This animation was made for the annual event Artfight; every July hundreds of thousands of artists trade works of art in a friendly competition on the site for the duration of the month. Every year is a different theme for two opposing teams users can join. Users post original characters to their profiles, and draw others’ as “attacks” to earn points for their team.

For this 2025 Artfight I created this short animation for two characters, made by CozyDeer and Prin-Aylan as their characters inspired me. I imagined Whisper, the character in the hat, in an empty/abandoned snowy landscape. Their character looks for old, abandoned objects to collect and grows an attachment to them. For Snowbud, the small snow creature, I found in search for a character that fit the environment and fulfilled the role I needed as a character for Whisper to interact with.

For the environments I took inspiration from games such as Hollow Knight and Kirby and the Forgotten Land. The music is from Splatoon 3, and I mixed the audio myself as well. I wanted a calm, almost nostalgic feeling— not happy nor sad. I also wanted to insert a bit of humor, as Snowbud’s concept struck a cord with me and my own personal humor.