Heyo!! I was wondering if you were comfortable to share your Art Fight? And if you’d be participating this year? Understandable if you’d like to keep it more private, just thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask! <3
My nick there is Lro (but with lowercase)
But I don't really participate in it that much, and I have no characters added right now.
Ruin's Heir is a fantasy comic, published at ComicFury by me.
After the gateway to the realm of death has been shattered, the balance of the world has been disturbed, slowly being eaten away by the deadly matter know as "the ruin".
Vervain, a young wolf, finds that he has a deep connection to the Grimgrove and its ruin.
In order to prevent the inevitable, he must find his True Name.
First page was published 9th April 2023, but the history of this story goes way back to the year 2011. I have now written some of it down, mostly for myself, but if you have found yourself curious and want to give it a read, I welcome you with warmth.
Nemorosa and Vervain
2011 - Parantajan oppipoika
The beginning
At this point in my life I had spent about three years watching YouTube animated series about dogs.
I also did create my own series, several, even before this one, but never published those anywhere, and sadly I do not have them anymore. 2010 December I got my very first own computer, and I got absolutely hog-wild with the new-found freedom of interwebs.
At the age of 12, I finally created my very own YouTube account.
I of course had to create my very own dog (or in this case, wolf) series. I pulled out my trusty MsPaint, and started to work without too much thought about the plot, or anything.
Just wanted to do something, probably came up with the designs at the spur of the moment too.
Juniper and Vervain
The series was called Parantajan oppipoika, until I changed the name to Apprentice, thinking that... English is cool? I don't think though that I ever succesfully released an episode with the new name, so Apprentice didn't really stick. So Parantajan oppipoika it is.
The series had 2 finished apisode, third one was left unfinished.
Which sounds kinda underwhelming. But despite its short visit at the time, Parantajan oppipoika would leave a mark in my heart that was waiting for its next opportunity to shine.
Story
Vervain, young member of the wolf pack, dreams nothing more than being a healer's apprentice. When the day comes that the pack's healer, Clover, chooses her apperentice, Vervain is very excited and hopeful about the end result.
But he is left dissapointed, when instead of him, his friend Dandelion is chosen.
Some days after the ceremony, Vervain notices that Dandelion seems very tired and absent, barely responding when he asks her anything. Without his knowledge, Dandelion has been suffering from the nightmarish visions she started to get after she was appointed as a healer's apprentice.
Next evening, Vervain follows a raven, who guides him to find Dandelion at the forest, killed by a bear. Clover blaming herself, believes this was a sign that her decision was a mistake, and appoints Vervain as her new apprentice.
Poor Dandelion...
Inspirations
At the time, I have just got into Warrior Cats, and it was also very clear with Parantajan oppipoika.
Pack's structure, nature themed names, and concept of the healer all came from there. I also remember that Vervain's name was taken straight from Watership Down, from the character with the same name.
Videos etc.
Not much material is left from this time, which is a big shame for me personally, as I would love to see the first 2 episodes again.
Though, some materials are still intact, and I'll cherish them.
The first opening of Parantajan oppipoika.
To this very day I still associate this song to Ruin's Heir. Kinda hoping that someday I could animate something to it...
Unfinished "new" opening
I remember being very, very proud of this one. And honestly, good for you, 12-13 years old Iro, you indeed did good. I think the development between these two openings are visible already.
Unfinished episode 3
(with a placeholder music, I think the original had The Lion King music), pretty short, but oh... the relic....
I think this is all I have to say about the first version of this story, for now.
Hassireeee, Veervain
2013 - Hour of the Wolf
The resurrection
Parantajan oppipoika went to the slumber for time being, and I didn't finish episode 3. If I remember right, I didn't do much with these characters after cancelling the series.
But, in 2013 they returned. I started to work on the reboot, called "Hour of the Wolf"
I literally forgot it was called that. Anyways.
I must admit that I don't remember much specifics from this era, I found an outline for the planned episodes so nevermind about not remembering.
Once again, I was planning on making an animated series, but this time with less success than before. Not a single episode were finished.
But looking at the outline, there was a plan for 16 episodes in total.
Some aspects from 2011 version were kept, but some were also dropped. Vervain didn't want to be a healer anymore, and whole concept of healers seemed to be absent from this version in general. Instead story now focused more on the relationship between Vervain ja Raven, and also war that our main pack, Tyrmäinen, was having with "Bonefangs" pack.
Even though a lot has changed since this version of the story, it did an important groundwork for its future. A lot characters that exits nowadays, were created back then. Even some plot points, though with drastic changes, have stayed in some form.
Sedum and Bracken
Goldenrod, Bracken, Nuphar (down), Sedum, Woundwort, and Majalis
Characters
Sedum and Bracken were old faces from the 2011, but most of the pack's youngsters were created 2013.
Nuphar, Pillwort, and Majalis are still part of the cast today. Twins Woundwort and Golderod were part of the story for a long time before being cut 2022.
Vervain and Raven
Vervain bond with ravens was now strengthened. Especially with this one raven, who was also his father's old Guardian, and only thing that the villain, Elder, was truly afraid of.
Raven's characterization, and purpose for the story has changed several times after this, but presence of the Raven has been kept strong ever since.
Story
After the death of Dandelion, Vervain finds an injured wolf named Juniper. She is taken in, and she warns the pack about approaching rival pack, Bonefangs, who she also was part of formerly.
After the presence of bonefangs has been made known, security measures are tightened, and atmosphere in the pack gets heavy.
At the same time, Vervain meets Raven, who seems to be his, and unknowingly to him, his deceased father's Guardian.
War between the two wolf packs goes on, until tragedy strikes the pack, and it's rumored that among them there's a traitor…
Elder, Vervain, and Raven
As I'm reading this outline now, I'm thinking "damn, I really did read Harry Potter back then didn't I?"
Some of the plotlines were almost straight from there...
Videos
Unfinished opening
Unfinished episode (I think)
Didn't get far, but cool.
2015 - Kaarnen Herra
The new era
I still quite like this name I had. It's translated "Lord of the Raven", and I pretty much got it from Lord of the Rings. Good naming technique I would say.
Apparently I started to do reboots every two years.
Once again, I wanted to make a youtube animated series. Because I never learn.
Though this time I learned a little bit, and opted out from making a fully animated series, and instead used minimal amount of pictures. Episode 1 was still left unfinished, because the workload still didn't fit me.
Nemorosa and Vervain
This is probably when this story started to have more online presence. I'm still surprised when people leave a comment somewhere and actually know Vervain's name off the bat.
Even thought this is probably the point where magic wolves' hold over my brain capacity got stronger than ever before, it's also the era where I feel I made my biggest regret with this story. It was when I put feathers on their heads, unknowingly enforcing and contributing into racist stereotypes about native people. When I finally realized that this whole thing actually comes from a very harmful place, I decided that those feathers should be removed.
This is the time in my life I did a lot drawings and videos about Kaarnen Herra, but I can't say that I would feel comfortable sharing all of it so freely nowadays.
Story
Life at Tyrmänkä's pack has been ever so peaceful, until a weird strom rises. Vervain notices that this has made his friend Dandelion restless, and when he sees that she has went to the forest alone, he follows.
Vervain stumbles on to the scene, when Dandelion is trying to bind down an angered spirit, costing her life. Spell however has got its hold on Vervain too, and slowly it rips more and more away his life.
One way to save his own life would be to void the spell and release the spirit, but that would possibly cost his pack's life if done so. Luckily, helpful Raven and a stoat named Portimo wants to help him to find another way to save himself...
Vervain and Bracken
Characters
This version brought many new characters, but for this I wanted to showcase these two selectet characters, which I feel have been more influential. Portimo and Tormentil.
Tormentil and Portimo
Portimo
At first there was supposed to be three stoats, capable of merging into one big stoat monster, but at some point, three turned into just one character. (Stoat monster was however apparently kept at least some time after this, for some reason.)
I can't remember where the idea of having a villanous small stoat came from, but I thank the past me of this. Nowadays it's hard to think of this story without Portimo.
Portimo changed a lot tings about the plot, and was even some sort of main villain of the series. Kuilunka, formerly Bonefangs, then became more sympathetic, although still antagonistics.
His name by the way is just a old finnish name for stoats. So his name is just Stoat 👍
Tormentil
Tormentil is a mix of old and new, as her intial inspiration came way back from 2011, from Parantajan oppipoika.
Back then Elder (who was named Vomitflower/Oksennuskukka back then.... I have found no proof that such flower exists, but it might be inspired by the plant called ipecacuanha, which is apparently named Oksetusjuuri in finnish).
Anyways, Elder/Vomitflower had a sidekick, whose trope was "even more sadistic than the boss". Back then her name was Cactus-spike.
Cactus-spike got a massive overhaul designwise, and a new name, since I didn't want these wolves to know what cacti are. She pretty much became a new character, but fullfilling the same initial role as previously.
Her role also grew a lot from what I originally planned, mostly because I got a such positive feedback from her, and I wanted to utilize her potential more.
Videos
Opening
Unfinished episode 1
2019 - Goodbye animation
Finally I came to the conclusion that I can't work on this story in form of animation, and instead decided to try dip myself back into the wolrd of comics.
And by back I mean that I used to do a lot comics when I was 7-12 years old, but stopped working on those after getting more into doing animations instead.
There were actually two tries, before I started to publish pages publicly. First one I treated more like a test from the beginning, to see how it feels to work on the comic.
Page 1. Ohto
Page 2. Nemorosa and Vervain
End result was: It felt pretty nice. My confidence towards this new approach grew, and decided that this would be something I wanted to try in the long run.
I stopped this first run after 12 pages, reworked some aspects of the story, and started to work on the real deal.
But I clearly still had some things to learn....
2020 - Setback
The plot got very big changes, with the threat of the apocalypse looming over the characters now. As I wanted to strengthen to conflict within the world, and make it affect the characters.
With these new additions, some new characters were also brought in (or old ones totally reworked).
Everhalo and Ruinkeeper
New characters
Raven's character got a total overhaul. Now instead of being Vervain's companion, she became the Spirit of death, and was named Ruinkeeper.
This change also later contributed to why story's name was renamed Ruin's Heir (or the finnish name, Kalman lapsi). As I felt that no one would feel any lordiness over this Raven anymore, so I felt that it didn't fit anymore.
With the Spirit of death, there was also added Spirit of life, Everhalo. Who seems to have his own agenda in the grand scheme of things.
_
I worked on the first chapter, year had passed already and the chapter was close to the finish line.
I had done 34 pages, but finishing the last 7 pages felt too much.
Tormentil, Elder, and Ruinkeeper
I believe that I did a mistake in complicating the backgrounds for the actual comic. Instead of doing a lined work like I did back in my first version, I tried to give it more painted look. So now it didn't feel so good to do anymore, and I felt like I had to do something differend...
So I did what you're always told to not to do when working on comics, and started over.
2022- Ruin's Heir
This is the version I finally started to publish to ComicFury.
The scene did had some chages, but the basic idea was kept same. Tormentil needs to kill Ruinkeeper.
Some pages were reused, and the color palette kept same.
Tormentil, Elder, and Ruinkeeper
I do count this and the previous version of chapter 1 in the same era, as the actual story has no big changes made between these.
Two characters had redesigns though, Elder and Vervain
Elder (old and new)
Vervain
Changing Vervain's design especially felt like I was about to do a crime. But just how with the name change, I just felt that his older design didn't work with his character anymore. Even though I had grown very attached to it.
Luckily, I can say that I'm now quite happy with his design.
The End
At this very moment I'm writing this paragraph, I'm working on the chapter two, with the last six pages work in progress. So far my feelings toward making this comic has been very positive, and it's one of the rays of joy that I have at the moment.
I admit it's one my fears that what if someday I'm not able to work on it anymore? But I guess it's no use to worry too much about the future, while still having this very moment at the hand.
Will I change my mind about this comic in two years? Could be plausible, when looking at my past set records of reboot after reboots.
But it's okay, and I'm trying to follow my principle, which pretty much is "have fun."
