#shelterasks

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i need to see Withered in a bathcap like this

give that wrinkly stinky man a bath

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Withered why are you so scrimbly

One day his mama put him in the dehydrator,

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"ONLY IF SHE ASKED ME TO"?????? based. also im trying to picture husk attacking kindred with his horns. how. would he have to walk into him backwards?

WHEEZE ok ok HAHAHAHA that’s a good question and I want to answer it too HAHAHA

ok let’s say theoretically husk had a target to attack in this scenario

so like when I was first concepting husks design my first thought was that husk’s antlers pointed forward and curled up, but then I actually started drawing him, and I realized my own ability to draw depth like that was very lacking and these are the benefits of having a 3d model. alas I am not well versed in the art of 3d sculpting

so like the original goal was something like this:

which makes more sense, yea?? but then I tried to draw it from the front

and I think that’s. kind of where things fall apart and I am 90% certain that is entirely my own fault lmao

so I try to draw it more spread out so the silhouette is clearer

but now I have a new problem lmao. because now his horns look like they’re directly pointing out to the sides. which means if I draw him from a side angle it should probably look like this?

because they point directly towards the camera now ?

but instead to continue to make the silhouette clear I drew them like this lmao

Which now means his antlers are pointing BACK, and are like curved around his head?? which makes attacking with them almost. uh. null and void?? impossible?? they’re like fancy cheek guards now lmao

so yea naw chief I don’t think that’s working out for ya.

so now that leaves like….if I assume the horns are actually pointing out to the side and are not curved around his head pointing backwards, then maybe?? side attack??

but. I don’t think. uh. I don’t think having to blindly tilt your entire head to the side in order to mmmmaybe get a hit in would be very effective??? and he’d certainly never spear anyone with them

In the end im pretty sure I’ve accidentally fucked this guy over and any chance he had at some sort of defense haha. I should probably fix that sometime, because that’s,,, definitely a bug and not a feature lmao

But at the end of the day, never forget that he has the most effective tactic of all:

Slapping people with the knives on his ass.

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how'd you get your name, kindred?

they make me ill

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would Kindred wear rings (especially if I made him one)

yasss absolutely darling. if u have something to show the class DO tell

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Dear is beautiful and I fully agree but lets get some appreciation for Kindred too!! What a friendly looking fellow, I trust him

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hey, shelter cats!

I know life in the birch forest is probably very difficult, but know there are cats out there rooting for you. We wish you luck!

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dear is beautiful. Can you tell her that she is beautiful and I love her

I LOVE YOU DEAR!!!! I LOVE YOU GIRL!!!! PRETTIEST GIRL!!!

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Kindred you don't get enough attention😭😭

You look like such a cute and silly guy=33

10/10 would give head pats

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What is Dear's and Kindread's (i can only hope thats how it is written i forgot so fast) relationship? Friends, cat married, something else?

Love their designs!

man I dunno. “companions” is the only word that works for them

I think unless I make things like…really clear, or I spell it out for you guys directly, the majority of the relationships in this comic are going to be weird as fuck and strange and indescribable and,,unbelonging to any sort of definition or creed. And that’s kinda the nature of things when you’re dealing with a group full of violent individuals and cannibals that are all at least a little unnerving and creepy in their own ways all living together and trying to cooperate as a team instead of slaughter each other ! Kindred and Dear share a bond that’s unlike anything else and is extremely unusual and strange in the world they live in. The idea of “making friends” and cooperating with others as a team never occurs to most cats in the woods, the EXTREME vast majority of cats in the woods are very solitary and try to slaughter everyone they meet the second they see them. Kindred’s a weird and freaky fellow for coming up with an alternative, and it’s that freakiness that’s bringing them all together. So the fact that Kindred and Dear are even friends to begin with is kind of legendary.

I don’t think they’re very…romantic? I dunno. Romance isn’t really something that exists in the woods, and if it does, you bet your doggone dollar it’s gonna be gory and weird and strange and very rare. To these cats, you’d have to be a very strange person to see another cat, your own prey, and intentionally choose to keep them around and in your presence for longer than is necessary for a hunt, or for other reasons than just “their suffering brings you pleasure.” They can’t procreate. No one in the forest is capable of bearing a litter or are fertile in any way, so like… these cats don’t really have any reason to go find a mate or start a family. Family isn’t a thing that exists here. No one has any parents or relatives. I don’t think they even have words for it in their language. They might not even have words for “romantic partner,” but we’ll see. Maybe they have words for “those rare kinds of confusing degenerates that play friendly with their prey, but like, for months or years at a time. for some freaky, sadistic, unfathomable reason.” haha.

So like… relationships for them aren’t…really anything like our own idea of what making bonds is like for us. I mean, we have our tiny handful of “boxes” and labels for what we slot all of our relationships into, we have our “family” and “boyfriend/girlfriend/datefriend” and “spouse” and our “friends” and like. Smaller things beyond that, like “acquaintances” and “co-workers” and some queer spaces have “queer platonic partner” as an additional option, which is a little bit less clearly defined of a box than the others, but to me personally, my favorite kinds of relationships to write are ones that exist outside of any and all of those spaces. Ones that are uncertain, yet noticeably intimidate, in ways you can’t quite place. Ones that are hard to slot into any sort of category, where people always ask me, “hey, what label accurately describes these two?” And the answer is honestly none of them lol. And unless I make it clear, I think the majority of the relationships that pop up in Shelter will probably fall under the amorphous “I dunno” category haha. Whatever relationships that do pop up, I want the concept of meat to be a through-line concept for all of them.

Kindred and Dear are close companions. Dear never talks, but Kindred understands everything she says just as perfectly as if they were having a conversation aloud. He may have his own blind spots in communication, but most of the time he’s dead-on accurate with how he understands everything she’s thinking and feeling. They cuddle at night. They never devour one another, and instead, share this strange form of deep loyalty. She’s his bloodhound and best bodyguard. They definitely came up with the idea of the Shelter together. Kindred leads, and Dear follows. They’re not scared of each other and trust each other implicitly. They contrast each other’s personalities. They’re going to eat your children in the dead of night. Whatever it is they are, they’re definitely a duo.

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DEAR, YOU ARE GORGESGUS, GORGUS-? GORJUS=33

My honest reaction to seeing them because gurl is beautiful

!!!!!

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Ok I'm curious what are their sprites? Like in game. Because these two look fantastic and it's always interesting to see how you translate your designs from the normal sprite work.

Thank you! <3 Here’s Kindred and Dear’s sprites:

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Maybe you could give Husk the ability to move his (eye) horns at any angle he wants them to be.

That could solve his inability to properly attack Kindred with his eye horns.

oh my god that’s mortifying. and also hilarious. I will admit that same idea occurred to me later that evening after making the whole “how does husk attack people” reply thang, to have his horns be able to fuckin rotate in his eye sockets, and I thought “pshhh what… no I can’t possibly, that’d be insane……” but. maybe. lmao maybe I should. though with the varying angles i draw his horns at in each comic page panel does kind of imply that he is rotating his horns back and forth constantly in a single conversation and, speaking like a director manning the choreography of what the characters do each panel, that is a weird ass thing to do and mmmmbad. he shouldn’t wiggle and waggle them around like the worlds jitteriest joystick during a conversation that’d be weird as fuck. so maybe that shouldn’t be my excuse. I’m still gonna need his horns to stay mostly still in place throughout a whole conversation, so I’d still have the same problem either way

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i noticed that all the cats in the comic so far dont have typical warriors names (prefix-suffix), including in game. how did you do that?

ah! Super easy, when you go to “change name,” you edit the suffix part to be blank. Some cats though have this little box underneath it that says “remove the cats special suffix” and if I click on that, it’ll turn the suffix box from a locked black square to an editable white square, and then I just erase the suffix to make that box blank and hit save. Uuusually that works but if for whatever reason it’s nnnot letting me do that I’ll usually just put a single space in the suffix box and save that as the “suffix.” It’s a little annoying cuz it makes everything spelled like “kindred ‘s hairs stood on end” and “dear had a conversation with kindred today” and the spelling errors bug me BUT hey if it works it works

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I’m curious, how often does the birch forest produce the “cats”? Are several “cats” produced in a single day or do new ones pop up every few weeks or months?

the children like to plant graves to call forth more of themselves from the ground. the forest makes them in clusters. their instincts to make the cluster graves kick in when they’re in too small of a group or completely alone, they don’t like being alone and without company. kittens like to hunt in larger numbers to make up for smaller size and weaknesses

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genuine question what does mbmbam mean i am uncultured

my brother my brother and me! It’s a comedy podcast ran by Griffin, Travis, and Justin McElroy. If you’ve ever heard of the DnD podcast The Adventure Zone, they’re the same people who made that too +their dad Clint. The title of the blog specifically is referencing a MBMBAM skit where they talked about owning a dog with hands vs owning a cat with a human face and it is hilariously shelter cats core