, and still make it look good in my art.
- The 2nd panel was a bit trickier and time-consuming. I might have made it over-reacting with all those shocking lines, trembles and question marks. But imagining that you are giving a speech, then suddenly you feel your pants getting dragged down and something touching your opened skin, especially the belly part (which is supposed to be protected cuz all the organs inside) thought this would be just a sudden moment of natural instinct, when the body yanks/twitches a bit in fear and shock cuz it doesn't know what it feels all of a sudden (and have to look down to comfort the senses that it's okay........ or... is it? B] )

- For the 3rd panel, I used SFM's help. Loaded up 2 models, shrinked down the female participant's size around the same height as it is in the game, posed, then tried to make something out of that.
- While working on the female participant's eyes... I couldn't hold it anymore. I had to stop to laugh at the silliness of the "pulsating" or "hypnotic" vibed hearts. xd Also the text next to her other hand where she placed it on Hornhead's abs. I thought I'd write "rub-rub" or something there, but that text is more funnier with this. These additions reminded me of an artist who draws a girl and a knight together and she's not afraid to express excitements between the characters. Also her art and expressions are priceless (if ya wanna check her out: twitter.com/MonsterSofties).
Tbh, I really enjoyed those little additions, I should make more. xd

- For the colouring, I saw some grayscaled sketches and wanted to make something like that, but in the end, I kept using simple colours and sticked to a few. As said before in the past, I think I won't be able to make gray pictures xd (unless I make em gray after ending the drawing part of the creation).
I think the colours turn out fine, I didn't want to overcomplicate it anyway. It's easily readable and it's nice to look at, in my opinion. Thought if I just went on a bit more, could have been fully coloured too.. xd

- Originally, I planned 3 panels, but after finishing the 3rd, I thought another panel would fit into the little story to have it completed. I worked on the last panel a few days later, and guess that was enough to get out of shape for the drawing phrase, so I had a lil trouble trying to make it like the previous panels (speaking of the thickness of the lines here for example). And funny, but as I was making this, I also checked my screenshots and found this one which turns out, it's totally fitting for my little comic:

At first I was thinking he'd be looking away in disbelief and confusion for the ending part, while pushing the girl off of him, but then realised that wouldn't be in character for him. I think he's the type of guy who'd look straight at you to see your every move after such action, so he wouldn't let his guard down again. xd

I also remembered him saying at the begining of the game something that assumes that everything can get under this said "Curse"'s influence, so that's how the last panel's text were born, that wasn't taken from the game.
I managed to span a screenshot of him saying something like that:

According to the files, I did this comic in 8 days. My sleeping schedule is fucked up, so that added more time to spend on this. Overall I'm satisfied with the outcomes and glad I made it.
I also thought I can do more comics if this is the lvl I can achieve and produce, no need to worry about it, just gotta do it (I'm talking of Venom based comics, not necessarily of this game).

Sorry for the huge amount of files again. It's just there's so much way to showcase these drawings. xd
Made with 3 different background colours. I like the white and the one with the same colour as the lineart, but did that gray one too anyways. I dunno which version I wanna publish..
Oh, also made Hornhead blushing at the end just to try it out how it looks. I was crying out "NOOoooohh" while dong it.. I loved it x'D (Altho I don't think it'll make it to the finals.... I guess? xd)

Oh, while still in the making, the game got a release date for Early Access at Steam.
So the game's gonna be out on Nov 17th, and it's called "Frozen Flame". I'm looking forward to it.
They also have an emoji contest in their discord, I'm gonna go for it, cuz they give out steam keys <w< There are already good submissions, but I can still try my hand on it anyways..

So yea, I think I've written down everything I wanted with this..
To end this post, lemme share another screenshot that fits this comic hah:

EDIT: Tweet of this character from the game's account (posted a few hours after I finished the comic with the same character):