Carmen Page
This page is about a university project of mine where I made a storyboard for the pilot of a manga series. The setting is a modern fantasy city, with a heavy emphasis on cassette futurism for it's aesthetic. The imaginary series would feature the main character, Carmen, working for an urban mercenary group operating out of modern waterdeep post-some new spellplague like event. I may try touching on this project again one day.
Here you can see some of the ideas I worked through for the city. Above is an idea I adapted into a scene in blender. There is an emphasis on diverse architecture, but I always imagined a lot of brutalist architecture. I sketched some technology I imagined in the world, including some real 90s tech. The place that inspired the design of the city the most is a real city called Chongqing, in China. The image below is from the city, and you can see that reflected in the work above, as well as in the blender rendering of it.
Carmen herself has a lot of work put into her, because I needed a clear idea as to who she was. I think a world can be fairly fantastical, but if a character doesn't feel very believable it's a huge problem for me. I went through a lot of different expressions and outfits for her; I decided all of the Kas'Atelier characters would have a uniform, but how they treat it would be what defines their style. Here, Carmen wears her uniform loosely; shirt untucked and tie undone, it suggests a listless outlook on life.
The sketch to the right depicts the dynamic between Carmen and a foil character. I like making sketches like this when I can, because showing how characters interact with each other helps me understand more about both of them.
This sketch I think does a lot to demonstrate the vibe of this character and the city they are in. The city is expansive and complex, with lots of people moving through its streets. Carmen is defined most notably by her face. Seemingly locked in a perpetual frown, she has a jarring and off-putting smile. I really enjoyed making some purposefully awkward smiles, and the energy felt really unique.
Below are some sketches of the dwarf in Kas'Atelier. The character is meant to feel old and wise. He acts as a kind mentor to Carmen when she joins the group. His function in the organization is as an anti-mage, specializing in magic nullification and defeating spellcasters that he's ordered to.
Kas'Atelier is the urban mercenary group that operates throughout the city. Most of what they do though, is try to quell various anomalies caused by the aftermath of this modern spellplague. At the start of this imaginary series, Carmen gets recruited into the agency due to their diverse skillset.
Here you can see some sketches for this drow/tiefling characrer. This character acts as a foil to Carmen, so it made sense to me to reflect that in every way I could. While Carmen is a human, which is fairly common, a drow/tiefling is entirely unique. Carmen doesn't wear much jewelry, but her foil is audacious and is adorned with rings and earrings. Overall this characters foils Carmen's quiet appearance with an entirely loud one.
Down here are some more loose ideas of characters, an ancient elven warrior who leads, or at least is high ranking, in Kas'Atelier, and a halfling character.
