Tribal warfare.....or a misunderstanding? One tribe has been cut off from the rest.
I started on this graphic novel, what, back in 2017. Yeah, graphic novels take a long time. Although, I haven't been working on it straight this whole time. With graphic novels, I do get to "stopping points" to take a break, more or less. Mostly, it's because I have another story waiting in line and I hear it calling to me.
But after that long break, I've jumped back into this one and just felt that drive to finish it this time around.
“A story about words being power. Words being sacred. Each tribe is in charge of their own set of words. With those words, they contribute to all tribes in their own way. And these words were gifted to them.”
This nine chapter story came from a simple drawing of a mermaid.
I was messing around with my drawing software, learning how the gradation tones worked, and adding color to them. I pictured a mermaid, underwater of course, and her hair was floating around like a puffy cloud. Well, I used the gradations to create the sea floor and thought it was kind of neat, but I still had a lot of space to fill. The obvious thing that came to mind was bubbles.
Me being me, a big anime and manga fan, as soon as I started drawing simple bubbles, I couldn't help but see the bubbles as the mermaid's weapons. When that idea hit me, things just started exploding from there.
Time for a bad guy!
Since there was apparently gonna be a battle underwater, I figured the bad guy was gonna wear some type of wet suit. Went ahead and pitted female against female. Why not? Gave the wet suit-wearing girl a spear, because spears and underwater fishing? Eh, I guess it makes sense.
Funny thing about pulling from these simple ideas is now I have to start asking myself questions. Like, is it just an ordinary spear? Gasp! Of course not! Well, where did she get the spear? Now I'm in trouble, because with that thought process, the bad guy became the protagonist. She was on a mission! There was a betrayal! But was it the mermaid who betrayed her? Why? And why was it such a deal that the protagonist had to dive down and get her revenge?
And from there, things just fell into place. Well, I say that, but really, what I like about telling these stories is that I don't know everything at the beginning. I MIGHT have an ending in mind, but it's subject to change.
When I started on this graphic novel, I thought it was gonna be a short comic, but nope. Things kept playing out to be more epic. Instead of two lone characters, there were many tribes, a colosseum type place, and a pyramid structure, and stones, and resonance from the sacred words......!!!!! Phew!
So yeah. Stories will happen if you let them. Sketching out the panels and dialogue as I went, I decided to write out the rest of the story in script form. Yet, even that was only a set of guidelines. As soon as I got back into designing the pages, what wasn't in the script figured itself out on the pages.
Now that I'm nearing the end, I'm starting to think about how I want to publish the thing. I haven't counted the pages yet, but it's gotta be over two hundred now, and with color involved, I might be crazy expensive. So I'm gonna have to figure out how readers are gonna get a hold of it.
But that's still a ways off yet, because this first part is just sketching things out. After that's done, THEN I have to go back and do the actual drawing...and shading...and effects....and coloring.........oh boy.
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