Cucumber Quest is one of my favourite webcomics so this post is gonna be fun!!! And because I love it so much, I wanted to give myself some extra time to write the post. I still don't feel 100% satisfied with it, but like, whatever. Sorry.
I'm going to try something different, where instead of reuploading the pictures, I just link to the site and the pages that I need.
Cucumber Quest is a webcomic by Gigi D.G. about a kid named Cucumber and his sister Almond. They need to defeat seven "disaster masters" and the Nightmare Knight himself, who has taken over the castle in the Donut Kingdom. Almond and Cucumber are joined by Princess Nautilus and Sir Carrot for their journey.
It's not that simple, but you get the gist, I hope?
Anywho, if it sounds like a video game plot, then I'm not surprised. CQ seems to take heavy influence from video games. Check out the character portraits page with its stats and the like. Come on.
And, while it's not exceedingly obvious just glancing at it, the art style seems to take influence from video games as well.
Cucumber Quest uses a lineless simplistic art style with strong colours.
Strong colours are important because lineless art absolutely needs that. If you don't have good colours in lineless art, then it doesn't work and there's no distinction between anything. If you have lines then you can lean on them if your values aren't clear, but with lineless? Distinct and good colours are a necessity.
Cucumber Quest uses flats and some subtle gradients, though mostly flats. This also means it uses lots of cell shading. Using flats is another reason it needs good colours because they're untextured and there are only so many colours can go in a palette.
The colour schemes can vary depending on what's appropriate for the situation and area. Almost every room/place has a distinct colour palette that helps accentuate the mood of the scene. Kind of like how worlds in video games also tend to have their own associated colours.
Here are some examples.
Some artists (read: me) get scared to change the colours of characters too dramatically, but not this one. Gigi is not afraid to have skin or hair become grey or blue or red or whatever in different lighting.
Having such strong colours also lets interjections stand out better. Let me explain.
Sometimes, panels focused on a character's reaction have different colour schemes compared to the rest of the page, which lets them stand out better and draw more attention / intensify the feelings. It's a very nice way of drawing attention to their reactions and intensifying their feelings.
Cucumber Quest doesn't actually have very complex backgrounds for every panel. You'd think I'd notice that, but I really didn't?? Instead, there are usually establishing shots and then the rest focuses on the character or dialogue. Backgrounds are usually simplistic gradients with vague shapes for these close-ups. Example. Though it's evident in some of the other pages I linked to as well. Doing this helps draw focus to the characters instead of a distracting background and saves time for the artist.
In terms of stylization, it's kinda anime-esque but has rounder shapes. It also has more simplistic limbs, sort of like a cartoon. And that works! They're cartoony and cute, but human enough for their actions to feel real. On top of that, all the characters have bunny ears instead of human ears, which is adorable. They used to have bunny noses too, but they slowly transitioned out of that.
The characters have interesting outfits as well.
For example, Princess Parfait's outfit is like food. The arm poof things are strawberries, and the collar and crown are whipped cream.
Creative, right?
Anyways! In conclusion, Cucumber Quest is a pretty webcomic! It has a unique and simplistic style whose colours strongly affect the emotions behind scenes. The art also has a soft crayon texture and the letters are hand done, which makes it feel more organic. I love Cucumber Quest's visual style. Please read this webcomic.
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