The Making of It Takes Two to Tangle (Sketches)
The very first sketch I did having to do with this game. As I recall, I drew it on a piece of lined paper in history class around 1999.
That color isn't due to an issue with my scanner -- the paper got seriously yellow over time.
An early sketch of Cassima, Edgar, and the title.
Various Cassima and Edgar sketches, including Edgar interacting with Cassima as a panther.
Rough sketches of Cassima and Edgar (c. 1999).
Sketches of Cassima and Edgar.
Various Cassima and Edgar sketches.
More 1999 Cassima and Edgar sketches, including one of Cassima showing her ring to a griffin (the first of many that make an appearance in this game's sketches).
1999 sketch of Cassima and Edgar in various scenarios: Cassima falling from a high cliff and either getting caught by Edgar or changing into a raven, Cassima using her pendant to signal Edgar from far away, and Edgar using his skyship.
A 1999 sketch of Alexander, wearing what would eventually become the outfit he wears during the game's finale.
Alex and Edgar (1999).
Cassima and Alexander. I drew Cassima's dress from memory, and as you can see, my memory wasn't that good.
More sketches from 1999. This early on, I was mostly whipping up random sketches of Cassima and Edgar in various scenarios and seeing if I could incorporate them into the game somehow.
Just Edgar.
A sketch of Rosella, Edgar, Cassima, Alexander and Graham (with another sketch of Cassima relaxing).
An early flowchart of the first couple chapters of the game, including some elements that were removed early on (like Cassima flying to Mordack's island).
Just Cassima.
Sketches of Cassima, Alex, young Valanice and an unrelated cheetah from December 1999.
A sketch of a hypothetical piece of "cover art", as well as other sketches of the main characters. The sketch of Cassima spying on the agent of Shadrack conversing with a demonic creature in Tamir's graveyard as a panther eventually evolved into her sneaking into the fisherman's cabin to eavesdrop on their conversation as a lizard (of course, the entire Tamir section ended up getting removed sometime later).
Sketches of Cassima, as well as her animal forms.
More random sketches, with some random unrelated sketches here and there. The black cat rubbing Cassima is Manannan (back when Cassima was going to visit Mordack's island, to find that Manannan is still there, but has been a cat for so long that he has forgotten his past as a human).
Cassima in various scenarios.
Sketches of Cassima, Edgar and the pendants. There's a sketch of Edgar getting surprised by the unicorn in Tamir, and some of Cassima's animal forms are at the bottom of the page (this is the first and only appearance of her as a monkey).
Sketches of Cassima and Edgar, with some unrelated thumbnails in the bottom left corner.
More sketches of Cassima and Edgar, along with some notes on some hypothetical Space Quest sequels which eventually found their way into Space Quest: The Time Machination.
Edgar with Cassima as a raven and a wolf.
Sketches of Cassima, plus some notes about Bluebeard's castle (some of which got scribbled over by some unrelated notes), and a random Roger Wilco. The snake was originally going to be in a box.
Sketches of a griffin, with one drawing of Cassima riding it, which eventually evolved into the sequence where Cassima escapes from Bluebeard's castle.
Sketches from Y2K, including Cassima being bothered by Icarus (who was unnamed at this point) and Edgar duelling with Acilino. Their fight originally contained more slapstick elements, as you can see by the sketch in th upper right corner, where Edgar jams his staff into a mechanism in the ground to act as a lever which launches a stone battering ram behind Acilino.
A rough sketch of Dark Etheria (upper left), a rough sketch of what I think is fanart of The Incredible Adventures of Jack Flanders (upper right), Cassima, Edgar, and some Harry Potter fanart.
Cassima and Alex holding hands.
Probably the first sketch of Cassima with her alternate outfit colored in.
Various sketches of Edgar and Cassima.
More shenanigans with Edgar and Cassima in her various animal forms, plus some math notes.
A sketch of Cassima in her alternate outfit and threatening Edgar with her dagger.
Cassima as various animals, plus Edgar (the first frame of an animation of him nodding his head).
The unfinished frames of an early animation of Cassima opening the forbidden door, then slamming it shut.
Cassima and Alexander holding hands (with Cassima in her new clothes).
A griffin which may or may not be the one Cassima encounters in the game, and Edgar and Acilino fighting.
Early sketches of the GUI, plus a colored pencil Slizard sketch (I'd just read Kingdom of Sorrow).
Cassima as a lizard and a panther.
Profile short of Cassima and Edgar (possibly meant to be implemented in what became the "Choose your path" screen), and a very simplistic, unfinished sketch of what is probably the mountain village.
A Y2K sketch of a proto-Aubrey, as well as as young woman. I think he originally started out as a background character in Aeolus.
Sketches of the Crystal Dragon. I don't remember who the dress was designed for.
Mostly Isle of Wonder flora.
Edgar meeting himself (c. 2000).
Cassima, Edgar and Rosella, plus some rough thumbnails of Serenia and a sketch of Acilino's island
Sketches of Cassima as a wolf and a lizard, Edgar, and a bunch of random characters, including a Winged One with black wings, a dragonlike creature (which I think was going to be crawling up a bookshelf in the Aeolus library), Scrimshaw, the physician, Aubrey, and the same young woman from the scan containing the previous sketch of him. The creature with the book in the lower right corner was originally going to be in the library using a trinket as a book rest (which Edgar has to get from him).
Cassima and Cedric.
An idea for a puzzle that never made it much further than this note. I'm not even sure if I knew where it could be implemented -- maybe the physician's storeroom.
The first appearance of Scrimshaw's name, more sketches of him, plus a quote from Dreams of the Amazon that I thought was so funny that I had to write it down.
An early outline of the game. It still has 9 chapters, and Scrimshaw's name is still spelled with a "K".
Edgar with different clothing and hairstyles, plus Cassima and Aubrey.
Sketches of Cassima, Edgar and Rosella. I toyed with the idea with giving Rosella long pigtails since she changes hairstyles in nearly every game she appears in (long braids for her peasant disguise in KQ4, smaller braids in her hi-resolution portait in KQ6, then bangs in KQ7), and I thought I'd continue the trend. However, I dropped this idea pretty early on.
An early sketch of the game's timeline.
Various maps and thumbnail sketches of various locations, plus a sketch of Stellar (from Space Quest 6).
Another sketch of Cassima and Alex holding hands.
Cassima and Edgar at the Edge of the World, Ashni, Edgar on the floor after losing his sight, and holding his quarterstaff.
Sketches of various locations (including the Tamir section), and an early version of Edgar's half of the intro where he starts out alone in one of Etheria's gardens and goes to get advice from the kangaroo rat in the desert. The genesis of the trinket puzzle is also mentioned here.
Edgar and Rosella.
More sketches of Cassima and her various animal forms.
The fairy merchant and Ashni. The upside of creating sketches on scrap paper from your high school's computer lab is that sometimes the discarded printouts come with dates on them, so it doesn't matter if you forget to put dates on your drawings.
Sketches of the fairy merchant from 2001.
Sketches of Cassiaa and Edgar walking (plus Xandra in the top left corner -- some of you may remember her).
Cassima walking, plus some notes related to the rune puzzle on the Isle of the Mists.
A detailed sketch of Shappa talking to Edgar.
A detailed sketch of Cassima's armlet.
Sketches of Cassima, Edgar and Suhad from ~2002. A few of the inked-in sketches were used to create the first versions of some of the game's walk cycles.
Sketches of Aubrey's ship and members of his crew (before I decided to remove them). There's also some drawings of trees that I used as 2D props in some early 3D renders, as I wasn't that proficient in digital art at the time and had trouble creating 3D trees to my liking.
Scrimshaw and the merchant's other animals. I'm not sure if the unicorn is part of the concept art or not.
Sketches of the first islands in Etheria Edgar encounters (along with some tangentially related fanart sketches).
Sketches of the island where Edgar meets Oppi and Tercel (unnamed at this point). Originally, Edgar was going to reach another island using a catapult. There's also a bit of Lion King fanart and a sketch for my WSSQUID Contd. comic.
Sketches of Aubrey, Ashni, Cassima as a lizard, and the same young woman that has appeared a couple of times by now. I'm not sure what plans I had for her at the time, but she might have been reworked into the deaf man's translator.
Cassima and Edgar about to connect their pendants.
A rough storyboard of the outro, which remained mostly unchanged since its first iteration. Originally, the ending would be slightly different depending on if Shadrack was defeated or not, but I figured that this made no sense, given what a powerful being Shadrack is.
Sketches of the Bountiful Woods and the Realm of the Dead (the girl ghost was originally a boy at one point).
2002 sketches of Lord Azure, Lady Aeriel and Princess Celete (Cassima was originally going to visit them before meeting the Oracle), and Samhain (Cassima was originally going to meet him, and travel to Serenia afterwards). I decided that both of these visits were unnecessary, so they weren't included in the game.
Sketches of the physician's storeroom and the dream of Alexander that Cassima has in the Impossible Mountains (back when the Tamir section was still in the game).
This is the only thumbnail of the section of the game after Cassima wakes up after her dream.
Originally, Edgar visited the oasis at night and left it on foot, then once he reaches the base of the mountains, he uses his skyship to ascend them and sleeps in a small clearing. There, he has a dream of Rosella (who is still in Etheria in this version of the story).
Sketches of Scrimshaw and Cassima as a goat.
Sketches of the griffin and various characters found at the oasis. The man in the lower right corner was the shopkeeper of a textile shop, and the woman above him was another of Shadrack's disguises, which Cassima originally had to escape from.
Sketches of the mountain village. Lots of minor changes happened to this area: the Wiseman originally wasn't sick, the shepherd was removed from the game, and the herbs in his hut were moved into the Weaver's hut. The Potter and his wife and child were also moved outside their hut.
Sketches of what turned out to be the final version of Cassima's half of the intro, the Wiseman, and a bit of Lion King fanart in the upper left corner.
Concept art of the Isle of the Sacred Mountain.
Concept art of Llewdor, plus Cassima as a goat.
Cassima as a wolf, and Aubrey. His outfit appeared like this for some time until I realized he really should be wearing something more in the vaguely Greco-Roman style that the other Etherian inhabitants seem inclined towards.
Augustus, the ferret that Cassima meets in Tamir.
Rough sketches of Kolyma, plus an unrelated leopard in the second picture. Edgar was originally going to find a fountain at the top of the cliffs with a mosaic of a stylised pather at the bottom (which is how he learns the word that changes Cassima into a panther (at the time, Cassima had to say the Latin name of the animal she wanted to transform rather than just saying "Therios"). Cassima gets injured as Edgar is filling a bowl at the fountain, causing him to drop the bowl and break it. He then uses a chip of pottery to collect the sap.
Cassima and another version of the timeline.
Sketches of the Isle of Insight (called Nuha at the time these sketches were made).
Sketches of Ashni's parents, Shadrack, and Cassima as a sea lion.
An amusing little concept where Edgar wakes up with a cowlick after his nightmare.
A sketch of Shadrack, plus art that I planned to use in the game before I gave it a complete overhaul.
Sketches of the sorcerer and his treehouse.
Concept art of Etheria, some early chapter titles and an early version of the sorcerer's trinket circle.
Art of the "rescue party" when we first see them in Daventry. I don't really have an excuse for why I removed Caliphim and Allaria from this group.
Rough sketches of Edgar's fight with Acilino, which used to be much more cinematic, with several different camera angles.
Edgar and Acilino.
Edgar during his fight with Acilino (Acilino was initially going to rip Edgar's cloak off with his staff when he charged towards the pit).
Early versions of the chapter names.
Several character names I was coming up with for the wizards Crispin had letters from.
Various character sketches, including early versions of Aubrey and Ashni's wedding clothing, art of a cut section where Cassima meets a group of griffins in Dark Etheria, and what I think is an older version of Xandra in the upper left corner of the third image.
Thumbnail sketches of Ashni's castle, as well as more detailed sketches of Edgar and Cassima.
Alexander and Rosella.
The cutscene with Valanice and Rosella was going to take place at a swing from Rosella's childhood. This was replaced by the pond that appears in the KQ7 intro because it fit so much better with what the two are talking about (plus, it was much simpler to animate).
Originally, Edgar was going to visit the Isle of the Mists, where he would disguise himself as a druid and gain access into some of their houses before solving a riddle presented to him by the Arch-Druid involving matching runes to objects marked by them around the island. One of the druids he meets is a woman named Orla (shown in this drawing).
Cassima, Suhad and Beatrice Wankmeister.
Early in the game's development, Cassima's half of the intro was very different, as Alexander gives her the pendant and watches her disappear in the throne room in broad daylight. The inked sketch of Cassima is her right before she vanishes. The rest of the page is animal inhabitants of the Isle of Insight (except for the cow, which was definitely going to be on the Isle of the Mists).
An updated version of the game's timeline, written on the back of a receipt (2006).
Initially, Ashni's castle only had a bare plain surrounding it. I eventually decided that it would look a lot more convincing if there was a forest surrounding it (and Edgar didn't just get dropped where the castle is in plain sight). This mess is the only concept art I made of the woods.
Rough storyboard for Edgar's dream about Rosella (2009).
I was considering making Augustus into a European polecat before the Tamir section was removed.
When Cassima and Edgar originally met at the Edgar of the World, Edgar had to conjure up a ball of light to help them see where they were going.
A sketch of Aubrey and his father.
One sequence that was cut from the game took place on the islands off the coast of Serenia, which Cassima visits as a raven. She discovers a journal on one of the islands and uses clues from it to figure out how to open a portal to her next destination by placing something from creatures of the earth, the wayer, and the air in the hollows in the three tiny islands: an extra bit of wool left over from the wool she gives to the Weaver (earth), a seashell from one of the islands (water), and one of her feathers (air).
This portal teleports her to a similar landmark off the coast of Tamir, on the other side of the world. She was originally going to get to Tamir by an unexplained magical force teleporting her there when she's flown a certain distance from Serenia (a subtle nod to the "looping" nature of the first four KQ games, where you'll eventually wind up on the opposite side of the world if you keep moving in one direction).
Even though these islands don't make an appearance in the game, the 3D rocky cliff model originally used in their design got recycled as some of the cliffs surrounding the oasis.
The Journal:
Day 1:
I don't know what possessed me to take part in this voyage. The captain seemed like an ordinary fellow at first, but since we've been at sea, he has revealed a startlingly strange side of himself. When he first hired us, he claimed that he was on a quest to a distant island so entrenched in obscurity that its very name has become lost in the mists of time. It seemed like a risky venture to me, but with all the money that was offered to me, I found it difficult to refuse.
This man is mad, I'm certain of it. He's started talking about some magic portal built by the ancients that has the power to relocate whoever or whatever steps through it to the other side of the world. That "lost island" story was just something to lure us to his mission, and now that we know the truth, there's nothing we can do. I've been trying to think of something that we could do to get out of this madcap excursion, but no ideas will come into my mind. All I can do for now is write in this journal and hope that one of the other three crewmen comes up with a plan.
Day 2:
Nothing but ocean and rocky islands today. The captain told each of us that he would deal with traitors very harshly, so we should put any thoughts of mutiny out of our minds - that is if we had any such thoughts. At the time, it seemed like just what a man in his shoes would say, given the circumstances, but then the cabin boy asked me whether I thought the captain was somehow hearing our thoughts with the aid of magic.
I scoffed at the idea at first, but afterwards I began to worry. Is this captain some kind of rogue sorcerer, and is this portal of his really what he is seeking?
Day 3:
The crewmen and I got together in secret to discuss what we should do about the captain. We eventually decided that the safest plan would be to have one of us pretend to be genuinely interested in the captain's mission and learn more about his ultimate goal. I don't know whether this knowledge may help us or not, but when we drew straws, my foul luck left me with the shortest one. I hope my luck takes a turn for the better when I talk with the captain tomorrow.
Day 4:
My conversation with the captain was hours ago, and my head is still spinning from what he told me. Such bizarre ideas, such wild stories…I could barely believe them at first, but the captain spoke of them with such conviction in his voice that I found it harder and harder to feel skeptical towards them.
He said that the portal he spoke of on our first day at sea is constructed of three tiny islands that form a small triangle in the sea. This triangle is at the westernmost edge of the vast network of islands off the coast of Serenia, only a few leagues away from the fabled Edge of the World. Each of the rocky islands forming the triangle has a recess set in it and a symbol carved into its side.
According to the captain, these symbols represent Earth, Air and Water, and something from a creature native to these three elements must be placed in each appropriate recess in order to activate the portal. I asked the captain what he was planning to place in each recess, but he refused to speak on that matter - perhaps he was fearful that I and the crew might be planning to find and destroy these items, thus making his mission all for naught and forcing him to turn back.
There are only four of us, and the captain is a massive man who looks like he could handle himself just fine in the event of a mutiny.
Sketches of the physician's customers, plus some concept art I did for Chris Ushko's amazing SQ fangame, Space Quest: Incinerations.
I thought it would be interesting if Edgar found and slept inside an ancient temple in the Impossible Mountains instead of just sleeping in a rocky clearing. I tried to make it similar to the crypt in Tamir. There's also some sketches showing him getting startled awake by Cassima contacting him, some notes about other parts of the game, plus sketches of some characters' clothing.
The look of Cassima's transforming animations was something I grappled with for a really long time. Here's some concept I came up with during the 2000s.
Sketches of various elements of what became the final version of Edgar's half of the intro, plus some GUI sketches in the lower left corner of the first scan.
A revamped sketch of the icon bar, plus my first sketch of Derek (as well as some Adventure: All in the Game sketches).
An early sketch of the Choose Your Path screen.
A sketch of Aubrey's ring.
Sketches of the Aqulia and Serenia, some notes on a drawing transfer technique I learned about in an art class and sketches of a sequence where Cassima encounters a troll on the path into the Impossible Mountains in Tamir and has to change into a goat to butt it out of the way.
Rough sketches of Nathan and Sylvia, a screen from the Impossible Mountains, and a plan for the Daventry scene. This is also the point where I started calling Cassima's armlet an armlet instead of a bracelet, since that name seemed more accurate.
Rough sketches of the Serenian mountains, plus the crest that appears on the splash screen and some Icarus redesigns.
Some scribbles having to do with various changes made to the game's story, as well as roughs of the Isle of the Sacred Mountain.
Mostly sketches of the Isle of Wonder, as well as anote about a change to Cassima's new outfit.
Faces of all the original male characters in the game (probably done just for practice) and Cassima's bark boat.
Another version of the Kolyma clifftop scene. Here, Edgar finds a trinket in a tiny cave nest to the main one and Cassima gets bitten by a serpent in a hole at the base of a tree.
Miscellaneous 2010s concept art.
The redesigned oasis, plus sketches of Derek's box and Bluebeard's castle (2013).
Another full page of concept art, along with several unrelated sketches (including concept art of Sledge Rockfist from the Thalia James trilogy).
Miscellaneous art and notes (as well as some concept material for Adventure: All in the Game).
The screen with the bat in Ooga Booga was a very late addition. Also in this scan is a redesign of the merchant, with clothing that accommodates his wings much more convincingly.
Sketches of Alexander and Cassima's wedding attire, sketches of the physician's outfit, and notes from Adventure: All in the Game.
Miscellaneous concept art, including the device that Alexander was originally going to use to reach Cassima, the physician's device, and a note in the lower right corner mentioning that the name of Shadrack's agent that appears at the oasis is a sloppy cypher of "Shadrack". There's also a sketch of Una from Area 50.5 and an unfinished drawing of the various finch species of the Galapagos Islands.
Sketches of mostly Ashni's castle and Etheria. There's also a sketch of Rosella's ring, which didn't serve much purpose, as the ring ended up being too small in the final game to add any of the details seen in the sketch.
A sculpture of Edgar's head made of modelling clay, which I made in the hopes of helping me draw his hair style. I never was able to figure out exactly it was supposed to look from the various art and animations in KQ7, so I tried my best to create an approximation of it.
Sketches of Edgar's half of the intro, Aubrey's new outfit and another version of Suhad.
A storyboard of Cassima's half of the intro, plus a map of the maze for reference purposes).
Sketches of the Edge of the World (it was still part of the game at this point), a study of one of the villagers in the mountains, and Shadrack's outfit.
Sketches of the layout of the Etherian islands.
Roughs of the last few scenes of the outro.
Rough sketches of a knight of Daventry and a knight of Etheria (January 2019).
Sketches of Edgar and Rosella's wedding outfits, plus Etheria's banner (January 2019).
Wedding outfits for Titania, Oberon, Aubrey and Emma (February 2019).
A sketch of Icebella's castle.
A 2020 sketch of the waterfall in the Serenian mountains, plus Graham's wedding attire.
This stack of sketchbooks, notepads and paper includes most of (but not all) of the physical media that went into the making of It Takes Two to Tangle.
Though not all the sketchbooks are entirely full of art for the game, they still contain a significant amount.
Also included in the shot is the computer desk my dad made me about 15 years ago.
I picked out these drawer pulls for it in the hopes that constantly seeing that familiar shape would motivate me to eventually motivate me into finishing the game.
