My Journey In Creating an Original Graphic Novel - June 2019 [The Wind Brothers]
This is my desk after one and a half years of conceptualizing, writing, and visualizing my first original graphic novel called The Wind Brothers.
My first instance of sharing this project was to one of my friends in French class in my sophomore year, probably in 2017. I remember showing her this image below and telling her the convoluted story that I couldn't even wrap my head around at the time.
first drawing of the main characters (minus a fifth character developed later on)
So, what is this?
The Wind Brothers is an original story that I first conceptualized in late 2017. My plan is to make this a graphic novel, a visual storytelling within my means as a young broke high school student. I drew the characters first and then made my own story from it, based on the clothing choices and general brainstorming of where to put them.
old sketch of the main character Borgieus (2017)
Their clothes are white and loose, and they sport capes that flow and glide with the wind. What started as a bored sketch of a person became the world and story of The Wind Brothers.
Placed above the clouds, settled in a world of their own, the Brotherhood of the Wind and Skies (or simply the Wind Brotherhood) live peacefully with the most important life decision already made for them. Every son is born to have the same career as their father, an identity that classifies their family and has since the beginning of time. This career is then eventually led down to the next son, and keeps going from then on, the name never losing its life. This is embedded in their genes, and it has stayed that way for centuries of this brotherhood's existence.
main five characters with their careers written underneath (2017)
Despite their differences, all have one thing in common: their oddity of not achieving the careers of their fathers. Ranging from self doubt to physical inabilities, their displacement is undeniable, and to an extent unexplainable. They doubt the grounds of their existence, the power of their God, the Mother of the Skies, and wonder why that God would make them so different from the rest of their brothers. These five come together to cope with their problems and figure out who they are to the rest of the world.
Concept character sketch (Early 2019)
Right off the bat, the story sounds cheesy and another childish tale about friendship. Looking past all the details, yes, that is the case, but I'm more focusing on the nature of humans and the world rather than dwelling on the friendship trope. There is much to be explained, but I don't want to daunt on the story for too long in this post. Instead, I want to document the process of making this.
THE CONCEPT
character layout (2017)
The concept came from numerous places. As one who does a lot of fan art (and admittedly a lot of fan fiction), I wanted to create something original to have some use for my writing passion.
Another influence is myself and my family background. My family isn't too religious, but our culture is pressed on Buddhism. And we also dabbled in a bit of Christianity since we were part of a youth group for most of our childhood. Me personally, I believe in spirituality and "the universe", that all signs point to specific events in my life. That combination brought upon the society of a spiritual brotherhood, a combination of Christianity and Buddhism that is more about spirituality than the strict religious aspects. Though the brotherhood in the story is strict, it is not under the controversial vain that comes from Christianity.
And the last influence, mainly for the idea of letting it be a graphic novel, is from an artist and writer on Youtube named Holly Brown, who made a comic/graphic novel called Purgatory. Coincidentally, this story is also about religion, but I'm not sure if that influenced me or it was just a coincidence. Anyhow, the idea of it being a graphic novel came from her development and publication of her own project. This might also bring me to turn this into print, but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.
THE VISUALIZATION
Ink and marker illustration of a scene mock up (2018)
I'm one to draw first, explain later, but with this story I'm taking it a bit differently as I'm drawing the explanation. As this might be my longest and possibly biggest project so far, this is more serious than anything else I've done.
First was obviously the characters. The development started in 2017, but 2018 left a huge blank for other art projects and I haven't picked it up since recently now in mid 2019. The design of the characters haven't changed too wildly, but there is an obvious improvement of quality.
character portraits (2019)
late 2018 - early 2019
2017
Storyboard of the opening scene (2019)
Then came the actual storyboarding, helping me with the composition and layout for each panel to deliver the tone and style for the story. I'm treating this less as a comic but as a film, as I think in animation to help with composition and "camera angles". It's essentially the same thing, just frame by frame. As of now I haven't done a lot of storyboards as I am keeping my attention to the writing aspect. I would make a section for the writing, but that would be too boring to drone on.
The status of the writing is still in development. Major plot points and arcs are in mind, but the whole screenplay is not complete.
old comic panel concepts from 2017
The setting of this story is all fictional, made up from my own imagination, which meant I had to create an entire culture for the sake of the story's immersion.
Clothing was the biggest thing. Since the start, the clothes were very odd and unique. All white with occasional desaturated blues and browns, all wrapped up with a cloth of bright color that distincts each person from their own. The fashion takes from old medieval-ish, simplistic and loose clothing with a little bit of modern aspects. And since they lived based on the winds, cape styles are incorporated into their clothes.
Every person's clothing is different, based on the real life clothing of their individual careers. This is especially seen in the main characters.
Borgieus is a Spiritual Leader, the equivalent to a preacher. The stole/shawl is a recent addition to Borgieus's clothing, but his usual fashion is a full collar button up similar to the second set of images.
Collipher is a Cook, wearing a simple long white shirt that is loose and up to the collar and "buttoned up", but his design is straps instead of buttons.
Jonah is a Pianist, coming with a multilayered outfit composed of a collar shirt, the mid-body jacket, and the iconic pianist coat tail.
Harrington is a Guardian, this world's version of a somewhat soldier. The inspiration come from the shoulder pads, collar, and sash that is more associated with boy scout clothing. His is the trickiest to draw connections to, his fashion is more associated to the general clothing of the brotherhood.
Illinol is an Engineer, but for his fashion it is more drawn from a scientist. His is the most loosely connected, but the off-centered buttons on the shirt is the closest comparison I could make.
With this new world based on a made up religion, I had to of course write and design the basics of a completely new religion. This entire system is still under construction, but it is all basically the same. The rules go that every career is under the five main branches called "The Skies' Branches", and each branch has their own symbol and revolving color. Each career has a color and it's based on their parent branch's color. For example, Harrington's color is orange because his role as a Guardian is under Authority, which is also orange. Each branch however covers many careers and the colors don't always match up, so the color selection is broader but under the same family. As Jonah is a Pianist, he is under Harmony, but his color is salmon instead of the branch's color red.
As seen in the second photo, there were many drawings and sketches of ideas for the symbols as they are like the logos of the religion.
Speaking of logos, no brand is good without a logo.
These are the earlier iterations of the logo. It has stayed the same for the most part, but there was no go-to design that was made for a long time.
And, like the logos from before, there was a lot of trial and error.
And eventually I stopped messing around and made the official logo on the crisp medium known as digital
Doesn't she look just fabulous? (it's not amazing but it works out and it looks nice (im a graphic designer i swear))
THE CONCLUSION
Speaking from my own thoughts, I have no idea if I'm artistically or mentally prepared to make something as big as a graphic novel. It's like a regular novel, which takes months and years to make, but this time it's one I'd have to draw repeatedly. I try not to let the pressure put me down, especially since I'm one to give up on projects that I think are too hard to do, but I've sealed my commitment. The very first image at the heading of this post is a collage of notes and images I've pulled together from working on this for about a year now. I'm still at its early stages, eager to start drawing, but I'm taking this one step at a time.
What I hope to learn from this is that hard, long, passionate work can create an amazing product. I don't know if this will end up good, maybe my story and art is trash, but I'm giving it time to sit with me. I tend to make art quick, wish I could have all my pieces done within a day, but I'm putting my patience in this time.
The completion of this project will be equal parts showing my skills as an artist and getting my name out there, and living my dream of telling stories. I've done art for a long time now, but there were rarely any times where I could incorporate my love for writing fictional stories into my art. And here I am now, neck deep into a project that encapsulates my entire creativity.
Hopefully this will explain to my audience of what I've been up to for the past few months. My posting has been pretty silent since I'm writing this story and doing school and such, so I think it deserves an explanation. Hopefully this will also serve as a little teaser to my hopefully future finished product, but who knows! This post is just a log of where I am now, as of June 10th, 2019, on The Wind Brothers. It's not a story everyone needs to hear, but it's a story that I want to share.
Thanks!
