#Gigi Dempster 「''Order up!''」

[door2door-official]

S01E14 - Picture This

[stardestroyer81]

🥪 Introducing... Door2Door! 🥪

Door2Door stars twenty year old possum Gigi Dempster, who lives in a rather ramshackle, podunk town in Vermont called Bendersville. After sending numerous job applications all over town with no word back, she finally lands herself a delivery driver position at an unassuming locally-owned sandwich restaurant named Dine 'n Dash. With no prior experience in the art of crafting a mighty fine sandwich or running a delivery route, Gigi is strapped in to experience the whirlwind of a first time food service job firsthand, and in an unpredictable town like Bendersville, quite literally anything can happen.

(For more information on what Door2Door is— as well as a handful of progress images— please consider checking underneath the cut!)

At last, witness unveiling of my latest project I've spent the last month conceptualizing, Door2Door! What once came about as a silly idea of basing a project after an inner-city delivery driver inspired after a certain gameplay section in Spongebob Squarepants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman, it has since blossomed into one of my dearest passion projects yet!

Though, before I get into any further detail behind Door2Door and its creation, I must stress— none of the above five images hail from a lost late nineties/early 2000s Cartoon Network show, and if by chance any of them were enough to fool you into thinking they were, then that just means I achieved what I set out for! 💙���

Now, about a month ago, I'd been watching a retrospective on the critically un-acclaimed Spongebob Squarepants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman, a game I had growing up. It's important for me to mention that I had seen and personally played the aforementioned gameplay section before, though for some reason seeing it again struck me with a brilliant project idea.

Anyone who's been following me for at least a year knows that I've designed a cavalcade of candied characters for my own arcade game concept, Rascal, and initially my idea for Door2Door— which I also called Project JJ (In reference to the sandwich chain Jimmy John's)— was to give it a plot simple enough to translate into an arcade game.

The idea was that you played as a plucky delivery driver who rides through the streets of a seedy city to deliver a food order to the... er, order-ee. But your progress would be impeded by a fiendish gang of mobster alley cats who are after your sandwiches, so there would have definitely been a large cartoony element to the gameplay loop.

I drew concept art for Door2Door's protagonist, then known as Marcy, though I really wasn't vibing with either drawing. For one, making the protagonist a cat seemed a bit overdone, and I already have a cat character who's name rhymes with Marcy, so that had to go. More so, I also couldn't settle on a good spriting style, which prompted me to rethink the whole project.

Well, there is a general aura of cartooniness to Door2Door, I thought, why not just embrace that vibe whole-heartedly and reshape the project into a long-lost late nineties cartoon?

I did like the idea of having an excuse to drawing more animation cels, though if I was going to make Door2Door into something resembling a cel-animated cartoon, I was prepared to go the full distance in nailing that aesthetic, in the form of how characters are designed and the way I go about drawing each screenshot.

For those unfamiliar with cel animation, essentially it can be described as a traditional form of animation and involves objects— usually characters— being hand-inked and painted on clear celluloid sheets and placed over painted backgrounds.

Above, I've provided a visual for what a standalone 'cel' from Door2Door would look like, coupled with a hand-painted background. When overlaid on top of one another...

... you would get this! This is exactly how cartoons were animated up until the era of digital inking and coloring... but that begs the question. How am I achieving a hand-drawn and painted aesthetic if everything I've shown so far has been drawn digitally?

I have my ways! It involves a lot of studying how individual cels of animation look, and taking note of recurring hallmarks; grainy textures, paint blemishes, drop shadows, etc. Above, I've assembled a small gif of my process in composing a screenshot for Door2Door, from lineart to final product!

So, that all should loosely explain it; Door2Door is what would happen if I were in charge of a late nineties Cartoon Network show, and what you've seen here is merely the beginning. Going forward, I will be posting art of Door2Door's main cast with some additional character information and concept art for each one, though for the time being, enjoy all five art pieces I've supplied for this post— they are perhaps the biggest works of mine yet this year! 💙🏳️‍⚧️✨

[door2door-official]

Name: Gianna "Gigi" Quentin Dempster Age: 20 Height: 4'11" Species: Possum Likes: Her 'work family', meeting new people, her favorite animated series Neo✦Star Warriors Dislikes: Being alone, unmet expectations, the dark Birthday: August 21st Go-To Sandwich Order: Chicken club with lettuce, red onions, pickles and mayo

Gigi Dempster, a well-meaning, nerdy and helpful opossum, is the plucky delivery driver for a locally-owned sandwich joint, Dine 'n Dash. She is a girl who adores every aspect of her occupation— dour as it may be to the casual onlooker— and very little matters more to her than a job well done.

When she's not on the clock, she can usually be found hanging out with her best friend or roped up in her room watching reruns of her favorite Japanese series, Neo✦Star Warriors. Regardless, whether she's on a delivery route or taking on the town, you can always count on Gigi for anything, as she is always willing to lend a helping paw.

[door2door-official]

S01E01 - Order Up!

[door2door-official]

🥪 Order up! 🥪

Welcome to the official blog for @stardestroyer81’s what-if 90s cartoon, Door2Door! This will be a space for me to post all kinds of content relating to Door2Door, from character designs to script snippets to fully rendered screengrabs!

If you'd like to read more about Door2Door's overall creation, feel free to check out this post from my main blog, wherein I detail every aspect of its conception!

Taking place in the year 1997, Door2Door stars twenty year old possum Gigi Dempster, who lives in a rather ramshackle, podunk town in Vermont called Bendersville. After sending numerous job applications all over town with no word back, she finally lands herself a delivery driver position at an unassuming locally-owned sandwich restaurant named Dine ‘n Dash. With no prior experience in the art of crafting a mighty fine sandwich or running a delivery route, Gigi is strapped in to experience the whirlwind of a first time food service job firsthand, and in an unpredictable town like Bendersville, quite literally anything can happen.

• Character cards featuring a standalone 'cel' of each character, a brief bio and a handful of fun facts!

• Hand drawn cels, painted backgrounds, and faux screencaps illustrating what Door2Door would look like on the air!

• Full episode scripts, as well as small script snippets!

• Got a question for a character? Submit it through the ask box and they'll personally write back to you!

• And other miscellaneous posts!

Below is an ongoing list of all the characters in the Door2Door world, be it main, secondary of tertiary! Click on a name below to be redirected to their character card!

• Gigi Dempster - The Delivery Girl • Gwen Caruso - The Secretive Cashier • Carl Luntz - The Wisecracking Custodian • Mr. Hartley - The Sandwich Master • ?????