the old grey bear he aint what he used to be

“Magic” Mizzle of Kamputhwick

Mizz is the first denizen of Idjarden that Ellie meets. He’s a gnome wizard and a scholar of just about every subject you could name. As somebody who knows a great deal about the world and its past, he seems an ideal guide for Ellie’s journey through this strange land. Mizz is regarded as a bit loony by his fellow gnomes, but regardless, he is an extremely accomplished wizard who is a great asset to Ellie in facing the myriad dangers of the myriad dungeons that hold the secrets of the Aegis.

Mizz is a fairly important character, but none of the other days really seemed the right time to introduce him. So I’m extending the 30-day challenge one more day (deal with it).

The Raven Queen Comes to the Void

Shortly after the incident that cost Anne her eye and stranded her in Idjarden, her travels lead her to the barren wastes at the edge of the world. The Void, formerly an expanse of nothingness containing residual magics and untethered energy, is remade as a fortress for a self-appointed queen.

And that’s thirty days! Thanks a lot people, it’s been fun. I’ll continue posting Ellie-related stuff from time to time and hopefully I’ll have a real comic to show off before too long!!!

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So yeah I drew this yesterday because I read the list wrong, but whatever.

This picture sort of represents adventure, which is I guess the main point of Ellie, and how it is awesome and terrifying at the same time. Much like being alive at all, and also like growing up, I guess. Growing up isn’t really a huge theme of Ellie, mostly because I feel like that’s been done to death, and would be a really easy way to make a story. The coming-of-age tale is such a touchstone of fiction that it would basically write itself. Ellie is more about facing the unknown, understanding yourself, and pondering the nature of reality, and I’d like to think it will be more interesting to write about than another clumsily-handled metaphor for puberty.

Also, I just wanted to draw a dragon.

School Picture Day

Actually Ellie’s most embarrassing moment has been covered already, on Day 16 (it was also her first romantic encounter) but this was funny, and it was certainly embarrassing for her.

Fun fact, Ellie here is dressed up as the original design for Hyacinth, one of the characters in my other comic project, Down the Road. The dress+pigtails design hasn’t been used since I was about seventeen, haha.

We’ve already basically covered what Ellie does in Idjarden, so this is sort of an average day for her back at home: bored at school. When not in school she can usually be found playing video games, reading, or running around outside with Kenny.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to reveal the Aegis and it’s role in the story. This is the charm bracelet Ellie’s grandmother gave her before she died. A small sword and shield, to mark a child’s love of fantasy and adventure. However when Ellie gets to Idjarden, she discovers her cherished bracelet is something more. She finds a small gemstone, perfectly shaped to fit in the shield charm. When placed in the recessed surface of the shield, the stone grants her a new form and powers to match. She learns there are a number of these stones hidden throughout the land, and mystified by these powerful magical objects that seem to be tailor-made for her, Ellie sets out on a journey to uncover the secrets of the Aegis.

In all there are eight Aegis stones to be found, mostly hidden in dungeons and labyrinths throughout Idjarden. The first one Ellie finds is the Aegis of the Wood, deep in an overgrown wooded temple. Ellie’s Wood form looks like this:

This is a defensive Aegis, with thick, wooden armor and a helmet. Roots prevent her dropping either sword or shield in this form, though her mobility is limited. Other Aegis are more offensively-geared, and each is good in certain situations.

When Ellie wakes up after spending the night outside under a large, old tree. This is the first night she’s spent away from home and when she sees the sun rise, it finally hits her just how huge a thing she’s done, and how real her decision to run away was. She’s maybe a little scared because she knows if she does go home now she’s really going to get it, but either way, she’s already done something greater than she’s ever done before. She has made a real, tangible, indestructible imprint on her own life for perhaps the first time.

Last fall, after I had finally gotten a steady job, after I had worked there for a few months, long enough to reasonably assume I was going to be staying for a fair while, I started getting back into Legos. I dug out all my old Legos (well, everything that hadn’t been stolen) and started keeping them around my desk and bought a few smallish new sets. My favorite part of Lego has always been the minifigures. I love their placid yellow expressions, I love the variety of accessories you can get for them these days, I love the tiny detail Lego puts into the printing of their little armor and clothes and everything else. Lego minifigures always make me think of the Legend of Zelda series, and how as a kid I would always try to make the most accurate Link I could out of the limited amount of parts available to me. I always loved games like that, like Zelda and Earthbound and Secret of Mana - where kids just sort of find a sword (okay, maybe that didn’t happen in earthbound) and adventures just sort of happen. So I sort of absent-mindedly started doodling a little kid with a sword. This was the first picture of what would eventually crystallize into Ellie.

At this point Ellie didn’t have a name, in fact it wasn’t immediately clear to me that Ellie was even a girl. This kid could really be either.

So while Legos sort of planted the seed, most of Ellie’s inspiration is drawn from the Legend of Zelda video game series. Another huge inspiration is magical girl/Super Sentai shows, where characters change form, get power upgrades, and so on - the 30 days challenge hasn’t really reflected this part of the story, but it is a pretty big aspect.

The third biggest component to the inspiration behind Ellie is my own life. You might have noticed Ellie was playing a Super NES in yesterday’s picture. There’s another page that probably won’t end up getting used that features a poster in the background of Ellie’s room for a book fair at her school, dated 1992. It’s largely irrelevant to the story, but Ellie takes place in 1993, the same year I was eleven years old. A lot of the elements that make Ellie who she is - love of reading, a yearn for adventure, a passion for sword and sorcery type things, and a sense of just not really being who other people expect you to be - are all pretty much me, even if I don’t read as much now as I did when I was eleven. Ellie’s dad, who tries to force her into a rigid, old-fashioned gender performace and is openly racist against her only friend, is a pretty direct interpretation of my own father.

There’s also a whole host of smaller things that inspire or inform Ellie in some way, too, like Calvin and Hobbes, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Neverending Story, Homestuck, and even most of the books from Day Two like A Wind In The Door and The Phantom Tollbooth. All of these things deal largely with kids, and the way kids see and interact with the world, and most of them involve kids becoming heroes in some way.

So wow that was a pretty long post. I’ve actually been looking forward to this day for a while, haha.

Hosted offsite so tumblr doesn’t fuck up the animation (tumblr i hate when you do that)

So anyway, this is Ellie’s room and the Starling house. This was the first page to the comic, which I made like, months and months back when I first had the idea for Ellie in the first place. I’m posting it now because it’s almost certainly not going to be the first page of the comic anymore, and I thought it was neat. Animation like this is something I plan on integrating throughout the comic.

Also I totally draw Ellie different now, her nose isn’t nearly that big any more

This is the only animal I’ve got designed as of the moment. It’s sort of a riff on Kobolds and the RPG trope of always fighting rats when you first start. Its sort of a dire beaver, i guess. Not sure whether to call it a Kobold or something beavery. Gnawbold? I dont know. They are aggressive herbivores. Yes, that’s a thing in Idjarden.