NebulousHarmony AudioLog Series

nebulousHarmony1 AudioLog

## nebulousHarmony Series

### Keywords

teeth, boiling, nebulous, harmony, NH, neb, nebulousHarmony, dolls, pixels, anti-aliasing

### Summary

JR interviews neb about fek, dolls and peewee.

## Transcript

### 1

(NH) (???) on my own for a while, I--I did not get very far with it but I--I ended up getting a lot of help, so--

### 2

(JR) Hmm, excellent. So--speaking of dollsim--um, you've been doing, like, even before you joined the wrangler team you were really taking point on the doll cleanups. Y'know, looking for stray pixels. So I wanted to hear about any doll parts in particular you found to be interesting, challenging, annoying.

(NH) Oh god, one of my--one of the ones I remember the most--

(JR) Mmhmm.

(NH) --that pai--you remember that pair of wings?

(JR) Oh gosh.

(NH) That was--like, it was miscoloured,--

(JR) Mmhmm.

(NH) --it was partially transparent, it was horribly anti-aliased and I sat there for an hour cleaning up every individual pixel.

(They exchange a little giggle. It is the amusement of artists looking back on their own suffering.)

(JR) I just wanted to meteor it but, no, it was completely worth it when you were done. Like--

(NH) Yes!

(JR) --it was super cool.

(NH) It was pretty.

(JR) But yeah, that was-- (NH, at the same time) But I--I mean--

### 3

(NH) There is another thing that was... This is one of the biggest things I've probably done doll-set wise was take all the horns and make them consistent colours.

(JR) Oh yeah, when we were--when we were--we were colouring them for the lamia doll-set, I remember that.

(NH) Mmmhmm, that's a (???, microphone seems to cut out here)

(JR) Oh, you know what the worst part it? Like, KR's got this thing where eventually all the doll parts are gonna get recoloured but I think KR's planning to binge it sometime, do it themselves. (Sighs) All the doll cleanups.

(NH) That's gonna be a long day. Erm, I might--I might--I might help out if I can.

(JR) Mmhmm.

(NH) I mean that's--that's kinda the reason why I started doing the doll-set stuff. That was...

(JR) Mmhmm.

(NH) Like I--I could do art and that's pretty much what I could do. I could do pixel art pretty well,--

(JR) Mmhmm.

(NH) --so I decided, "hey, I might as well work on this."

(JR) Mmm, I mean--

(NH) Help out this project I've been loving for years.

(JR) During the--the ludum dare you--you definitely helped. Like, it was such a shame that IO's art programme couldn't change colours.

(NH) I know! I was like, "oh jeez, there's a connection here. I don't wanna say it 'cause IO's art is really good but I think their art programme might be screwing over their work."

(JR) Yup. I think it--I think it's fixed though, like the last doll slurp there wasn't a problem, so.

(NH) Yeah.

(JR) Actually, y'know, I remember the last doll slurp--like, the whole point with doll slurps is that can't happen anymore 'cause I stripped the metadata out.

### 4

(JR) Hmm, food for thought. Alright, so, the last thing I wanted to talk about--so we talked about what you--how you got your start; the fek doll-set, we talked about the kinds of things you did when you were a pioneer but now let's talk about your wrangling. You've been instrumental in designing the look and feel of the afterlife and you've prototyped a lot of character designs. So I wanna--I wanna hear what you've got to say about that kinda stuff.

(NH) Afterlife is a lot of fun. Trying to figure out--trying to figure out how characters would respond with emotions, like--

(JR) Mmhmm.

(NH) --y'know how there--y'know--I say that a lot, wow--

(JR laughs)

(NH) --there's the characters--I guess the things on deviantArt, right?

(JR) Mmhmm.

(NH) Where it was like, "oh, this kind of crying, this kind of crying," like how would this character process an emotion.

(JR) Mmhmm.

(NH) 'Cause you gotta figure that out, you gotta know the characters. And designing characters in general has been interesting.

(JR) Mmhmm!

(NH) I--my inner frat boy was--

(JR laughs)

(NH) --that was the only useful thing it's done.

(JR) Ahhh.

(NH shudders away the frat boy threatening to take hold)

(JR) Wakowski.

(NH) (???) keys.

(JR) Speaking of emotion, that was something I actually noticed today--was, y'know, KR's been doing the lamia doll set and I get to see the Prince in doll form and, like--like when it's the Homestuck doll it's just like, "yeah, whatever, it's a Homestuck doll," but this is a slightly different doll-set and I realised--

### 5

(NH) Arms!

(JR) It has arms, yeah. What--what the hell are arms? It's like us and faces--

(NH) (???, I dunno?)

(JR) --what the hell are faces?

(NH) What's a face? I'm not legally allowed to have a face anymore.

(JR) No, I banned them. But the point was, was it was closer to being your design for the Prince in terms of posture, like the folded arms and everything, but because it's a doll-set there wasn't that emotion there and I was like, "huh, you can really tell the difference." Like--like especially like the standard expression for your Prince is just so smug.

(NH) She is so smug. That was the best thing; that was the most smug I'd ever made a character.

(JR chuckles, perhaps smugly) Yes, excellent. Another character that you--you designed I think just from a grub basically was Peewee.

(NH) PeeWee!

(JR cackles in Peeweenese) I know you like Peewee.

(NH) I love Peewee! They're my child! I adopt them.

### 6

(NH) Starting now. I legitimately started calling them Peewee after Manic posted the idea.

(JR) Hmm.

(NH) That--that might be it and I--I was just like, "ah, yes; the file's named Peewee so I'm calling them Peewee."

(JR wheezes to death but gets better in time to listen to NH some more)

(NH) I-I-I don't know how that stuck. I would've thought that KR would've--

(JR) Yeah, I would've thought it but no, Peewee's just their name.

(NH) Peewee six, I guess.

(JR) I mean that's, like, the entire, like, uhh... I just do that all the time with doll-sim. I'm just like, "give me a random thing," and, "ohp, that's--that's their name."

(NH) This is--this is a name now, we've done it, boys.

(JR sighs with happiness over a name well chosen) I guess the last thing I wanted to make sure we talked about is you--because you're--you're out there on the front lines. You're doing the prototypes, you're--

### 7

(NH) So, like, you've gotta, like, erase everything and make sure it doesn't overlap things and it's weird and--

(JR) Mmhmm.

(NH) --then this and I think KR's overhaul ironed out some of these. I've gotta go back and help reflect those.

(JR) Hmm. Well--

(NH) But I think it's actually a fun challenge for the most part.

(JR) Hmm! Well I do think one of the things, like, we're not a Homestuck shop but we're definitely inspired. So we have this element of I dunno, is there a canon image of Peewee?

### 8

(NH) At the moment, I don't really think so.

### 9

(JR) Well, I mean, that's my point. Like, even in Homestuck characters are drawn completely differently from panel to panel.

(NH) Yeah.

(JR) It's just--

(NH) And they're all drawn with the same heights or different heights.

(JR) Mmhmm, or different emo--or different, like--just completely different. I have--I have no other--other thing to say. So that's the end of my prepared questions, is there anything you want to make sure we talked about?

### 10

(NH) Mmm, not in particular actually.

(JR) You mentioned memes. Uhh, do you have a favourite meme from the server?

(NH) Oh god.

(JR cackles at yet another victim put in an uncomfortable position) I put you in the spotlight; ask the tough questions.

(NH exhales in JR's general direction) That's it. That is a tough question. I'm gonna be honest it's a little--it's a little self-centred of me but the fact that everyone kinda knows me for boiling teeth is the funniest thing to me.

(JR, back at it again with that laughter) They--they unders--

(NH) It's like, "ah, yes." I'll look through the doll channel like, "someone's messed this up [REDACTED] (???) oh shit, Neb's gonna be boiling some teeth today."

(JR, who sometimes likes to contemplate destroying the universe, finds the teeth-boiler funny and so laughs at her funny statements) Alright, I'm gonna stop recording.

(NH) I'm not very smart.

### 62

(JR) You're starting conversations, because of that sometimes you get... push-back's not the right word but, for example, at one point lamia had orange candy-coloured horns and now they don't. So how--how's that been affecting you? Having to kinda go back and--and tweak?

(NH) It's not actually that bad. I cau... y'know, as me... y'know, being me, the hater of anti-aliasing, boiler of teeth.

(JR laughs)

(NH) I don't use anti-aliasing with those.

(JR) Hmm.

(NH) So I can go back and change it, at least change colours pretty easily.

(JR) Mmhmm.

(NH) But I think, back when I was told--uh--that I needed more emotions for them I was like "oh, this might be difficult. I have to move entire arm." And that doesn't really work with a 2D thing.

(JR) Mmhmm.

(NH) Like, with 3D stuff you can model stuff... I'm jealous of PL's abilities, I'm gonna...

(JR) Oh yeah.

(NH) I--I--I really wish I could do stuff, like, they can do, it's just incredible.