Friday Lart – Vat and Pew Behind The Scenes

Fridays, we open the Larchives, Lar’s extensive archive of art work oddities, and share a few pieces.

I love creative collaboration. The more creative the collaborator, the more I love it. And they don’t get much more creative than LFG artist Lar DeSouza.

It’s been a thrill seeing how Lar takes the scripts I send him and turns them into beautiful, well-paced comics that land the punchline.

Now that we’re 6-pages into this new story arc, I thought it would be fun to compare the art descriptions I sent Lar to the character models he created.

Vat

Black and purple armored mesh covers Vat’s lithe body. When Vat uncloaks, he reveals a skull in a jar for a head. The skull floats in genetic brine, with medical sensors taped to it. Imagine a cross between Skeletor, Mr. Freeze, and a Bacta tank.

Vat art order

The art:

Lar forwent the medical sensors, opting for a cleaner design. The art order didn’t mention a jaw either way, so Lar dropped the jaw (as he usually does 😙). I think not giving Vat a jaw went a long way in giving him a distinct look from the cited reference, Skeletor.

My favourite part of this art is how toyetic it feels. I’m not just saying that as someone who used to conceptualize LFG merch, but as a fan of action figures who wants a Vat action figure right now, please.

Pew

The drone, PEW, is a 1 meter radius silver and translucent yellow disk with cat ears and a digital cat face, like a cat’s head meets Jay Garrick’s Flash helmet. She’s smooth on top and flat underneath, but mechanical mandibles can deploy from her undercarriage.

Pew’s art order

The art:

Here we see a few angles on Pew, including the mandibles and 1930s pulp sci-fi lasers.

The isometric view in particular delivers what I hoped for from Pew: Depending on how long you look at it, Pew can look anywhere between not cat at all and very cat. My hope is that the first impression most readers had of Pew was not noticing the cat details, but as soon as they noticed one, they started noticing them all one at a time.

Pew HUD Paw

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The art:

Mixed into the reference material Lar shared with me was this image marked Pew HUD Paw. I didn’t include the art order for this piece because I didn’t order it. None of the scripts I sent Lar referenced this. However, I like it.

Sohmer said that some LFG details (including some major plots) came from latching onto a detail or running gag Lar threw into the background. I wonder if this logo that crosses a cat paw with a modern technological aesthetic will work its way into a future LFG plot.