by Gage Lippolt
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!
Another ask that I’m managing to fit in juuuust before we get back to the comic, this time asked by my longtime friend, ToxicBlitzX3! Though you just HAD to go and ask him about one of the most traumatic moments in his life…
I like doing these ask comics – I feel more justified in keeping them simple, but they still allow me to experiment a bit. Thank you to my good friend for asking the question and for being so excited about the comic! I hope you and everyone else continues to enjoy the story!
[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).