‘Lesbian Space Princess’s’ Straight White Maliens Practice The Art Of The Pickup In An Exclusive Clip Ahead Of The Film’s Halloween Release

We’re a week away from the North American theatrical release of Lesbian Space Princess, the queer-as-hell, handmade sci-fi comedy that redefines what’s possible in independent Australian animation.

The debut feature from Adelaide-based duo Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese, the film made its world premiere at the Berlinale, followed by a months-long string of international festivals that solidified its cult status before it even hit theaters in most territories.

Presented as “an inter-gay-lactic mission to save a bounty-hunter ex-girlfriend from the Straight White Maliens,” Lesbian Space Princess blends absurd humor with the intimacy of a personal diary. But beneath its neon spectacle is a hand-drawn foundation built on ambition, hard work, and a touch of reckless abandon when facing creative barriers.

“I storyboarded the film myself in like a matter of weeks,” Hough Hobbs laughs, speaking with Cartoon Brew ahead of the film’s October release. “No one has any hair in a lot of [the drawings].” Those original sketches, seen below alongside an exclusive clip from one of the film’s Maliens sequences, offer a look at the film’s evolution from simple drawings to a polished indie gem.

“It’s the dumbest thing,” Hough Hobbs says, explaining an inside joke that made her chuckle while developing the project — but also served the film’s larger narrative. “In animation characters tend to have three fingers and one thumb… and so do all of our characters except for Saira, who has four fingers and one thumb because she’s ‘good with her hands.’”

That mix of irreverence and precision defines the film’s production process. “I drew and we made the animatic in Premiere Pro and Photoshop, with Leela voicing all the characters,” Hough Hobbs explains. “Then Jeremy [Kelly-Bakker] would sit down and recreate every single one of them in Maya with blocks, so the background artists could get the proportions correctly.” Each 6K background was hand-finished in Photoshop before being brought into Toon Boom Harmony. “All this work was then composited by Jeremy, then imported into Nuke for some particular shots, then a few others were run through After Effects… and all would go back into DaVinci Resolve for the edit. Then a few more loops, and that’s it.”

With a team of just a half-dozen artists, the filmmakers treated the project as both an experiment and a test of endurance. “We had two full-time animators, two part-time background artists, myself as a lead animator, and then Jeremy as the other lead, and that’s almost the entire team who worked on the film — apart from a few people who casually contributed.”

Despite the workload, Varghese says their priority was protecting that small team. “Fostering an environment that was professional and safe, without taking advantage of anyone who wasn’t part of the core team of the project, was very important to us,” she says. “It did end up creating some sort of utopia… a dreamlike place to work, and a caring team. Like a miniature animation family.”

Hough Hobbs describes the experience as “very much handmade. It was an exhilarating process, but we would never do it the same way again!” Yet the results belie the constraints. Lesbian Space Princess is a visually expressive feature that was produced for under US $600,000, filled with well-crafted musical interludes and queer comedy that feel both anarchic and deeply personal.

The filmmakers are enthusiastic when discussing the larger animation scene in Australia, too. “I think animation has always been so interesting in the independent space,” says Hough Hobbs. “We’re on this momentum where we have more access to tools and resources to make movies on an independent basis.” Both filmmakers credit a growing community of creators, “like Longhead from Millie Holton… Michael Greaney… and Evie [Hilliar],” Varghese adds, whose web shorts and series are “making really exciting projects.”

“It feels like Australia has amazing comedic voices,” Varghese continues, perhaps alluding to popular comedy group Auntie Donna’s voice-over work in LSP. “I see a mesh of animators in Australia joining forces with Australian comedians… that mix is what makes a lot of the animation popping up really exciting.” For Hough Hobbs, that spirit of invention defines their scene: “It’s creator-driven… we are just little studios making what we want to make because we believe that there’s an audience for that.”

There is room for improvement, though. Varghese points out that much of Australia’s animated output is made for audiences abroad rather than at home. “A lot of Australian content is actually specifically made more so for the international market than it’s actually made for Australia itself,” she says. “Because Australian networks… are very risk averse.” Hough Hobbs adds with a laugh, “The only thing Australia wants to make for Australians is reality TV,” she laments.

Circling back to their own body of work, Hough Hobbs says, “The whole ethos behind us working together in animation is that we just want to put lesbians into genre in a light-hearted way.” Varghese adds, “We just want people to have some fun and a good laugh. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, and neither does the film.”

In Lesbian Space Princess, sincerity and satire orbit the same star — proof that, with enough imagination (and a lot of Toon Boom stamina), even the smallest animation team can build a universe.