first of all, thanks a ton to everyone who kept up with this miniseries and showed their support! my favorite part of making it was getting to share it and see people react to the parts i was excited about.
i have more to say, but first, here are the initial designs i made for the adult characters + their kids and the car. (note: i made these in the same week i released the penultimate comic, but didnāt get to work on the epilogue itself until this past month, so the integrity of the artwork may not be on par with the actual comic.)
anywho, below the cut, iām gonna share some background regarding how i created this series, to any who may care.
originally it started because i felt like drawing daring reaching out to his siblings. i just kind of wanted to do that, no intention of creating a narrative based on that. but then, i got this idea for another comic, one that would explore his breakup with lizzie from his perspective. so i did that. but THEN i was driving to work and got this awesome idea to flashback to daringās childhood and use that as a character study, and then i thought, āwell what if i explored all three of the charming kids and showcased snapshots of their childhoods from different perspectives and had it all culminate in a confrontation between the three of them wherein they finally work out their differences while using imagery of them as kids to illustrate each of their mentalities emotionally? and then at the end have a time skip to daring as a father with his own kids to parallel his own flashback to being a child and then call back to the first comic with him reaching out only this time dexter and darling are facing him and-ā and yeah by that point there was no stopping me from seeing this through to the end because the idea just sounded too good to me.
of course, itās been over a year since then, and looking back at even the more recent comics compared to the last one + my other artwork from present day shows an uptick in quality that almost urges me to remaster everything and polish its rougher edges. but if i did that i would be taking away valuable time i could be using pursuing my career. which allows me to segway into the next thingā¦
maybe you already knew this, but if you didnāt, my goal in life is to make comics professionally. specifically, i aspire to be both the writer and illustrator of my own original comics, and this was my first semi-realized endeavor of that kind. so the experience of making this was really important to me.
i know there were long hiatuses as a result of my life interfering, but i sincerely thank all those who were patient and waited despite the circumstances. it does mean a lot. i was always excited to open tumblr to go through my notifs and read all the comments and tags that people would leave. seeing other people interact with your art is an experience that has a profound impact on you. or me, at least.
i donāt expect many people to take the time to read this. youāre probably just here for the content of the franchise that weāre mutually interested in, not for whatever this is. but if you do read this, thank you. and thanks for all of your support. iāve got more stuff coming, so donāt think iām done.
so i know itās been a while since i last updated, but itās here! you can read the latest installment of the charming siblings saga by clicking right here! i hope you guys werenāt waiting too long.
i have two pieces of development content for this one. iāll get into it below the cut.
but before i do, i wanna once again mention my kofi. if you like what i do and want more of it at a faster pace, please consider chipping in a dollar or two. i do this for free, which can make it less of a priority. so if you have the means to do so, iād greatly appreciate any donation.
anywho, extra content time.
the first thing i got is the page i did playing around with queen charmingās design. i wanted to make sure i didnāt create a generic looking queen and actually managed to design something that could be identifiable as Queen Charming herself. i hope i was able to achieve that.
characters concepts for Queen Charming
the other thing is the storyboards. see, i always end up deviating from the storyboards to some extent during the process of drawing the final thing out, but this time, for my own good, i had to make the decision to condense what i had initially come up with. but i didnāt want the original thing to go unseen. so here are those storyboards.
charming siblings saga āWeighing Wordsā original storyboard draft
hope you guys can appreciate this. i canāt promise the next part will come soon, but i will try. thank you for your continued support.
so the latest part actually had a sequence in the beginning that i cut for a few reasons: 1. it wouldāve forced me to split it into three parts, 2. it felt redundant to the actual plot in the long run, and 3. i was kinda rushing it so i thought it looked half-assed. but for anybody who actually is interested in seeing this extended version of the comic, below the cut is the scrapped content.
after that, the official part of the comic that i posted starts and plays out the same. but this chunk was the initial way i wanted to begin it. personally i think it just didnāt need to be included, but since i did draw it out, i didnāt want it to go to waste so iām sharing it for fun.
thatās all. keep an eye out for the next part of the charmings sibling saga when itās up!
once again would like to thank you all for keeping up with this series despite its long waits from part to part now due to my schedule being so busy. i canāt guarantee a date or anything for when iāll be dropping the first installment of the final chapter, but it will come eventually. in the meantime, iād like to share a few development items that pertain to the most recent installment.
below the cut youāll find some concept art of Ivory Knight and the storyboards for the comic. hope you enjoy.
Ivory Knight concept sketches.
āThe Charming Siblings Saga: Darlingās Fableous Featsā original storyboards.
the latest installment of darlingās chapter is out, which you can read HERE. <āāā
that being said, i wanted to share some storyboards compared to the final just for fun. if youāre interested, itāll be below the cut. enjoy!
aaaaand there you go. the reason i took the time to board this one before diving in was because i knew this was gonna be a long one and also didnāt wanna sell it short. luckily it paid off and iām pretty happy with how it turned out. hopefully you all will keep on the lookout for the final part of darlingās chapter! stay tuned!!!
