Near the upper parts of buildings (like, the REALLY tall ones), people frequently build openings for Orb-Its and smaller ships to fly through. It’s very common for there to be paintings or other scenic things to be hidden within them for those flying by.

Also noteworthy that we finally get a good look at here is the floating “mini-islands” that populate cities. They’re popular spots to rest and sight-see.

“Oh cool that soun-WHAT WAS THAT PART ABOUT ZOMBIES”

I promise to keep my gushing about the world to a minimum going into chapter 2 and beyond, there are just a handful of minor things I’ve gotta sprinkle in. Is this kind of system actually practical? Heck if I know, that’s up to scientist and engineer types to figure out! Make it happen, smart people!

Also lineless designs are really fun. I’ve been considering making my next big comic project (or at least SOME project) lineless. I suppose we’ll have to see~

It’s funny, I spend SOOOO much time on the perspective and setup of the last page, but I almost feel more impressed with this first panel view of Leon looking down. Art, man.

I’m thinking that I’m gonna stick with having the dialogue balloons match the base color of characters. At least up until that ends up biting me in the butt or whatever. I like the effect. I’m such a sucker for anything that adds an extra splash of color.

Oh, that little tan alien down in the crowd looks different…

Full view:
> (Newgrounds)
> (deviantART)

These pages right here are pretty much the entire reason I had to drop down to a new pages every two weeks. Counting a week I took off, I picked away at this for the better part of a month.

Was it worth it? Honestly, it was a struggle to be sure, but it was exciting to push myself and test out a bunch of the things I’ve been studying (like three-point perspective, foreshortening, and color theory). There are still a lot of flaws and things I realized I VERY MUCH need to work on, but thankfully I’m very much of the mentality that that’s something to be excited about rather than dread.

Environmental design is one of the things that I’m very dedicated to working on with Key to the Future’s Fate, and this was the first major chance I put in to show it off besides page 21. I want this future to have an alien, solarpunk aesthetic, to seem odd and yet nice at the same time. There’s always room for plant-life and people. Even if some of it comes off gaudy, I’d rather have that than gray or white spires we’re so used to in lots of sci-fi media. We probably won’t get to see it much, but the painted bits on that lighthouse-y building become especially common in winter; something to spruce up the whites and browns of the colder seasons!

As I said, there’s a lot that I’m going to continue to work on – I’m really hoping to nail down different perspectives in the same shot and even more “natural” environmental/city planning – but this is probably the biggest piece I’ve done all digitally since starting, and I’m proud of the progress I’m making.
Though with that said, I can’t wait to see what a few more years of learning will do for me.

Anyway, enough behind the scenes artist stuff! Welcome to Velvinn, everyone! Just assume that anytime I’m not showing the backgrounds in the next few pages that they’re all this detailed and pretty.

Fun fact, there’s a cut joke here.

Originally, I had planned to have a bit where the Orb-It AI, Orb-S, scans Leon and recognizes that he’s been dead for centuries. The Orb-It would try to contain him, assuming he was a zombie, and would have destroyed him without Luca intervening. While amusing, it wasn’t really congruent with the tone of this future, and wouldn’t have actually added anything story-wise.

Plus Leon’s already died once, he doesn’t need to go through that again.

In case you missed out or forgot from earlier, those black pillars? They’re keystones. They’re placed around so people without specific implants to interact with holo-tech can use stuff like Orb-Its as well.

Trinity and Luca both have these implants, which are really just a thin membrane sheet that can be harmlessly placed on the skin to summon holo-tech. Obviously, not everyone has or wants these, so the keystones are a necessity for accessibility.

“One of the clouds?
“N-no. No, Leon, the bubble things.”
“I guess that works too.”

Chapter 2 starts directly after the end of Chapter 1! Luca and Leon are heading through the same room where Trinity intended to tell Leon about Foundation A.

Time to go to a boring historical museum to learn more! … Yay?

(Also, while it’s intentionally very subtle, I added a paper texture overlay to this and the next two pages. A nice little transition to full digital)

WELCOME BACK! The second chapter of Key to the Future’s Fate takes us to some brand new territory: Velvinn. This area had its name inspired by a planet from Ratchet and Clank, though this one has very little to do with its namesake. Velvinn is a solarpunk city, part of which is a MASSIVE forest… with something else hidden inside.

So far the covers for the chapters have been very minimalist, but I went ALL OUT with this one. Though the covers are still going to be done traditionally, the rest of the comic is going to be digital from here on out! I really hope you can all be patient with me, since as of writing this, I’m fairly inexperienced with digital work. There’s going to be some growing pains, but the comic is meant to be my main avenue for learning. Hope you have fun watching me improve as an artist!

Another note: Updates will probably be every two weeks for a while, as I continue to transition to working all digitally. The hope is that I’ll become comfortable enough with it to go back to weekly (maybe even twice a week?) updates in the future! Plus, I’ve been away from the comic for months, so cut me so HECKING slack!!!

Alright, enough of that. The comic’s back! Or, if you’re reading later down the line, the comic continues! Either way, enjoy!