Chapter 1 Retrospective (Patreon)

Chapter 1 of Tales of Kalzeria is done! My first real foray into webcomics seems to have gone well, and I'm beginning to set my sights on what's yet to come. I thought it would be interesting to talk about my thoughts on Chapter 1 before going into Chapter 2 in order to focus more on my goals and ideas. Read on below for my stream-of-consciousness analysis!

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Pages 1-16 (Prologue Part 1: The Forest Demon)

Chapter 1 is a bit of an unwieldy beast in terms of its narrative structure. Its prologue, for instance, has two distinct parts: The Demon's attack, and The Introduction of Terra. Already I can tell that my storytelling style either needs refinement, or is incredibly unorthodox but still interesting and functional.

This beginning part was done on 300dpi pages, as opposed to the 600dpi pages in the rest of the comic. As such, it suffers a little in the detail department. The woodcutters' cart, too, doesn't look particularly great most of the time, but I liked the way the forest itself turned out.

The characters were unfortunately underdeveloped visually; I hadn't made them as interesting as characters in my world could really be, which will be challenging for future appearances by the survivors of the attack.

The Forest Demon, however, came across really well (in my opinion)! This was a design that I had worked on for a while, and I look forward to showing off this beast and its magical weapon again in the future!

The final part of this section had some really cool lighting effects that I enjoyed making and ended really strong.

Pages 17-22 (Prologue Part 2: Terra's Introduction)

I was super excited to get to this part, largely in part due to Terra being very important to me and this story! There's a small bit of intrigue-- unusual clairvoyant dreams, mostly-- but largely it's a brief introduction to a character that we'll be seeing more often. If I had to point out any flaws in this section, I think it would largely be that we don't see much of Terra's true nature here.

It ends here with a little bit of humor, although perhaps it didn't land particularly well. I'll have to work on that, I think.

From this point on, the pages are made on 600dpi canvases, which helped me in that I didn't have to be super on-point with my line art for when it gets reduced in size.

The Hospital came out really well, and I look forward to expanding more on the nature of it as a place of healing built in the frame of a cathedral.

Pages 23-37 (Introduction of Laska and Casanta's Respite)

Laska is a character who I am very happy to share with the world. I don't engage a lot with media that features characters with anxiety/depression problems but I wanted her to appear firstly as a tired mercenary, and then have readers realize that she's plagued with anxiety over her life conditions. I think I did an okay job at it; could have certainly done better, but the ideas still came across okay. She worries a lot about how her girlfriend perceives her capabilities, and comes to the edge of tears at several moments. Not necessarily an action hero, this one.

I did miss some opportunities to make better hints at Laska's secret, though. Her gloves should've had some of the ambient glow as she tried to navigate her pouch with her less-dexterous fingers. That part didn't come across well for sure; I wanted it to be the first sign that something was up with her hands, but I can build on the lack of dexterity in other ways. In fact, I did so already: when her coin pouch is stolen right out of her hand. But I can and will try to do better. Laska's apparent super-strength shown in the butcher shop seems to be a much better hint.

Edgar actually kinda stole the show for me, honestly. I wasn't anticipating that I would be looking forward to drawing a beast of burden as much as it turned out that I was-- I really came to love this grumpy-looking critter that Laska talks to a lot.

We also met characters like Zareth and Brass, as well as an homage to my dog, Harmony. Zareth is a bit troublesome to draw because she's 8 feet tall and very wide, so keeping her relative proportions to others is something I need to keep working on. Both Zareth and Brass, however, were incredibly fun to draw expressions for; Brass's smile as they daydream about food is one of the highlights of this segment.

The chase through the city was quite a feat for me to orchestrate, as city backgrounds are already hard, but having to draw a variety of them in a row was definitely a problem. Again, I wished I'd put more thought into the designs of the minor characters who participated.

This is the chapter where I confirmed my hatred for drawing cities, although it does feel very satisfying at times. The big crowd scene featured above really makes me feel proud when I look at all the stuff going on in it. I really liked having lots of spots to draw friends' and peers' characters!

Pages 38 - 48 (Nick's Introduction and The Reveal)

This section helped elaborate more on Laska as a character with mental health issues. She's not consumed entirely by them; her cockiness in Nick's workshop is a window into how she is when she's in a comfortable situation.

Nick, by the way, was an absolute must in terms of being introduced to the comic. I never saw a sort of character like him before: a flirtatious, goofy sort of hunk in a position otherwise filled with stoic sorts of characters. He was fun to draw and write and I can't wait to use more of him. Not to mention he was useful for furthering the mystery of Laska's arms, the stinger at the end of the chapter.

Laska's arms were always intended to be mysterious in origin and function, and though I always knew that was the plan for her, it was certainly jarring for others. I will remedy this and clarify that it's not some weird time travel BS or otherwise infuriating plot-twisty thing, because those are things I don't care to read and write. That said, I liked drawing them. They look cool and foreign compared to everything around her, which I hope helps give reason to her hiding them all the time.

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I definitely hit my stride by the end: everything looks pretty darn great compared to anything else I've done before! I'm super proud of everything I did so far, and I look forward to improving further!

My big takeaways from this chapter are:

• Design minor characters BEFORE they appear
• Work on building designs
• Try to focus my storytelling more

The future of this comic is relatively unknown. I have plans, but not much is cemented particularly well at the moment. But I have a direction, and I hope you'll all be happy to follow me as I go!