Time for a little artist insight!

Here’s an interesting test for anyone who enjoyed RubyQuest:
Re-read the quest. Look for any mention of “cat”, “fox”, “bunny”, “ear”, “tail”, “snout”, or anything like that.
You won’t find it.
For instance, when Ruby meets Red, he’s described as “the man”.

The characters in NanQuest, as in RubyQuest, were primarily given their animal identities as a means of visual shorthand, not literal personification. The ears are a way to easily tell the characters apart and give them some personality. Whether or not Ruby is literally a rabbit girl is not significant to the narrative. Ruby never uses her bunny jumping power, Ace never flies like a bird, Filbert never stuffs seeds in his cheeks. There may be, in both quests, some symbolism or connotations to these choices, but every character could be a human and it wouldn’t change much. This is by design.

Initially I thought to differentiate the characters by giving them all different hats. But there’s an obvious flaw here: Hats can be removed or switched. I needed a more definitive way to prove a character was a character, and not just wearing someone else’s hat. Thus the ears. Now you know!

To answer your question more directly however, while RubyQuest had simple and direct animal analogues, NanQuest is less obvious (other than Nan herself who’s pretty obviously a goat). This is largely because NanQuest has a significantly bigger cast, and because reusing obvious animals like cats would make people think they were RubyQuest cameos.
As a result, while I do have certain animals influencing the design of given characters, they’re not really important. So large speech aside, here’s your concise answer: It doesn’t matter. Just draw whatever you think they should be!

RubyQuest has gotten a recent following on Tumblr. But did you know it was once referenced in a video game?

On April Fool’s Day, 2011, the game Killing Floor had a brief April Fool’s Day event where the biographies of the playable characters were altered into silly or nonsensical alternatives. One character, listed as Kevo_Chav, had his description changed as shown, to “Hit Tom. Kiss Ace!”

clockwork-eden:

Okay I couldn’t wait until full heal. Nan’s eyes are still scabbed so they look uneven, and also it’s really hard to photograph your forearms.

Ruby redrawn and Nan drawn up by the awesome Zilly, Ruby’s original design by Eldritch-Heiress

I LOVE them! I just wish I could get a better shot, I’ll have to take it outside during the day tomorrow. The filigree Zilly did is so amazing

I don’t have the words to say how flattering even the idea of this is

Shoot
Now I gotta make sure NanQuest really pans out well because it’s not even done yet and imagine if the ending sucks
I owe it to this person’s tattoo

duckdust:

9 million years ago i tried to animate something for rubyquest pft

but then i gave up

Oh my god

is this real life

is this even happening

You guys ever have a vivid dream where you get something awesome like money or love or a super nintendo and then you hold onto it real tight and you realize it’s a dream but you just keep holding onto it and hoping that somehow it’ll follow you back into real life
that’s sort of like this

I hope this will still be here when I wake up

artadnauseam:

MORE RUBYQUEST BECAUSE WHY THE HELL NOT

Pen drawing (erased pencil sketch) colored in Krita.

This is beautiful. Very uplifting. I especially love the stuffed animals.
My fans never cease to amaze me. Thank you, sincerely.

more streamed doodles

Regarding Quests.
I received this critique this morning, anonymously
I think it’s a very valid critique; most of what this individual says is true, but the assumption is made that it’s by accident and not design.

NanQuest is a spiritual successor to RubyQuest in terms of theme, motif, basic interaction. It’s a lurking horror story with unknowable dangers. But in terms of ‘gameplay’, as it were, both stories are quite different.

As their creator, I’m not ignorant of this fact. I know that NanQuest ‘plays’ very differently from RubyQuest and I have never presumed otherwise. It’s quite intentional. I am aware that NanQuest (and in fact any quests I do) will be living in the “shadow” of RubyQuest, that it will be an inescapable influence that everyone will constantly judge it by and compare it to.

In RubyQuest, most of the dangers and problems are in the form of mechanical puzzles. Find a key, flip the switch, break the lock. Figure out how to move from one room or challenge to the next. NanQuest progresses a similar plot, but not by the same means. In NanQuest, the puzzles are social. NanQuest is, far more than RubyQuest ever was, an ontological mystery. The puzzles are more intrinsic: Where are you? Why is this happening? What can be done? How can we survive? Your tasks are not as simple and objective as “find the key” (though that exists occasionally). The puzzles are figuring out how to deal with other people. Knowing who to trust. Understanding your predicament. Deducing cause and effect. The place you are, the people there with you - those are the puzzles.

Early on, a big criticism of NanQuest was the way Nan constantly found herself in new places, seemingly through no action of the players. It seemed that any time something significant was done, Nan would ‘warp’ and find herself somewhere else. But as I said then, there is a reason for everything.
In NanQuest, we still don’t quite understand what’s going on or why. The problem as I see it is people look at this fact and assume that because they don’t know the reasons for the world, then there are no reasons. But if this were RubyQuest, that would be like assuming that because they haven’t found the key to a lock, there is no key.

There’s a reason for everything that happens. And there are certainly objectives.
Just because the players haven’t fully figured out the reason for everything in NanQuest doesn’t mean there is no reason, or that there is no point to the ‘game’.

Maybe discovering the object of the game is the object of the game.

doodles from a stream I didn’t upload yet

renochi:

I don’t get it
Ruby quest is basically like homestuck but it has furries/animal characters?? It’s still pretty boring imo

I don’t like the fact that you just click next then look at an image and read text next to it then do that again and again
How do you pay attention to it long enough to read a lot of it wow

Don’t waste your time. RubyQuest is boring and it never really picks up, plus there is a LOT of text to read. I guess if you’re really into furries or something it might be ok.

There are a lot of long-term options for artists online. Merchandising, for instance, or a website that generated serious ad revenue (this takes a lot), and even the idea of a full webcomic that can support its author is a lofty goal — look at how few, out of tens of thousands of webcomics trying for it, have ever become self-sustaining like that. These are all long investments, though, and while I’d like to pursue them, I have to worry more about my immediate situation.
I was referring to the idea posited to me the other night, which I related in an earlier post. Specifically, the idea of ‘funding’ questing. That if I could raise enough money for general-purpose productions (quests, comics, art, etc) then I could work on them, essentially, indefinitely. Think of it almost like a broad-spectrum commission. Instead of funding a single image, entire quests and comic endeavors could be funded. The pros are that it’s open content, and much more of it than a commission would buy. The cons are that it requires much more funding in total, and perhaps its biggest shortcoming contrasted to actual commissions, would leave donators with a general return rather than one custom-tailored to their wishes. Big hurdles to clear, to be sure, even if there were enough people willing to pay into the concept to begin with. Because it’s not a singular “goal”, Kickstarter can’t be used for this. But there must be another way to handle the logistics.

In short, if the audience truly wants to pitch in for this, I can make questing and comics my full-time job. It wouldn’t take much. Just enough to cover the bare essentials.
It’s hoping for a lot, even with all the people who’ve been telling me to take a shot at this, all the fans who’ve encouraged me to try this approach. But if it works, well, if there’s even a chance that it could work, why not try?
I want to be optimistic about something for once. So here’s to it. I’ll see if I can make this work. Somehow.

Okay
Maybe it could work.

I wouldn’t have believed it, but I’ve been getting a lot of PMs and letters about this fundraising thing, encouraging me to give it a shot. Perhaps I should. It’s true I would love to provide the things I’m constantly being asked for. I love working on my stories and I love seeing people read and enjoy them. And it feels insanely selfish even to put it this way, but the answer is yes, if I didn’t have to worry about money, I would pretty much just be drawing all day.

I’m trying to figure out how this will work. I’ve made plans, I’ve got ideas to enact. For now, I won’t publish them just yet. That will be part of the push. But as for the actual fundraising, I’m at a loss of where to go. I’m not familiar enough with Kickstarter to know if this is something that really falls under the purview of their system. I’d probably want to start with a very limited ‘test’ run for a period of maybe one month, and see if that works out. If it does… well, I guess we’ll see.

I feel like I’m getting ahead of myself. And I know I’m hoping for a lot. But I wouldn’t have even begun to hope if it hadn’t been for these people who believed in me, supported me, encouraged me to try something. Maybe there is a reason to hope. But it’s a big wish.

I suppose we’ll find out.

myonmallow:

A little something I made on Flipnote.

For fun.

That’s what I like to see

a nice big smile

This one’s for dfamaeve who did a lovely blind read of RubyQuest.

First bunch of commissions! More will be coming soon, hopefully with better speed, as a few real life concerns have temporarily gone by the wayside.

The first image is a DiveQuest Album cover for Nitrosparxx. You may already know him for his work on the RubyQuest, DiveQuest, and NanQuest unofficial soundtracks!

The little pony character, Mercury, belongs Jutsy.

Fuck Yeah Kamen Pony requested the comic with everyone’s favorite smirking scientist, Red.

And lastly, for now, a simple .gif of Tom removing and replacing his bandage, for Dashmelted.

A bit late on these but here are some requests of fans who got friends to do liveblogs.

The first is Tom, Jay, and Ruby all living together for Heropop who got a delicious liveblog from their friend Sir Kut-Ku which you can find right here.

The second is a simple hug for Hikarina who has liveblog logs from their friend cockblockerofdarkwraiths here.

Meanwhile, Jacques Cousteau got a very interesting video liveblog from his sister, which can be found in parts 1-5 here on YouTube. I don’t know if the final parts are coming later or if this is all they did, but it’s quite entertaining.

Lastly on a non-RubyQuest note I wanted to make note of some Gillou fanart here and here. Looks like the big blue girl’s got some fans!

I’m doing some late callbacks on these, trying to sort out any unfinished business before moving on to new business. My inbox has been a little shaky. So if anyone has submitted or requested something and not heard back, please just send me a heads-up and smack me upside my dumb head so I can get on it for you. Thank you!