#agent’s artbook

[splatoonmoments]

okay buddy try telling that to her

[dr-spectre]

HOLY SHIT I JUST REALISED! WE'RE GONNA GET THE NEW SPLATOON 3 ARTBOOK SOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BANCALA WALKER!!!!!!! IT MIGHT OUT NOW IDK BUT.... EEEEEEHEHEHEHE!!!!

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!!

YIPPIE! HOW DELIGHTFUL!!

You guys better send me um.. well... let's just say... a legally obtained copy in the form of a scanned pdf and a translation later on...

Or maybe some screenshots that may intrigue me.... Please? Pretty please?

[svrlobotony]

this version of parallel canon got denied can you believe it

[namakes]

Everyone has alternate colors if you take the front sleeve off the artbook!

[k1ttyclawz]

INKAKOPIA

[squidsmakemedelusional]

i might be tripping but i have some thoughts about the side order artbook

so let me start off with the Parallel canon design that we got

what kinda was interesting for me was the rose left to PC, and the overall style of them. It seemed very fantasy inspired. its giving musketeer vibes lowkey.

or this other design that reminds me a lot of an duelist kind of figure (which is so fkn cool!!))

(sorry for the bad quality) and that seems to be Eight with an sword!!

so what am i thinking? maybe that side order was going for a more fantasy/shoujo-inspired-feel! What would not be farfetched because Marina herself is really really into Shoujo manga so ofc she would theme her project around that, duh.

also theres this dev diary that i found interesting:

"

storybook princess? we KNOW what you are, Marina.

but all of that speculating is very vague, because all of the other concept arts we have seen were very very different in style than these. so take it with a grand of salt.

well thats it, ill give someone else my tinfoiled hat

[teafourtwo]

Reva: Solas' Right Hand

One thing I really thought was strange in Veilguard was the complete absence of the 'elven rebellion' and Solas' agents that Trespasser's set up. In my rewrite of Veilguard (Castling) I've decided to reintroduce Fen'harel's agents into the storyline, which then required someone to lead them that wasn't Solas. A replacement for Felassan, so to speak...but more willing to do the difficult morally grey things. I found this concept art for 'Reva' in the da veilguard concept art book, and decided to expand on the sketch and add color.

Original sketch from Veilguard book:

My Reva:

[toffyrats]

when i say 8 changes every time i draw her this is what i mean

from around april, to june, to september, to august, to october 😭 in september tho i started exploring her design more n i think i rly like what i have now so

[mango-fizz]

this is making me go insane in ways i cannot even hope to describe. bye

[c0ckedgun]

to remind me that i am a fool

[splatoonmoments]

trans people: i’m trans

society: ok

epic fucking frye plush:

[rassicas]

today on splatoon mythbusters: is Agent 4 a country bumpkin?

no lol this is probably the funniest widespread misconception to come out in recent years A big part of it is because people misunderstood this map.

I came across this trivia point on the wiki page for agent 4 while making this post LOL agent 4 has better access to public transportation than 95% of you With all that green on the map and nothing marked in between, It seems that people have been assuming the population density of inkopolis looks something like the image on the left. While it's unclear exactly how big the population is of inkadia and the surrounding area is, going roughly off of how irl east Tokyo and neighboring Chiba prefecture look, i think its safe to guess were dealing with an urban area that looks more like whats on the right.

(side note about population count: i take the account of the Low Water Party with a grain of salt since that isnt even a real number they used. something that is more reliable is that graffiti artist Sally has over 240k followers on social media. while followers can be from anywhere in the world ofc, it sounds like her fanbase is largely in inkopolis. i think its safe to say inkopolis is a very big city!)

If we're to look more at the irl equivalent of the area, it seems the Inkopolis Coastal Connector is based on the Keiyo Line. Following that line roughly to where 4's house is lands us in a ward in Chiba city. It doesn't look like much, but about 100k people live in that area. Not a super crazy urban area like tokyo, but still urban.

(incidentally, a major landmark on the Keiyo line is Makuhari Messe, where 3 of the irl splatoon idol concerts have been held. maybe a coincidence but maybe gives more credence to the idea that that's what the coastal connector is based on?) Apparently on the Japanese side, there's a theory that 4 is from Yotsukaido, which is a little further north of the area i circled. why there? Yotsukaido means "4 town street"...4...haha

Ok enough guessing based on "vibes" and real maps that may or may not be accurate to how things are in the splatoon world. The Actual lore: On Splatoon base it's confirmed they grew up about 40 minutes away from Inkopolis by train, close to the city. That's like a nothing amount of distance.

Another developer interview from 2017 goes into more detail.

Inoue: Agent 3 had a very "I've finally made it to the city" feeling, with a strong desire to become fresh. 4 on the other hand, not so much. Rather than being someone from the countryside, they're more like someone who came from a commuter town within the greater metropolitan area. It's like a place where the limited express trains wouldn't stop at, but the semi-express trains would (laughs).

so agent 4 is very clearly, a city kid. agent 3 is the country bumpkin, from an area so far away its not even on the map. According to splatoon base...

Far enough away that they moved to inkopolis alone. meanwhile 4 lives close enough that they could just go home to their parents after battling.

Also this is something that I never see brought up. Amidst the dubiously canon early concept comics in the back of the artbook, there's a comic about agent 3 leaving their hometown, mentioning they live in a seaside town called [REDACTED] with a population of 5000.

Again, these comics are dubious since theyre so old. but there are ideas in these comics that have carried over to the final games in some form, and this is consistent with agent 3's final characterization that they come from a far away small town and had a longing for the city.

anyway tldr i think its funny how agent 4's fandom characterization/backstory got swapped with 3's all because of a misread map

[tamberella]

Congratulations on your author debut, I'm so excited for your book!! 😇💕

Would you consider talking about the whole process of becoming a book illustrator /children's book author?

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!! And I'd be happy to share the process!

It all started for me with my 3dTotal artbook. 3dTotal is a small publisher in the UK, and they mainly focus on collections of artists' work. They use Kickstarter to fund each book, and my agent (the amazing Seth Fishman at Gernert) discovered me through the Kickstarter for my artbook Windows to Worlds!

He asked if I had any interest in working on graphic novels or picture books, and I had already been thinking about picture books! He found me my first picture book project with Penguin Workshop, Mother of Sharks, written by the awesome Melissa Cristina Márquez, which came out last year!

While I was working on Mother of Sharks, I was also talking with him about developing The Bakery Dragon, based of course on this painting, which was (and is) one of my proudest artistic moments.

For a little background on the painting, I painted it right after a really challenging couple of months medically - I was dealing with medical complications from my chronic illness for about 6 months, and I wasn't able to finish a single painting the whole time, I was just too exhausted from hospital visits and being in pain. That painting was the first piece I was able to actually complete (both emotionally and literally) in about half a year. So it always held a really special place in my heart, and I really wanted to keep living in that little world. I think there's something in it that is very special to me, about being outside in the cold, seeing warmth and love through a glass barrier, and wanting desperately to reach it.

With Seth's guidance, over a couple months, I developed a pitch for it. The script developed slowly alongside the designs for characters, locations, etc.

(Early version of Ember above! He has changed a bit!)

I thought I had already read a lot of picture books, I've always loved them, but I read hundreds and hundreds during this process. There is something uniquely fun and challenging about telling a complete narrative in 48 pages (which is already a long picture book, many are 32!) My book also pulls some elements from comics, such as speech bubbles, which I found to be incredible assets for humor and character development.

My pitch included designs, some early example spreads, and a rough script with story beats and jokes! My agent took it out into the world, and the publisher we ended up going forward with was Knopf, an imprint of Penguin Random House! I absolutely love the Knopf team and the beautiful books they put out! My editor, Katherine Harrison, really understood what I wanted to accomplish and has been so incredibly helpful in her guidance!

And from there... through rewrites, dialog adjustments, and lots and lots of drawings, it became a book! I'm happy to answer questions about the process! I'll leave you guys with a little preview from the interior of the book! (And of course you can pre-order it here, gotta learn the author skill of always including that link haha!)

[hiroshotreplica]

splatoon promo kids name list cause its always a pain to try to look for them for me personally and i realized. i could change that!

NOTE: weapons are ALWAYS inconsistent with the promo kids. their names may be assigned to different models as well. their first appearance is what they are usually seen as, and whatever weapon they "main" are based on renders/what they use in trailers.

SPLATOON 1

The skin tones are very inconsistent with everyone pictured.

TOP ROW: Kaori, John, Mizuho, Rul

BOTTOM ROW: Pit, Laura, Yuriko, Yuya

Kaori and John are the "Agent 3"s. Yuriko and Yuya do not have official renders.

SPLATOON 2

The skin tones are inconsistent, mainly with those with darker skin tones (unfortunately).

TOP ROW: Surume, Cuttlefrsh (Cuttlefresh in the earliest known trailer), Kou, Kensaki

BOTTOM ROW: KelpShot, Splashley, Tof-U, Yari

Surume and Cuttlefrsh are the "Agent 4"s, though Cuttlefrsh/Male Agent 4 is only ever depicted once (discounting coroika). Yari does have a transparent render, I just prefer the one with the roller (though, I wish I could find the transparent version of it).

OCTO EXPANSION (bonus)

BONUS: even though the renders used to represent Agent 8 are wildly inconsistent, there's two regular octoling renders that people believe are linked to them. Their names come from Octolings that look very similar to them in the offline version of the lobby. (Patricia and Steven). Sometimes Patricia is referred to as Naomi due to misinfo. They're like, promo kid adjacent to me.

SPLATOON 3 (the most popular and consistent)

VeronIKA and TakoTruck's skintones are inconsistent :(

Eyecolors for VeronIKA, Hirooooo, and AnemoneNo1 are inconsistent

TOP ROW: VeronIKA, Hirooooo (five o's), AnemoneNo1, TakoTruck

BOTTOM ROW: Stephanie, kAyOss (the k is not meant to be capitalized im dumb, image is inaccurate), C4L4M4R, YARRwhal

VeronIKA and Hirooooo are the "Neo Agent 3"s (though, Hirooooo is only used once for the artbook)

There is also an instance where Hirooooo's name is misspelled (only four o's) but i didnt want to find the image

BONUS

Tof-U is technically present in one of the gameplay showcases(?) I believe it's an error

kAyOss used to look different and was most likely combined with the unrelated promotional character shown next to them (who was used for Wireglasses/Glassless in Coroika)

okay thats all! I'll reblog and add on any additions if necessary

[leliwardens]

project joplin will always be a ghost in the machine of veilguard regardless of how you feel about the game. like yes the "it what could of been" is a good reason but what i consider a more concrete reason is the bones it was built from and how it bleeds into it even now.

like. i remember early on the marketing and promotion for rook specifically was (paraphrased) an everyman type character, one that didn't have a magical hand or special papers to do what needs to be done, "having to earn the respect rather than it just being handed to them" is presumably the takeaway from this approach.

however, personal feelings aside on that opinion for previous protagonists, it's simply...untrue? yes rook has no magical hand to land them the following they start out with or the warden with treaties that gain them a guarantee army, but rook has solas in their head providing critical information, the lighthouse and access to several eluvains, and the dagger as advantages. rook didn't earn these, they were given to them by fate or by chance. presumably the earning aspect is suppose to be for the companions (though, all games have you need to maintain their loyalty/respect) and factions. there isn't a big enough equivalent from previous games to parallel factions but you could argue the treaties are similar, or the allies you gain at the end with hawke (like zevran), but nothing relevantly close.

but this isn't the point. the point i want to make is trying to market rook as so vastly different than the previous protagonists as an "everyman" is simply not true in-game no matter how you slice it and makes little sense.

but you know what does make sense for that comparison? project joplin.

in it's inception to cancellation (at least what know publicly) was a smaller scale story set far away from the previous games' direct influence: a "heist" type set up in tevinter where you would travel in a rickety old boat with your crew while on the hunt for solas assumedly under orders of the inquisitor. you were essentially a sunderland's company, or more or less what absolution was.

now this makes far more sense for the intention of rook to simply be a random, a nobody, that just so happens to stumble into something bigger and have to earn everything because they're literally an agent on a war table mission esp because the release of elger'nan and ghilan'nain was midway through the concept vs the start.

this makes me more sad than anything, because yes if project joplin was what was released it could of been vastly different than the artbook suggests since that's how game development works, but clearly it shows the capitalism bloodsucking machine that ea is a front for they had pick at the bones of a previous project and scramble to build something out of it rather than be given the time to properly change course into something actually fresh and fitting. it's not commentary on the competency of the devs either because there is only so much you can do, truly.

(and no I do not believe, claim, or otherwise think this drastic of a change happened between marketing -> release, that's stupid lol and also not how game development works)

[opal-owl-flight]

I was working on Agent 4's ref for artfight and got distracted looking at the Sploon2 artbook...