[For the hiatus, I’m going to be posting a bunch of the development art I made for the series. It’ll be posted in the order it was made, leading up to the week the comic resumes. THIS IS THE FINAL ONE! THE COMIC COMES BACK NEXT WEEK!]

In early 2019, I went to my first furry con with two of my closest online friends, Ninja and Kat. I didn’t get a whole lot of drawing in, so I more just used the time to try some poses and perspective I never do. I also got Kat and Ninja to do some Trinity doodles in there too!

MONTHS later, I realized that there was still a lot of space left on the page, so I came back to put in a variety of doodles. A few more building concepts, as well as more alien flora. I really need to put in more chances to zoom in on these flowers within the comic! Designing them is really fun.

[For the hiatus, I’m going to be posting a bunch of the development art I made for the series. It’ll be posted in the order it was made, leading up to the week the comic resumes]

This was an exciting part for me, the part where we get to visit a location that frequently appeared back in the precursor comic, Cat Comixz. That location is the Golden Snow Ski Resort, or GSSR for short.

I knew going into this chapter that Trinity was going to have to inform Leon (and by extension, the readers) about the importance of this location. Eventually I settled on doing a holodeck/VR thing, to add some much needed visual flair to what was, ultimately, an exposition dump.

Being able to revisit this location was a fun challenge… mostly because I had realized that I didn’t actually make any good exterior shots of what the GSSR looks like, so that had to be pretty much summoned from scratch. I settled on making it a very tacky tourist resort thing, with tons of other activities set up nearby the slopes. The references of the interior weren’t much more detailed, so I just continued the logical aesthetic to its conclusion.

The vault was a new part. By the time I was coming in to draw it, I really only had the basic concept of “a vault” in my mind. I wanted to try and differentiate it a little bit from the rest of the aesthetics we would see in KttFF, to add to its strange nature. Despite being just stone with strange symbols on it, nobody has been able to open it, even in the future… but what exactly is behind that door?

[For the hiatus, I’m going to be posting a bunch of the development art I made for the series. It’ll be posted in the order it was made, leading up to the week the comic resumes]

The main concept for this room, in universe, is that it’s a room where scientists can store specific seed samples that are of primary interest at the time. They can research them and do minor experiments here, as well as get readings and figure out what other supplies they might need.

However, it became the seat from where Trinity and the rest of Foundation A monitored Leon back in the past. They also used the room to store the TACO and, for some reason, a red brick, both of which are kept behind little holo-barriers.

[For the hiatus, I’m going to be posting a bunch of the development art I made for the series. It’ll be posted in the order it was made, leading up to the week the comic resumes]

This location changed dramatically since the first draft. Originally, the TACO was going to be stored on this room with a nice balcony and lots of sunlight; a very pretty location.

Realistically, though, the best excuse I had for Foundation A doing that was “hiding it in plain sight,” which just would not be wise given how important the TACO is. Instead, I came up with the concept that it’d be hidden deep inside a DNA/seed storage area instead, hence how this developed.

The big challenge with that idea, however, was creating an environment inside which was visually interesting, since only the most hardy of flora would be able to survive inside. The double-layered terrariums were a start, but the storage cases were still bland. Then, it started to occur to me that, since KttFF takes place in the cat version Minnesota, there’d be a good 1/3 to 1/2 of the year where everything’s gonna be dead and ugly anyway!

So to make up for that, I devised a concept that locations which deal with snow will frequently put up colorful lights and/or have lots of delightfully painted surfaces to make up for the lack of flora during these times. Here in the freezing seed lab, FA has people who can come in and paint the storage cases with the flora and fauna stored within. Plus, just some nice day/night backgrounds along the walls to make the view less drab.

For convenience, there are also lights along the ground that can point scientists towards specific samples as needed, along with computer terminals in the corners (which aren’t really seen in the comic).

[For the hiatus, I’m going to be posting a bunch of the development art I made for the series. It’ll be posted in the order it was made, leading up to the week the comic resumes]

Pretty much all chairs in the world will have some place for tails to stick out, given that most sapient races have them. Designing architecture to accommodate such a variety of species is a fun challenge!

I’m feeling better about blending colors. I want environments to be colorful, but also to feel cohesive. Most of the stuff in this room has the same kind of darker color tone with a bit of lighter stuff from the lights and plants.

[For the hiatus, I’m going to be posting a bunch of the development art I made for the series. It’ll be posted in the order it was made, leading up to the week the comic resumes]

Since this is on the second floor, I had to account for the BIG OL’ WINDOWS along the walls of the building. They’re the main natural light source. Most people prefer to try and get in as least one natural (or close enough facsimile) light source within every room.

Designing the plants was really fun. It’s both exciting and scary to know I get to make them look however I want. They’re clearly palm tree-like but if it doesn’t make sense for them to be in this environment, I get to just say they aren’t actually palm trees. Lol.

Not everything is holo-tech! The glass partitions within the room are obviously glass, but the edges do have keystones. They were likely originally built just as touch-screens, but got upgraded with holo-tech later on.

Also carpet designs are hard.

[For the hiatus, I’m going to be posting a bunch of the development art I made for the series. It’ll be posted in the order it was made, leading up to the week the comic resumes]

The holo-screens surrounding the Gene Archive itself were a bit more simplistic than I was hoping to do, but nothing wrong with it being easily readable, I suppose…

My first crack at the Tecktrin Lab was underwhelming. One of those situations where, when you actually draw it out, you start to realize just how not-workable some of the designs are.

Thankfully, I’m pretty happy with how the finalized lab came out. It has to serve as both a waiting room sort of thing AND as one of the first places the Tecktrins see after being created. There are medical supplies as well as a handful of simple tools for testing their basic aptitudes. There are also games and weights, as well as a map of the local solar system and a wall of noteworthy Tecktrins.

[For the hiatus, I’m going to be posting a bunch of the development art I made for the series. It’ll be posted in the order it was made, leading up to the week the comic resumes]

Yet more characters I’m glad I figured out so many details for considering we barely even see the couple and other dude isn’t even in color. AT LEAST DRAWING THEM WAS FUN.

The holo-tech designs are interesting to me though. I’ve decided that it would make sense for there to be multiple different kinds of screens and projection methods since there’s a heavy focus on meaningful choice of products being a thing. Most basic systems are modular enough that the various kinds of holo-tech can be connected to one another without issue.

Still, it’s a requirement that any life-size holograms of things exhibit some features which distinguish it as a hologram, just to keep any funny business to a minimum.

Holo-tech as a concept fascinates me, and I feel like a lot of science fiction doesn’t take advantage of the the possible implications of its existence. Many just relegate it to being a way of summoning holo-screens that people can interact with. But if it’s complex enough to mimic the function of a computer, it should be able to do all sorts of other things! It could be used to create temporary bridges, 3D models, and other useful stuff!

We’ll get to see more of how the future in this comic uses them in the next chapter.

[For the hiatus, I’m going to be posting a bunch of the development art I made for the series. It’ll be posted in the order it was made, leading up to the week the comic resumes]

I’m glad I planned out so much about how these characters look, only for a huge chunk of them to only be seen from behind. Absolutely going to cheat and reuse or actually include some of these designs in a background somewhere.

Along with outfits, one thing I’m hoping to practice more is fur patterns on cats. They can already have nearly any color of fur anyway, so I really ought to experiment with that more.