Hey, my Squids!
It’s been awhile since I’ve talked about the development of Taliah and some of the ins, outs, and why’s of certain decisions made in the past and certain decisions being made now, but part of my goal is to better explain some of the things I change so that they don’t seem sudden. One of those decisions, as innocuous as it seems, is Leira’s skin tone.
Just a little history lesson for those who aren’t familiar with how Taliah came to be but around six years ago, I started drawing again after twenty years. Shortly after, I drew two characters named Micah and Xolani. My original goal was to draw a picture of the two of them leaning against a tree with their weapons in the ground, cuddled together after a grand adventure. That was literally the birth of Taliah. My skills in art were very minimal, there were a lot of things I was desperately trying to relearn, so I tried to keep things as simple as possible. I decided I wanted to make a four person typical RPG party. Xolani was our tank, a paladin, and Micah was our DPS, as a sword person. I needed a ranged DPS and a healer. I wasn’t too confident in my abilities to make a ranger type and I couldn’t draw animals (this becomes funny in a second), so I decided to make a mage. I was originally going to call her Ariel but thought it would be more fun to invert the name, so Leira was born. Tonally, Xolani was dark skinned with a white outfit and Micah was a medium tone (they were a she at the time and she was Hispanic/Latina) with pinks and blacks, so I made Leira white with reds and grays. I also made her hair blonde (Xolani had red/yellow hair and Micah had black). Atticus, our cleric, was created at the same time and he slotted into our greens and yellows with dark skin and black hair department. Color wise, they satisfied my need to have representation across the board.
The thing is, when you first create something and when you’re in the process of putting it out and refining it, you’re going to change things. You’re especially going to change things if your skills as both an artist and your understanding of how to put together something like a comic book grow over the years. These initial four characters would also change. While Xolani’s outfit stayed relatively unchanged at first, I changed her hair several times before landing on what she has now. Her outfit was simple to start because I wasn’t sure how “quickly” I would be able to draw it in subsequent panels. Micah, on the other hand, was the first character to go through massive changes: she became they; their outfit went from pink and black to blue, purple, and black; their hair changed to blue; they went from Latino to Asian; they inherited a southern accent; and they gained two pink crystals to use as foci. Leira and Atticus, for the most part, stayed the same because their colors still fit the spectrum I wanted. Leira’s mole moved around a bit but finally landed next to her right nostril and directly under the middle of her right eye.
Sometimes, though, the reason you draw certain things is because of concessions: not enough confidence, not enough skill, not enough knowledge about how you can adequately express yourself through art. It’s taken roughly six years but I’ve finally reached the point where my ideas and my execution are nearly one to one. I can think of a scene and I can create it without thinking it’s impossible. There have been overly complicated scenarios and pieces I’ve now done that I couldn’t conceive how to start six years ago. That includes the writing and publishing of the webcomic. When I started, there was a simpler storyline and a simpler world. Taliah was an experiment to see if I… could. See if I could write a comic again, if I could draw it, if I wanted to and loved drawing the same people over and over again, if I could convince other people to even look at it. There were moments where I didn’t think I would be working on this for as long as I have. But no one can predict something like that, especially if, when you started, you drew these characters as a way to get better at art.
But it’s six years later. You’re approaching your 100th page. You have two and a half chapters finished. You’ve pulled a ton of backstory forward so readers know more about these characters earlier. You’ve created untold number of new characters. You’ve drawn your main cast dozens upon dozens of times outside of the comic itself. Now the main character, Leira, who stepped in while you were adjusting the story to start with a character who has a “boring” job (a zoologist) being thrown into the craziest adventure of their entire life, has been given a ton of backstory. When you created her, she was just a a blonde, white mage lady, someone to draw spell casting through. She didn’t play guitar then but she does now. She wasn’t even in a band then but she is… or was… now. She wasn’t even a zoologist, a magickal zoologist at that, but she is now. And the biggest one? Back then, all of the characters just spoke English. There weren’t other languages yet. But as you started developing Taliah, you realized the richness of the previous stories you wrote and told were in part due to the myriad of languages and cultures that were featured. All fictional but all real to that world. Why not Taliah? In fact, wouldn’t it be fun if your main character didn’t speak the equivalent of English as their first language? They spoke something completely different. And now that you’ve added in times where they’ll see letters from their mom, wouldn’t it be awesome if that language was featured in the comic itself? That’s when Abaroguian, as a language, was born. Abarogue had already been featured in the scripts but turning the region and city into both a language and a different culture was the next piece.
Now Leira speaks a different language, one that borrows from Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian while having some English grammar rules and Japanese particle usage. It’s a language built by hand to serve in explaining who she is as a person. Her relationship with the world she lives in, the people she knows, her job, her magick. Abarogue and the Abaroguian language now have a backstory that stretches back millennia. But in creating it, there had to be a real life base, something that I drew inspiration from. “Where would Abaroguians exist if they lived on Earth” became a frequent question. And it’s obvious: Central and South America. Their culture would be just as vibrant, as beautiful, as captivating and grounding as Latin American countries. Places where people I love with all my heart live. Abaroguians would be the same way.
While Abaroguians cover a gamut of color and tone like the places and peoples that inspire how I see them, the truth is that people who spend a ton of time in nature would be kissed by the sun in great amounts. Leira’s tone was created before any of this was in place. She was created after Xolani (dark skin) and Micah (a medium tone) were created. She was aesthetically created to contrast those two, so I purposely made her lighter, blonde, and blue-eyed. But the reality is that I don’t need to constrain myself like that any longer. Not only am I a better artist but my ability to use color and tonality has increased dramatically. Already, I’ve made changes to the characters visually: Leira has a brand new red and black outfit with black hair and Xolani and Micah will don their new outfits during Chapter 3. The last thing to do is to set Leira’s skin tone to match where she comes from. So I made Leira darker.
The drawing attached to this post was drawn ages ago, I just never finished it but it works as a great base to show the difference. The first drawing is how she’s appeared for the last six years. The second is how her skin will appear going forward. The third features her new hair and makeup, which makes it far easier to tell the difference. She’s a zoologist who spends tons of time in the sun, lived in a region where she was outside a lot as a child, and loves and celebrates that fact. She would be the opposite of her father: retaining her heritage, language, and features because of how proud she is of them. She’s an Abaroguian woman who loves where she comes from and wouldn’t have it any other way.
I won’t go back and change what I’ve drawn. Not only is it not needed but it ultimately doesn’t matter when there will be far more drawings as time goes on with how Leira should have looked all this time than how she used to look. I’m just happy that one final piece of the puzzle regarding how my characters should look has finally slotted itself into place (the last one is Atticus, who I’ve changed design wise from all of the pre-release artwork I showed off but you’ll see him soon). I know most people won’t care about how I’ve darkened Leira a shade or two but I hope those who inspire me get to see themselves in the art I produce. I want to try to give representation to everyone because everyone matters.
Anyway, this is a long winded way of saying Leira is darker and closer to how she should have always been. Hope you’ve enjoyed this little insight into how and why I make some of the decisions that I do for the webcomic. Take care, my Squids.