Alternative question to the one you answered earlier:
How long did you think about/prepare for the comic before you started the comic and did you ever worry that it might not take off?
I came up with the design for White Diamond Steven on August 4th, 2018. At that time, I also said this:
.......famous last words.
Going against my own advice, I DID think about how it all happened. I thought about it for a month, and then in September I sat down and banged out the very first White Diamond AU comic - the one about Earl and Steven leaving together.
To tell the truth, at the time I just thought it would be a neat little idea. I never worried about it 'not taking off' because..... taking off wasn't my goal. I had no diabolical plans to craft a 5-season story, the longest I'd ever done. I had no aspirations to make this AU incredibly popular or well known.
I just wanted to draw silly comics about White Diamond Steven and his Pearl wandering around together.
The original concept for all this wasn't an epic tale. It was just a slice of life.... a very odd slice of life, but a slice of life nevertheless.
Which is why the first season of the story is what it is! Some people complain that it's directionless and boring, but. That was kinda the point. It was meant to be a melancholy, atmospheric little comic strip.
There wasn't any specific goal. I had a backstory, of course, and I KNEW even back then what was happening. But I assumed the interest - both mine and the audience's - would wane and I would just leave it whenever its time had come.
But by October, we had already come to this:
And I think it was around this time (or shortly before it) that I realized that this story couldn't remain in a perpetual just-vibes state forever. I had teased some hints about where the Crystal Gems were, and what their situation was. I had hinted that there was more to the story than had been revealed. And I suddenly thought that maybe I could actually write it.
.... and I kinda did.
(It's still weird to think about how MUCH I've written/drawn for this.)
I think.... a lot of people believe that writing/planning a story is something that happens on command. You sit down, you take a blank sheet of paper, you start from the beginning, and write everything in chronological order, and maybe in a week, or a month, or a year, you'll have 'the plan to write a story'.
And sure, that's one way to do it! But a lot of time, the story comes to YOU.
Rebecca Sugar knew Rose was Pink Diamond before the first episode aired. Was Steven Universe a planned story back then? Arguably, no. But the team had a framework.
I also knew, before drawing a single comic, what WD!Steven's deal was. I knew within about a day how he had come to be. I knew how Greg got involved in all of it. I knew the answer to every single 'BUT WHY DID WHITE DIAMOND--' question you guys have asked me for the past 5 years before I even created this blog.
But that isn't really a 'plan' so much as a concept.
I continue to plan the comics to this day. I know the end, and I know the main story beats. But the middle stuff about how to get there elegantly - that part takes planning. And I never really stopped planning since that day in 2018.
Second, I added Earl into Don’t Starve Together! It was, and still is, hard, since every sprite was in each category (the face, head, lower arm, leg, foot, etc.)
She’s, like I said, still missing a few sprites, but she’s still a work in progress! Even tho she’s almost finished
Sadly, she won’t have any special abilities due to me not being able to make code, only edit it. To add earl in the game, I used the ECS (Extended Character Sample.)
...But she will have custom quotes and a custom ghost! (Along with a portrait, icon, etc.)
Here is her front, side and back view.
Sadly, I won’t add her as a playable character...
...unless...
I reach a certain goal...IF I earn at least 20$, I’ll add her to the steam workshop as a playable character!
https://ko-fi.com/lilqarts
If we reach the goal, when she’s fully finished, she’ll be on the open steam.
Here are some first-looking pics. (Earl before I added some sprites)
So I managed to catch up on @ask-whitepearl-and-steven comic au which I really like so far so I decided to barf up some fanart at 1AM for this cool au lol
These are the only ones my barely functioning brain can work on for now. I do want to make some more and see what happens next to the au :>
"yes steven I was the gem who killed your father, now let's do something fun"
I was re-watching kill la kill today and thought... 'man I like Nui Harime... and she only has one eye...why don't I try and mix her with white pearl from steven universe???
but not the show version of her nooo, lets mix Nui with @thechekhov version of her, the @ask-whitepearl-and-steven version, cause at some point she got her body colors in a mix of both pink and grey and it looked great... also because I needed an excuse to draw white pearl and inspiration appears whenever she feels like!!
These two belong to @ask-whitepearl-and-steven aka @thechekhov
I've been working on this for some time now xD I wasn't sure about their designs/colors (until recently) + what poses to use ^w^'
In the end I decided to draw them relaxing together~ (They both deserve it, and Earl is singing...!) I also had been practicing how to draw Pearls and Steven to get their bodies right haha
Our heroes confront a mysterious stranger about some interdimensional happenings.
Next episode (You Too?)>>
This is part me doing an experiment, part me wanting to show some love to some SU AUs I’ve been following. If I had more time and dedication, this would be part of some larger-scale story. But we’ll just have to settle with random scenes like this. Enjoy!
Shouldn't we pull them out of that suit?
I already tried. They're stuck in that thing. And if I use too much force, I'm worried that I might break it.
So how much longer do you think it'll take for them to reform?
It varies from gem to gem. We could be waiting for over a week--
Over a week!?
... But in my universe, Rose came back after only a few seconds, and my friend Earl took a few hours to reform. So maybe they won't take that long--
It's happening now!
Woah, is that three gems coming back all at once? That's some impressive synchronization. I wonder if that suit has anything to--
Wait! Nora, don't look!
Huh? Wait, why?
I... actually don't know. Pearl told me not to look once, and I just thought that looking at a gem while they’re reforming was rude. Or that the light from reforming could blind you. Kind of like staring at the sun?
Yeah, uh, Steven? That's not really a thing. At all.
What? Then why...?
Hey! This is important!
And we are back!
What happened while we were out?
Not much. We found you had poofed, dragged your suit to the warp pad, and then warped here.
Who are you? And where are we? And what's going on!?
Okay, hold on --
And why are there so many "Stevens" running around?
And "Noras"?
And other "Crystal Gems," or whatever they're calling themselves?
Oh yeah, now that you mention it, I remember seeing another version of Pearl earlier, except she was a vampire--
Everyone slow down! One question at a time!
Now then, to start, my name is Conga Tourmaline. Interdimensional Traveler, Occupant of the Throne of Loki, unrivaled mage and technician, and bunch of other random roles and titles that likely mean nothing to any of you.
As for where we are, isn’t it obvious? This is your house, Steven.
Well, yeah, but it’s... flipped. Like, everything that should be on the left is on the right, and vice versa.
Ah yeah, gem warp technology isn’t exactly built for travel between alternate universes.
So... we’re all trapped in this one universe?
I wouldn't say "trapped." I prefer the term, "it’s difficult to leave."
Okay, so why are we here in the first place?
Ah... yeaaaaaaaah that’s my fault.
Let me just say, there wasn’t any ill intent behind this. It was just supposed to be a fun little multiversal hangout. We’d all get together, have a little party, down your choice of advertiser-friendly beverage, maybe do a dungeon raid--
We... don’t do “dungeon raids.”
... and then wrap it all up with some pizza. All expenses on me.
But it looks like I either got carried away with invitations, or I attracted the wrong sort of attention.
Now there’s more than just a few dozen alternate “Crystal Gems” running loose.
So... those monsters...
Yeah, I got a little careless with all the portals I cast.
And the black pearl that poofed you?
Don’t know how exactly she got here, but I’m going to say that I might have accidentally grabbed her instead of more Crystal Gems. The same thing could probably be said for most, if not all of the other “anti-CGs” that we probably have to deal with now.
Does that include the Diamonds?
The Diamonds?! What do you mean “the Diamonds!?”
After you poofed, we saw an army being led by both Yellow and... I might have just been seeing things, but I could have sworn it was... Pink.
Oh... no...
Yellow Diamond!
We’re about to have company. Brace yourselves.
TO BE CONTINUED... maybe.
Next Episode (You Too?)>>
Thank you so much for reading! Here’s a list of all the characters featured in this comic, and their respective cool AU blogs (Not including Canon SU):
White Diamond Steven - @ask-whitepearl-and-steven
Nora Maheswaran - @amnesia-au-nora-maheswaran
Kid Pearl - @gemkidsau
Conga Tourmaline - OCdonotsteal
There’s also a few references to other AUs, if you can spot them.
EDIT: Adjusted Kid Pearl’s dialogue a bit, because it implied that they didn’t already know that they were in another universe, while WD!Steven said something that implied the opposite.
EDIT 2: Added a brief episode description. And a link to the next one!
Thank you as always for sticking around and following this blog.
I’m still in the thick of it for a little while, so episode-drawing has been slow. Thankfully I’m trying to crawl my way out and restart my brain function to start actively writing again. I’ll be posting the next comic on December 24th, as usual at 6pm PST on Tapas.