Mystery Kids Misadventures Art - Tumblr Posts
Concept Art Time!
As promised, here are the drawings I did when coming up with Norman's mental world and the stories behind them!
When I was first starting out, before much of this fic was written at all, I thoroughly browsed this section of Psycadet's Mystery Kids blog, and owe many of my headcanons to the thoughts and discussions held within. Definitely check it out~
So when it finally came time to seriously think about the mindscape I'd be writing, I approached it as though it were a real Psychonauts level-- what powers would be used, what skills, even some figments though I'd already decided to keep most of the more "gamey" aspects out of the fic. The result of my brainstorming was this mishmash:
You'll probably need to open that in another tab or something to see details, but there it is: the back of a full 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper filled. I'm a little embarrassed since I can draw both Raz and Norman much better now, but I just have to tell myself it's concept art it doesn't have to be neat. ><
Anyway, next up is a color visualization I did:
It was pretty fun to do, and I have one for each of the kids. ;3 Maybe I'll do an 'after' too, to show what their minds are like normally.
I also occasionally illustrate scenes, so have a Raz convincing Norman to let him inside his head to wrap things up.
Thanks for reading~!
I said I'd share some art! I'd love to do memory vaults for everyone too, at least one each-- but for now, have some of the figments I didn't write into the fic, but presume would be found if you were to play through the kids' minds like a real level. It should be pretty clear which ones belong to which kid! ^^
This is a preview! That's right, a preview!
This is my design for a creature set to appear in the next major installment of my Mystery Kids ficverse (Can I say that? Is that right?), the splintercat! A creature from lumberjack folklore, it seems like the perfect candidate for a Gravity Falls appearance.
The basic legend is that they leap through trees at night, finding ones that house bee hives. The splintercat then launches itself into the tree headfirst, knocking all the branches and bark off, leaving ghostly barren stands. Because of the resulting headache from such a reckless attack, they are always in a foul mood and approaching one is ill-advised.
My ideas for it is that it's descended from saber-tooth cats; its powerful limbs and claws let it climb higher than most animals its size, and while it has a thickened skull it still suffers from chronic headaches. Thick fur that once insulated it from the cold now protects it from bee stings when it pursues its preferred food, though it's capable of hunting other prey should hives be in short supply. Like bears, they hibernate in winter, migrating to the mountains where their gray fur blends in better and they're less likely to be disturbed, even though they're already incredibly stealthy and rare.
Anyway, thank you all for sticking around, and I hope you're looking forward to the next part, despite how long it's taking! <3
I hope you guys are ready for some art.
'Cause I'm ready to share some! Get ready for the behind-the-scenes look at Mabel's refurbished mindscape under the cut~
When I decided to rewrite the Pines' mental worlds, I knew both had a lot of potential I'd probably missed out on. I still don't feel like I got all of Mabel's awesome wackiness in, but it's a lot closer to what I wanted to the first time around. While a lot of the key elements-- bright colors, yarn, and so on-- stuck around, they got used and presented a little differently.
For starters, here's the first establishing shot I ever did for her mind:
Pretty fun right? But it felt like it was missing something, and hence the rewrite. I tackled it a lot like I had for Norman's world in that I spent a lot of time imagining how it might actually play if this were a real level in Psychonauts. So it was back to the drawing board for a lot of stuff:
I wish I could actually draw how M.C. Escher it gets inside the castle, but that's the basic layout I used, though a couple things changed between here and the actual story.
I discovered that to properly describe it, I had to draw Mabel's dream room, so there's that.
After all this planning, I was able to do a refined 'establishing shot' to reflect the changes:
A L L H A I L T H E-- ahem, wrong fandom. There's clearly danger now, as Mabel's glittery castle stands opposed to the stormcloud that threatens to overtake it. Luckily, by the end of her 'level', she has a solution for that.
Lovely Bernadine the hairdryer dragon~
That's all I really have for Mabel; her brother is up next!
As promised (though a little sooner than I planned, but I'm bored), here's the behind-the-scenes look at Dipper's mindscape!
Dipper's mind probably went through the most iterations. Even though I have a good grasp on how he thinks, it was tricky deciding exactly how his thoughts should manifest. Initially it was a topsy-turvy library, but I couldn't figure out how to write that, and so as some of you may recall I went with a creepy ancient forest. Hence, here's the 'establishing shot' for that idea:
It's one of my favorite atmospheres, but it just wasn't working; I'd tried to try a slower pace but it just ended up dragging instead, prompting the rewrite in the first place. Once again, I was torn between the library and forest ideas-- only to realize I should just combine them! Problem solved. With that figured out, things went a lot more smoothly.
I couldn't just not include a couple references to Bill, though in reading one is not nearly as clear as the other. Having a map really helped me keep track of the challenges and environments Raz encounters, and I'm glad the little creature (which I call an Anxiety) that started out as a doodle ended up being pretty important, but we'll come back to that. ;3
After everything was written up and figured out, I was able to do this 'establishing shot', which I think is a pretty vast improvement over the first one:
(I discovered a new brush that did a lot of the textures in here; I wasn't aiming for perfection, just the basic idea, so it worked well).
Dipper's mind is the only one that features a real 'boss battle', starring this guy:
It ended up being a lot more fun to write, and hopefully more fun for you guys to read, and hopefully this art is neat too! Next time will probably focus a lot more on the kids, so stay tuned, and thanks for reading!
I got a request for drawing all the kids as psychonauts (still deciding exactly how to do that atm) but that made me remember that I'd done this a while ago! I forget why I wanted to do it at the time, but I decided to do some headcanoning for the colors of their psychic powers/levitation orbs/auras-- whatever you want to think of them as. Raz is obviously the only canon one, but yeah, it was just something fun. ^^
alwaysd2 reblogged this frommysterykidsmisadventures and added:
All the crew as Pychonauts.
Of course I couldn't just draw them with psychic powers, I had to try and emulate the quirky, low-poly style of the game too! I"m just sorry it took me forever to get around to finishing it. ^^;
The game suggests that most psychics have a couple skills they naturally excel at, so of course I came up with what I think the kids would be good at too, haha.
Mabel: Levitation and telekinesis (she uses it to knit!!)
Dipper: Clairvoyance and Psi-blast (probably the most fitting combo out of everyone)
Coraline: Dowsing and Telekinesis (You need something found, Cora's your girl)
Wybie: Confusion and Pyrokinesis (He uses pyro for welding)
Norman: Invisibility and his speaking to the dead (ahaha yeah. You'll never find him if you don't make friends with him first :'D )
Neil: Shield and Levitation (Sums him up pretty well, imo. ^^ )
Anyway, more art soon!
demongirl99 answered: The kids as monsters?
So people are probably familiar with the Monster Falls AU, where the residents of Gravity Falls get turned into various mythological creatures, so of course I had to extend it to the Mystery Kids AU as well!
Dipper is a deertaur. He isn't happy about this.
Mabel is a mermaid. Her reaction is the opposite of Dipper's.
Lili is a dryad. She can turn into a tree! She's a little miffed at it but she likes being even closer to the plants she loves.
Raz is a Caracal/Wood Owl griffin. He doesn't like it at first, but eventually thinks it's pretty cool.
Neil is a winged dog; I couldn't really find anything specific that suited him. He just goes with the flow.
Norman is a reaper. Everyone can still see him, but he tends to make them uneasy regardless. :c
Coraline is a kelpie-taur. Don't worry, she's not about to drag anyone into the lake. But she loves all the mud she can 'legally' get into.
Wybie is a salamander! No not the amphibian, though he thinks those are cool too. Nope! He thinks it's weird at first, but eventually settles into being a metallic, fireproof/fire-breathing reptile.
So that was fun. ^^
himera-ltz answered: Maybe, Razputin teaches Mabel circus tricks or, maybe, Figments for each character
I was originally going to do the figments idea, but I haven't thought through everyone's mental worlds well enough yet, so I hope this is acceptable. ^^
Happily. :)
I would've drawn more but my hand started to hurt ;-;
Also my style spontaneously changed in the middle of drawing this; it's weird but not entirely unwelcome :)
I only have a couple doodles related to MK: Possessed! but I figure you guys would like to see them regardless, so check them out under the cut!
First up, Bill!Raz
And the appropriately named 'Don't Mess With Lili'
I've got one more I never finished, but I'd like to, so hopefully I can get the posted eventually-- it's a big, full-color deal so it'll take me a bit longer to do it than this sketchier stuff. ^^
Have some rough Gravity Falls-style Laika main characters. :)
Norman's seen enough horror movies to know where this is going.
If I'm having trouble describing a scene because I can't picture it clearly enough in my head, sometimes I'll draw it.
This is from something only a couple of my beta readers have read, but I've gotten stuck on one fic so I'm trying to fix that by writing other fic :'D Still Mystery Kids though! So once it's done I fully intend to post it here. ^^
Mystery Kids: Dragon AU! Either a universe where they were always dragons, or, thanks to Bill, they get hurled into a dimension where everything is dragons. I never exactly decided, but the end result is the same: dragons. :D
I actually should draw them more often, and there's a couple I'd like to redo, but it was basically playing around with character design and seeing how well I could convey their personalities even as a completely different species. Though I take the actual design part seriously, it's really more just a fun way to flex the creative muscles.
closingstraw97 answered: post apocalyptic au?
A psychic shield was enough to protect them from the magical blast, but the rest of the area around Gravity Falls-- and possibly most of Oregon and beyond-- is a barren scar. Strange creatures roam the land, and they have to scrounge what they can of supplies, but these are crafty kids who will find a way to survive-- and maybe undo the apocalypse.
This was pretty fun! I'm afraid I'm not as familiar with the post-apocalyptic genre as I'd like, and there's always a number of options for how the world ends-- nuclear, astronomical, zombie, technological-- but I settled on magical being the most likely. Exactly who or what caused it though is up to you. ;)
As requested by demongirl99, the Reverse!Mystery Kids~
I've explained that for me, a Reverse AU isn't about just switching character roles or even making their personalities the complete opposite of canon, which is why the Pines here aren't all decked out in turquoise like you normally see in the Rev!Pines AU, and that for the most part, the others don't really look different from canon. It's more about their attitudes and choices that are different and oppose canon-- things you can't always see, but I did my best to get across through body language and interaction. Needless to say this was a fun challenge, and I wrote a lot of headcanons you can read about here.
Some Monstery Kids sketches! I've had these laying around for a while, but now that people actually kind know what it is I feel like I can share them. ^^
Mental World Headcanons- Part 2
A few of the notes I make in these descriptions, as I'm sure you can tell, make more sense in the context of a game-- things like what sort of puzzles you'd expect, the music that would play, but I've found that sometimes, thinking of it as anything else can lead to design roadblocks. I have to imagine what I'd want to see in a Psychonauts level, and do my best to bring that to life.
Continuing the exploration of the kids' mental worlds, let's take a look at a couple very different ones.
Wybie
“Wyborne Industries”
A huge laboratory that looks like a mix of Dr. Finklestein’s lair and Aperture Science testing rooms, with lots of grungy metal textures, dangerous-looking contraptions, and spare parts; there’d be lots of platforming and puzzles. Despite its intimidating appearance, most of the robots and mechanisms are actually helpful or friendly, and there’s all kinds off harmless creepy-crawlies scuttling around—and a certain cat. Music would be like his theme on the Coraline soundtrack, meshing both metallic and organic sounds at the same time; a mix of classical instruments and electronic.
Mabel
“Sweatertown”
‘Sweatertown’ is actually a vast land ruled by Lady Mabelton in her glorious, glittery castle. Exceedingly bright and colorful, it is a queendom of fun and wacky creativity, full of bizarre, mystical creatures and pigs. The law of the land is friendship, with everyone willing to lend a helping hand. There’s always a party going on somewhere in the castle—art, dancing, silliness, it doesn’t matter. Everything, except for some animals, is made of Mabel’s favorite crafting supplies. Music is very much 80’s synth-pop inspired.
