Character Creation
To start creating my characters I began with referring to my earlier research and looked at the photos I had gathered on my Pinterest board. I didn’t want to directly copy any of the images I had seen on my board for my characters and wanted to just draw from the style I was going for. I decided earlier on that I wanted one of my characters to be an elf so I decided that the first character I drew would fit this description. I started by just sketching the character, giving her the pointed ears and long hair with a cape to really visualise the character I wanted her to be. I created the 3 sketches below showing the character from different angles and from close up so that I could really play with the style and see how I wanted her to look. I decided that the style that I was drawing in would have quite simplistic faces and not lean into realism and instead go for a more cartoony look. I think this was actually really effective and makes the character look really cute, I like her design a lot. As the characters in my story won’t be named as I want the whole story to have an heir of mystery I will be referring to this character as character A. She will have brown hair and dark eyes and I imaging she will wear a red dress with a deep blue cape. Blue will be her accent colour as I think these rich royal tones will work really well together.
Character B in comparison will be a human character. I imagine her to be almost an opposite of the first character and have orange toned hair and a deeper skin tone than character A. Having the characters look distinct from each other will help with any close up panels within the comic and make it each to differentiate them. With this in mind I began sketching a character that was different than the first one I created but still fit within the same style. I tried to create sketches from the same kind of angles to show the comparisons between the two and how they look. I also really wanted this character to have a shorter haircut than character A, this was another way to really distinguish them from each other and not have them look too similar. I wanted to also draw the back of character B because I really liked the hairstyle that I drew her and wanted to experiment with the back view of the character.
Initial Sketches For Scenes
Before I made any storyboards I actually wanted to draw out some of the scenes and things I could use within my storyboards. I wanted to do this so that I’d have some clear visualisations of scenes and areas before I started to make an actual storyboard. I started with some scenes of character A that I felt would place well within the end arc of the story. I drew these scenes as she was entering the room with the sword and discovering it for the first time. I wanted the areas to have columns and pointed windows and overall look quite grand. These initial sketches however were really just to get the layout and visuals down before I created anything more detailed and are not meant to be anything interesting to look at, just a way for me to play with different layouts for further sketches and scenes.
I also created some basic sketches like hands and feet that I knew would be used often within the comic as a reference sheet so that I could save some time drawing these different poses. This I think was a good idea as it will allow me to save time drawing things complicated like hands and have some that I can reuse to improve consistency within panels and pages of the comic. I also drew some shoes to use as a close up panel within scenes of the comic and a close up of character A that can also be used within different situations and panels by changing any background present and the expression on the half of her face which is pictured. This sketch as it is quite basic can also be turned into character B for any scenes that need a similar image.
Panel Storyboards
Beginning
For my comic I wanted the pages to be able to convey a lot of information within a relatively small space. I chose for my storyboards for my webcomic to be half the length of a normal webcomic to allow for a more compact look to the design. Below is my storyboard for the beginning of the story. This beginning page will be to establish the story relying mostly on the omniscient narrator to tell the information through text based communication and illustrations of the areas within the story. The country the story takes place in I decided would be called Celestia, and both of the nations would be within this country. I drew 2 different castles for this beginning page to establish the setting of the story and show off the environment it takes place in. I wanted each castle to look different so that it felt as if it truly was 2 different societies.
After this exposition half of the page I added two scenes. One from each of the girls stories, showing the end of some outside conversations telling them the mission they are to go on. I added parental figures to each of these characters who would be giving dialogue about the mission they are being sent on and also establish that both of these main girls in the story are actually royalty. After these scenes within each respective castle, showing the appearance of each girl for the first time, there are two zoomed shots of each of the girls smiling looking prepared and establishing confidence for their characters, they both say ‘I’m ready’ and the next part of the story will continue from the start of their journeys. The next part of the story will be some more establishing shots walking through forest and lake areas within the land of Celestia and each of the characters will come across their issue within the story they have to overcome to get to the sword goal.
Middle
For the middle of the story I decided that there would be a total of 4 pages, 2 for each of the characters, their journey and their struggle within the story. Character A has to take her journey through a deadly forest, the artwork showing her walking the long path from the castle towards the forest. The character would be suggested to have been walking for a whole day before the events of the next scene. This will be done with text between the two parts of the artwork showing the passage of time. As the character is walking through the forest after this time the ivy will start to creep up around her feet and end up entangling her completely as it is magical/enchanted. The character will then cut herself out of the ivy with a knife she is carrying on the next page and once she is free the forest will be conquered and she will be through the forest.
The next two pages will be a similar story from the view of Character B and will start with a meanwhile subheading to show that it is happening at a similar time to the other character. It will again start from her travelling through the area near her castle and after some time finally reaching a bridge. This was supposed to be the bridge that she used to get to the location of the sword but the bridge is actually broken to pieces. The character will have to find a way to cross this bridge in the open place. On the second page they will find the solution to this and be able to conquer her own path towards the sword as Character A has done before her.
End
For the end of the comic there will be a total of 6 pages. These pages will show the story of the two characters entering the ruins where the sword is housed and going to grab it. The first character will enter in the first 2 pages of this part and the second character will enter in the subsequent pages.
For the final two pages, as the characters own sections ended in them both reaching for the sword, this next page will have both of them reaching in the same panel, stopping and realising that someone else is actually there at the same time. There will be two large portraits of the characters taking up most of these two pages, showing their reactions and them properly within the background. The final panel on the final page will be an illustration of both of the characters back to back ,this will signify their closeness and how they may become enemies in the future as they aren’t looking at each other. The text above this illustration will tell the reader that the story has been told from the POV of Character A being the narrator the entire time by showing the text coming from her in this final illustration. The characters finally meeting up will be a tense moment so I didn’t want much text to be on these pages or really any dialogue between them both except some ‘oh’ sound effects etc, as I felt it may take away from the pages themselves. The full page colour illustrations will really add to the comic and make the ending very beautiful and wrap up the story completely as the characters stories are merged and are brought together into one ending.