Max Caulfield - Blog Posts
Lis before the storm 🦋🌀
life is strange aesthetic
Very spontaneus Life is Strange cosplays! I made Max (Rachel outfit) from stuff I found in my closet but the bast part - I could actually take some pictures being her with my camera ;) I will post these photosessions soon! Me ( Vanthica ) as Max, Chloe is The Cosplay Engineer ( @aensaevherne here) First photo done by Fifka edited by me rest is done by AG Camera Tales
Recently I was thinking about how the plot of the original Life Is Strange would make for a PERFECT Columbo episode, and so I drew this. In this scenario, I imagine Columbo would've already cracked the case by the time the game's story begins- so Nathan is arrested before he can even confront Chloe in the bathroom, she never gets shot, Max never gets her powers, and the storm never happens because Jefferson and the Prescotts were already brought to justice for Rachel's murder. (Columbo never dealt with the supernatural after all, and it's still an interesting story even without powers being part of it). It's still a somewhat bittersweet ending as Rachel is still dead, but nobody else has to die, Max is never traumatized by her powers, and her and Chloe rekindle their relationship without having to destroy an entire town to be together.
My best friend wrote the dialogue for this one, and funnily enough it's based on what happened when I played the game for the first time- I immediately noticed what Jefferson was saying about capturing someone in a dark corner, thinking that was weirdly specific dialogue to cold the game with unless it was foreshadowing for later. And then of course you go out into the corridor, there are all the "MISSING" posters for Rachel and you can hear students gossiping about how she was in a relationship with a teacher. By the time you see her note in the junkyard in Chapter 2 I was 100% certain it was Jefferson... apparently for a lot of people it was a real twist though.
AVGN reviews Life Is Strange
Not super satisfied. Might be in a creative low. Been a lot to adjust to my new job. Might find my voice not too far off in the future again.
But I shared a vote and like everyone got a vote each so guess I just made them in the order I saw the comments.
Idk, in my head, I think I pictured this a little bit more colorful but when it came to coloring and shading, I didn’t really know where I was going with it and just tried to save myself. Just forgot for a minute how I used to add light so that was a journey.
But yeah… something about being somebody’s light in the dark. Go and try that. And I will try not to drop the apples all over the floor today.
I work in a grocery store now. Yay.
Happy 10th Birthday LIFE IS STRANGE!
And also breaking my Only-repeat every third-rule
And thanks for the Butterfly-idea for the anniversary!
And yet another Saturday-upload that was planned as a Friday. And the one thing this week that was planned for a set deadline and didn’t actually meet it.
But last year I did a random Winter-Max-thing and I thought it was fun how much I got right with the release of Double Exposure. That green jacket (even if a lot less detailed, I had just discovered my interest in fashion), those yellow-ish gloves, the overall winter-theme and cosy forest.
Not the scarf tho, and she apparently still kept the sweatshirt… which she only uses under the jacket… so a LOT of layers to keep herself warm. I did plan to make the hat yellow as well to match the glow but thought it would be fun for her to just borrow Chloe’s blue one.
But yeah, just me once again wondering how I became a gardener and not a professional… concept artist? Brainstormer? Coffeemaker? Chair? IF I HAD A COIN for every random thing I find myself predicting to my interests, I could buy myself a singular chocolate bar.
So! Finished Double Exposure!
Well, I liked it. I really enjoyed it! It was super fun to play as Max again and I plan to play again and hunt for all achievements.
But damn, I don’t want to sit and complain and make it out that I hate this and “they ruined Max” “they ruined Life is Strange” but it felt like too little, too late.
I had such an emotional journey playing the first game and well, I was heartbroken afterwards. Cause well, the first game is about Max reconnecting with her childhood friend as they investigate together. And you get to learn Chloe alongside Max as they spend time together. Stuff like, hanging out in her room, break into the school and mess around in the junkyard. So when the final decision arrives, it becomes more personal and feels emotional and intentional that you have to choose between two awful options for this town you have come to know or the girl you come to know.
And after that, I needed closure, which I found throughout the comics. Double Exposure could have been that… if it came out sooner.
Double Exposure feels smaller. You spend all the time at any of the buildings around Campus and you get to know Safi in the same chapter that she dies. The rest of the game is more of a detective story on how she will actually die but when that moment comes, I know more about her and the context, but I don’t actually feel that much closer to her cause an amount of that time between, you never get to meet her and when you do, she’s pissed at you.
I wasn’t as invested in Max’s, Safi’s and Maya’s story. I didn’t get to spend time with Safi until they worked together to expose Lucas which wasn’t satisfying as it was for… a handful of students. "No, my career is over!" Is it tho...?
The stories felt similar in yeah, you help Safi get revenge for Maya the same way as Chloe and Rachel but it felt that Rachel’s disappearance had more of an effect. You learned what she meant to Chloe an you saw her reaction to finding the body as well as Max going through the same torture. Here it felt more like, you’re told what happened to Maya, you kind of saw how people felt but it was so long before Max arrived so they have calmed down about it and I never got dragged into the emotional pull of it.
Well, you understand it was wrong, Lucas stole her work and got famous and she ended herself which is really dark, mature and grounded but when the story wraps up, the end-result ends up being of something that happened without you around so it just felt like Max was an outsider all the time solving other people’s problems.
Max was an outsider in the first one as well but she was closer in the sense as Rachel became this replacement for her and she learns how her appsense hurt Chloe and she works to make up for that lost time during the game. She’s an outsider to everyone except Chloe, where she instead got pushed out of her life and slowly tries to get back in and I was curious on how the relationship would change once they found Rachel.
It didn’t feel Max had anything to lose in this story. She was at the right place at the right time and the right skills to fix it. She also had the maturity of a 28-year old instead of an 18-year old so the climax wasn’t the same emotional rollercoaster. She met her friends, she discovered how to help and crossed them off her to-do-list.
It was fun, I will play it again, I will draw it alot and curious on Max’s next adventure but my opinion in the end can, once again, get summarised in “too little, too late”
Another thing I have wanting to do for ages and finally got the time was to redraw this a little bit.
Max’s and Chloe’s pose felt awkward and poorly drawn and didn’t match the vibe of the game I realised so kind tried to just draw them hanging out. Less action-game, more life-game.
Not that this is 10/10, there’s a giant gap in the picture but a step in the right direction
Needed a short break from the Marvel-diorama, so here’s some Chloe and Max!
Wow! Couldn't be further away!
This game doesn't come out til Oct and I already have ideas!
So, last year I drew characters on the spectrum in coordination with me telling stories how aspects of my diagnosis have affected me in periods of my life. But I just have so many meaningful stories so this year’s Autism Awareness Month, I will talk more about the characters themselves and the parts of their characteristics that I enjoy. So starting is Max Caulfield from Life is Strange, who I fell in love with from scene one. From her awkward posture to the need to put on music walking from the classroom to the bathroom, she was just a character I enjoyed in another light than literally any character I ever came across before. (Other than you, Newt. You will always be my nr. 1) As well as her interest in photography and classes matching my own interest in the subject and the history of art and so on, born from the need to capture the moment as my senses are usually just so overstimulated 24/7 leading to majority of memories either getting messy or just overwritten completely by newer memories, she really became a comfort character. So because I fell for Max so early on in the story, I felt it was fitting for her to represent the overstimulation of sound and the rest of the senses. I wanted the background to be crowded but you see glimpses of an empty hallway throughout the lyrics of the song that’s tuning it out, but the text ended up so small so it’s not as clear as I had hoped.
First thing I drew after being back from Comic Con and listening to so many great and funny artists. Had a lot of back and forth after that if I wanted to do this after hearing them speak about pin-ups and professional work and “the craft to tell a story in a single image” and this had very much no real thought or value other than playing with settings and showcasing my own growth.
An update on my very first Max way back to early 2022. I love how it’s almost an updated version but also very much it’s own pin-up as well.
Can’t grasp that tomorrow will be a whole year since I first bought the game. Want to replay it but it feels too soon. No clue if I would make anything different.
Bittersweetness
Last planned Life is Strange for a while Fitting it would be the ending I went into it with not liking Chloe that much and ended actually having a difficult time with who to sacrifice (or whom? is this a "whom"-moment? We never mentioned whom in english class)
Eclipse-gazing
Introducing… a new eye color! A slightly toned down blue! I like it.
And also… team Chloe or team Warren?
"Max, it's time"
Oops, forgot to post this yesterday
’cold showers are actually much better for you’ I don’t care if they gave me the power to manipulate time. you can pry scorching hot showers out of my dead hands. and even if I got time manipulation powers I would just use them to take more hot showers. btw