Chaudine‘s and Taya‘s encounter occurred just a few days ago on page 61 of the Chaos prologue, hinting their long-time rivalry. It was one of the oldest manga scenes I worked on since I edited the prologue again and again over the years. Although there was barely an equal verbal exchange, Chaudine’s development and her way of speaking towards Taya have an interesting history. Not too long ago, I browsed through my old files and found several manga pages which also depicted the first ‘dialogue’ scene between Taya and Chaudine. This scene also simply reflects the development of my drawing style and the designs of my characters, as you can see below.
Oh yeah… totally forgot that Winrow wore glasses in the early versions. Look at this mug!
Prologue 2015: Rivalry of Love
My memories of the early scripts are a bit hazy. Mostly because the majority of my old manga pages only exist as sketches. I still remember that the prologue from 2015 was about a secret laboratory hidden in an ancient library fortress called ‘The Memoirium’. Everything started from a classic inn where Winrow – the main protagonist – and his team of travellers stayed overnight to prepare their exploration. Chaudine was a member among them and also Winrow’s childhood friend. Although she was Winrow’s ally, even back then she was rather a troublemaker. She thinks low of Taya due to her relatioship with Winrow and never misses an opportunity to mistreat his girlfriend Taya. An clichéd love rivalry motivated by envy and full of embarassing cat fight moments…
In the 2016 version of the Chaos Prologue the story took place in a high-class train.
Prologue 2016: Rivalry & Discrimination
At some point in time, I decided to redraw the whole prologue chapter. Chaudine was not a competitor of love anymore. She still hated Taya nonetheless because of her roots to the enslaved dragon tribe. Around this time I came up with the idea to use a more brownish monochrome tone which I thought would be a nice distinctive visual element.
Chaudine’s expressions became more coarse in the final version to outline the contrast of her aristocratic roots.
Prologue 2018: My sister is My Archenemy
In the final manga iteration the prologue takes place on a warship. Chaudine, now introduced as Winrow‘s half-sister, must compete against him for the inheritance of the Malevolus clan. In addition she becomes more arrogant, extremely rude and has a tendency to violence.
That’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed my newest insight about early story developments. This will not be the only example of pages and scenes I want to compare with the older versions. Please look forward for my next entry! Until then, stay tuned as ever. Love ya!~
