Moonlit Spiral: Rion Corsair

Happy Monday! As promised, I'm going to start sharing some of the characters from my future graphic novel this week (see the collection link I started below). 

When developing a new story, my first step is usually figuring out who is going to be in it. I tend to sketch a little, type a little and then go back and forth between those two things before something begins to form. I knew I wanted a bright, slightly fantastical adventure type vibe, and I needed characters that would help bring that to life. Naturally I looked to what I know--my own kids! But at the same time they needed to not look at all like my kids in order to keep me from adhering too close to their personalities and therefor not letting my own characters evolve into what the story needed them to be.

So these sketches will be some of the earliest concepts for THE MOONLIT SPIRAL. It'll be the first of these character development posts before I get around to showing some actual working pages for the book. Like me, I think it'll be beneficial that you have a sense of who the main cast is before getting to those. 

So let's get started!

This is Rion (short for Orion) Corsair, the primary protagonist of the book.

In my initial proposal that went out to publishers I described him as such:

Rion is not fast. Nor is he strong, fearless, or particularly graceful. But he is clever—particularly when it comes to patterns and puzzles—and he can be stubbornly argumentative in solving them. Sometimes his pride can get in the way of seeing an obvious solution to a problem, but his motivations for solving them always come from a place of virtue—morals his parents bestowed on him before passing away five years ago.

Most of this has stayed intact. Having now completely written the book, I can't say I really depict him being weak of clumsy so I'm not sure I would have included those descriptions today. I'd say the biggest change I made (besides upping his age a full year) is make him a touch cynical, mainly so he has something to grow out of by the end of the story. If the main character isn't somehow changed during the course of the adventure, there's very little reason for me to chronicle their story (or for anyone else to read it for that matter).

Here's some of my earliest sketches of Rion trying to nail down a look that matched his personality in my head. That odd lettering at the top is actually how my own son Orion (who I named him after) once signed his name. I just thought it looked cool.

*NOTE: While I named Orion after my youngest son (currently age 8), he's actually more based off my eldest, Oliver (currently age 12), who tends to be very analytical, usually completely (and frustratingly accurately) logical and fiercely into video games. Also kinda lazy, but I mean, he's 12. He's also very, VERY creative and loving.

in some of those above doodles, Rion is drawn kinda tough looking. I was just working though some ideas and very quickly backtracked on that thought. But you can also see how I landed on the darker skin tone and that side patch of hair as well. There's was an unkemptness that fit right to me with that haircut but mostly I thought it'd be fun to draw. That head closest to my signature is what looked the most right to me so that's what I moved on with.

Rion's past relationship with his parents, Cyrus and Orlina, plays a fairly prominent role in the motivation behind his journey. They aren't in the book much, but I still wanted to get a sense of what they might look like. I think the main difference I've made since this drawing here is to also make his mom blonde so as to match Rion's hair color.

It picked Corsair as their last name because of its connection with pirates and privateering. There's a long legacy of treasure hunting in Rion's world and a name like that helps get that idea out there very quickly. It also sounds adventurous not to mention having a simple nice, two-syllable rhythm to it (which is like a middle-grade book staple).

And I've often said you can never truly know someone until you see where they live, so here's an early illustration of Rion in his basement bedroom. Photos of various past treasure hunters line the walls and old storage chests clump beneath them. A large number of pages of the book take place in this room and it's been both fun and challenging to circulate around it. That long eared pet sitting beside him is Murf, a wooly lop. 

I'll get to all those snails eventually too. But I think that's enough for now! On Wednesday, I'll share a bit about his best friend Zyla.