kay davault @kaydavault - Tumblr Blog

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Hi I'm Kay, a graphic novel author and artist! I mostly post art and answer questions about my books, Oddity Woods, Misfit Mansion and Star Knights. Sometimes I draw fan art.

I'm heavily inspired by mystery games, RPGs and cute/spooky stuff. 👻

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"Art Style" Tips | Ace Attorney Comic | Deltarune Comic

#art #pinned post #comics #graphic novels #hello i forgot to make one of these

Star Knights ⭐️

#star knights #digital art #illustration

Misfit Mansion - Development and Concepts #1

I recently scoured my old computer and found all of the Misfit Mansion art/writings I made while developing the first book! I'd forgotten about a lot of this, and with the second book out in less than a month, I thought it'd be fun to do a series of posts going over my thought process behind it all. Misfit Mansion went through a few different versions, since I kept running into writing blocks. The following are the very first ideas that eventually led to MM.

Text-heavy post incoming!

"Lily of the Dead Valley"

Back when I was working on Oddity Woods as a webcomic, I was brainstorming ideas for potential book pitches. The main two were A. a story based on “Journey to Stars,” which became Star Knights, and B. a story about a monster hunter that wound up in a world of monsters, titled “Lily of the Dead Valley.” I ended up moving forward with Star Knights instead, but I’d come back around to the second while working on SK.

The monster world was called Dead Valley and had a wide array of monster inhabitants. The monster hunter was a hooded girl named Ava that somehow fell into Dead Valley and had to team up with “Lily” (Iris’s original name) to return home, learning that monsters were actually good in the process. These are sketches from around 2018.

Lily/Iris was originally a vampire.

Then became less vampire and more typical monster.

I liked the hoodie pattern but I didn't want to draw that in every panel, so I scrapped it! Simple designs are best for comics in my experience.

Ava's face was always hidden by a hood until the end of the story. Also I guess Iris had a brother?? I don't remember. She had a devil tail here.

The issue with this version was that I wasn’t sure what this monster world should look like (I think I was still burned out from OW and didn't want to draw a fantasy world), so to make it a little easier on myself, I ultimately decided to change the setting to the real world. The story then became about a human summer camp at odds with a monster one.

Things of note- there was a moth girl named Juniper who was kind of mean towards Lily/Iris, and a ghost boy camper and a kelpie!!! I liked the kelpie design a lot so I'd bring it back later. I think this kelpie was a girl.

The plot was basically: Ava is accidentally signed up for the wrong summer camp— one for monsters instead of monster hunters. Hiding her identity, she eventually befriends Lily, and ultimately comes to learn that hunting monsters is wrong. This idea didn’t go anywhere as I never went to summer camp as a kid, and so I had no idea how to write a summer camp story… I decided to channel the experiences I did have as a kid in order to figure out what Misfit Mansion would actually be about— found family and belonging.

"Home for Horrors"

In 2019, the story became about a foster home hidden in the woods. When conceptualizing the house, I originally wrote the caretaker as a woman, but I wanted to write a father/daughter bond between Iris and the caretaker, so they became Halloway instead. “Lily” was changed to Iris, as it matched her color scheme. Instead of a random monster, I wanted her species to have an effect on the story, so she became a dreamon, or a “dream imp” back then.

This version was a lot closer to the final Misfit Mansion, but there were still many differences plot-wise! I’ll save it for part two, but I did want to briefly mention another story I was working on at the time.

"Doll House"

This was a very small and undeveloped idea I was writing in 2018, but I couldn’t figure out the story, so it quickly got scrapped. It followed a mage who was trapped in a haunted house of living dolls, and had to help himself and a trapped soul escape, which lived in a small cage he carried. This idea doesn’t have much to do with Misfit Mansion, but I liked the designs and ended up recycling them to create Mathias and Dahlia. This version of Dahlia also had a giant stuffed bear butler, which I still kind of like.

These characters didn't have names, but I did reuse the beanie design for Kel.

I'll post more about the next draft + reveal some of the sample pages I pitched with next week!

#misfit mansion #graphic novel #character design #concept art

What’s Wyatt’s favorite food? If he has one,

Anything in this hell of a world

(on a serious note I think he’d like most foods and isn’t that picky! Marietta on the other hand would be extremely picky, eats chicken nuggets only type)

#ask #oddity woods #I made the bug joke again sorry

susie come get your girl

#deltarune #deltarune spoilers #fan art #snowgrave #susie deltarune #noelle holiday #kris deltarune #the good route lake scene was v cute im happy for them

alien-cupcake-thingy

there’s been some confusion for you see my roommate isssssssss

I heard the song and I had no choice but to make this lol

#hahaha cute!#other people's art #oddity woods

He tried but she kept eating stuff before it was done and now she's banned from the kitchen.

I think she is more of an outdoors-y sports person, but she likes comic books. It was hard for her to get the latest ones when she was stuck in the house, and Halloway was bad at remembering which ones she already had, so she has a bunch of random volumes. She decided to make up in her head what happened in between each one.

The second book continues right after the first! I wanted Marietta to have different clothing throughout the book, so I decided a long time ago to change up her outfit with each chapter. I draw a bit differently than I did when I drew the Labyrinth Inn chapter, so the characters may look a bit different, but they're the same age.

I like science-themed characters haha. I've had him since 2012... I drew him thousands of times until I felt the design was right. It was a lot harder to figure him out than Marietta. I think the eyes gave me a lot of trouble and they still do sometimes!!!

I kinda want to do like a progression of every year drawing these two just to see the difference over 14 years. Oh my god they're 14.

#oddity woods #misfit mansion #ask

Hi Ms. Davault, I have some more Oddity Woods questions! Once again, some of them might be spoilers, so if they are, you don't need to answer :)

1) Does Wyatt ever wonder about his family outside of the woods?

2) Just to be clear, Wyatt has been missing longer than Owen and Velia right? It seems like Owen remembered more than him.

3) Even after The Conducter takes your soul, you can still be found wandering the woods as a monster right? I think that it would really freak Marietta out if she saw Owen as a monster.

4) What was Mary' s last name before she was adopted?

5) Are there any reasons as to why Wyatt hates ghosts so much even though he loves every other paranormal creature?

6) Did Whistle die violently? He's a poltergeist so I thought maybe... poor little guy.

Sorry about all the questions again! Oddity Woods is so amazing and i'm really looking foreward to whatever you have planned for book 2!!!!! :)

Thanks!!! I definitely can't answer stuff that will be answered later (I've gotten quite a few questions like this, so if I don't answer them, it's safe to assume they'll be answered in the books!), but I'll try my best.

Probably, among other things. Like, is there a family even out there??

Hmm I'd say for this one, there may be another reason Wyatt's memory loss is worse. I think the woods definitely have an effect on living people, especially if they've made a contract, which is why Owen was forgetting stuff. But if that means Wyatt has been there longer or not... we'll see.

Haha yeah. That would be bad.

😶

It's probably safe to assume (from the flashback near the end of the inn chapter) that he might have had a bad encounter with a ghost once!

Most poltergeists do die from a violent or sudden death, and the memories of their pasts and refusal to accept death is what gives them powers. Perhaps Whistle died "violently" or perhaps he just has his memories from before. Dogs can't be vengeful so he is a little different.

As always we will see!!!!

#oddity woods #ask

Was working on book 2 and got to a heavy part, so I took a break to draw something cute... and a random lawrence + milly!

Book 2 has a lot of Drama I can't wait

#oddity woods #art #oc #character design

Dahlia can make herself however tall she wants, so anytime she changes her appearance it's because she sewed on longer legs or different hair!

Rereading MM, I was surprised at how baby Larkspur looked... I wanted him to look like a teenager in MM2, so I tried hard to make him look older. It's funny because when I first pitched MM, the publisher asked me to make the characters look a little older... and for Larkspur to look a little less cute. This was the first design I made of him vs the final. He still looks cute oops.

ALSO I ended up finding a bunch of concept art for MM recently that I had forgotten about!!! I'll upload them closer to MM2's release.

#misfit mansion #ask

Will you ever return to those ocean designs you did awhile back?

Fun fact, I actually pitched these as a younger kid's comic series a few years ago! It followed a sheltered jellyfish prince and his best sea slug friend/adventurer. Unfortunately it wasn't picked up, but I do still like the designs. Their names were Jellius and Marigold. Marigold also had a second design that looked a little more similar to a sea slug.

#ask #character design

alien-cupcake-thingy

here’s some badly made fan art of Wyatt with a lollipop

because

I think he needs a lollipop tbh

kaydavault

Omg CANON EVENT

Also cute art!!!

#oddity woods #other people’s art #he didn’t like the candy I gave him but maybe he liked OP’s 😭

Apologies if this had been asked/answered before, but where's the best place to buy your books to actually support you?

I remember reading OW when it was a webcomic and somehow missed that it finally came out! It was one of my favorite webcomics and I really missed it when you had to take it down.

Aw thank you! 💕 Buying a new copy from wherever books are sold helps the book no matter which store it is! If you're able to support an indie bookstore, I recommend trying there first.

Also to those who have the book and also want to help it out, please be sure to leave a review online! Reviews on places like Goodreads/Amazon/Barnes&Noble help a LOT and only take a few seconds to write!

#ask #oddity woods

Some more concept art from around 2017! Featuring werewolves, Velia burning up instead of shattering, and Capella looking more human. I like her more as a little cat looking freak. Also a bonus Marietta wearing Wyatt's oufit.

Mary is always cute

#oddity woods #art #me slowly posting the mountain of old art

MM Character Q&A

With the upcoming release of Misfit Mansion's sequel this August, I thought about potentially doing a few little Q&A comics for the MM-verse, similar to the Oddity Woods ones I did back in the day. I think it'd be fun to post some leading up to the release!

If people are interested, please feel free to comment here/send me an ask with questions directed at the MM characters! I'd like to do a variety, so send as many as you want to whichever character. 👍