Towards the end of 2007, into the beginning of 2008, I’d decided to dig into my past a bit and attempt to resurrect a story I’d been writing since practically grade school. The story was Sylvanna, a talking-animal tale with an unusually vast amount of continuity, inspired very much by my work on Sonic the Hedgehog and my want to bring something different to the table that could potentially be enjoyed by the same audience.
I’d attempted to launch it in various formats, several times before I’d gotten my break-in with comics. The response was always positive, but something never got polished enough for my own satisfaction. This next time around, I reasoned, would be different. After all, this time I had with me Ian Flynn and Aleah Baker. At that point, they were fast travelling down the road to being married and Ian was still getting settled into his duties as regular writer for Sonic at Archie, but they were just as passionate about this thing as I was, and besides that – they’re really good at what they do and excellent pals.
Between that time and now, a lot of moves happened, a lot of life happened, but amidst it all, we never quite shelved Sylvanna. There was too much going for it, and invariably we’d remind ourselves of it now and then, waiting for the timing to be right.
As it appears to be, now… Ian and I have decided to give it a go at some point this year. Yours truly will be wrapping up VARULV Book II this weekend, and between that time and Book III beginning in May, there will be preparations for a Sylvanna reboot afoot. Rest assured, this will be the first of many posts on the subject. In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to showcase some of the work we’d put into the series up to this point…
Sylvanna is a story of two peoples: Bats and Hawks. This was the first model sheet I did for the main cast of heroes in 2008. The more updated version is at the top of this post, of course.
This is the second sheet, featuring the villains. You can see how much larger the avian races are in comparison to the bats, here. Especially the big one – our main villain, Cyngro.
Model sheet for the three WarHawks – Phoenix, Halcyon and Roc.
These are actually new… A breakdown of bat head structure, wing structure and some expressions.
The first Sylvanna test page – pencils and colors. As everyone knows, I love to use pencils and skip the inking process all together if I can. This was no exception. Dove right into Photoshop for the finishes after the graphite work was done. I still like how it came out.
Some roughs of bat housing structure concepts. They build their homes in trees and on the ground. Too, they use elevators… despite the fact that they can fly! I was most inspired by bat wing structures when coming up with this type of architecture. They’re very much a nature-loving hippie society.
By contrast, the Hawks like technology and mountaintops and caves. The feel of these types of structures were inspired by Mesoamerican pyramids and other such old world buildings.
More to come… a lot more!
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