GM Notes: Glitter Hearts (ft. bonus art)

Hey pals, Jillian here.

To design this magical girl episode, I found Sailor Moon R: The Movie online and ripped off its dramatic structure. It was a crisp 60 minute film so I thought it was perfect. It started with a minion battle, then the gang traveled to a second location for the boss fight, so that’s what our Montreal gals did with the snowmen and then Blanche!

I’ve never personally been to Carnaval. I grew up in Ottawa, Canada which hosts Winterlude every year and I imagine they’re pretty similar. I have never liked Bonhomme Carnaval though, but I thought it might be offensive to make him a villain and opted for the snowmen instead. I had a lot of fun designing the snowman fight, but I really struggled coming up with a cartoon villain’s motivation. I knew the villain wanted to attack Carnaval, so I tried working backwards from there. What about Carnaval was worth destroying? Also this episode has some niche Ontario jokes I think so check out the episode transcript if you want annotated versions of the jokes.

I have been to Montreal several times, so it was fun to set this episode against a familiar backdrop and flex my French. Ottawa being on the Quebec border and being a government town means it’s very bilingual and I grew up in French immersion schools. The rest of the cast had a mix of experiences with French in school but I appreciate that everyone tried to sprinkle in some words here and there. Also doing a Quebecois accent is really hard! It’s a lot easier to do a stereotypical Parisian accent than to nail Canadian French. Blanche kind of turned into Widowmaker from Overwatch but hey, she’s worldly!

I think it’s fair to say that the five of us have watched a significant amount of anime in our lives, so the vibe of this game was very easy to achieve because we’re all weebs. I thought Jesse really nailed the annoying spirit guardian trope, voice and all. The players all really aced the dialogue honestly. And the best part is, if someone was stuck on what to say, the group Did It Together!!! Anyway I love the power of friendship and this episode is a joy.

Okay art time! Here is the process art from this episode. I followed a tutorial to get the lineart of Vixen then handed it over to Eli for colour. Then I asked her for a snowglobe and the rest is history xo

[Image descriptions: The first image is an inked sketch of a fox-like creature that looks like an anime fox or Pokemon or Neopet. It has a large bow tied behind its head. The second image is the fox coloured in pink and white with a purple bow, surrounded by sparkles. The name Vixen is vertically written in a little box in the bottom left corner. The third image is the fox in front of a snow globe labelled Montreal that has a silhouetted skyline inside. A soft sparkly title says "Glitterhearts" above.]