I had a rather insistent dream about drawing the two characters in the center over Saturday night, so apparently it was something that I needed to do. Spent a good chunk of Sunday pounding this out.
The characters, from left to right, are Orathane, Rory, Johara, and Novah from a defunct novel project called Interregnum. Novah is still in active use and I’m building a new home for her. The rest… Their status is a bit more vague. The co-writer of the project liberated it for her own profits some time ago and I didn’t find out until at least thirty chapters later. An awkward situation. Novah, developed solely by me, was not taken and I am grateful for that. While I primarily developed Rory and Johara and was quite involved in the development of Orathane, they were not spared. I ended up in the bizarre position of choosing between a long-standing friendship and bits of fiction. I ended up losing both anyways. As to why their status is a little vague, I don’t know how the characters were written afterwards. For all I know, their names were pasted onto completely different characters, effectively sending the characters in the image above into limbo.
So, here’s some hard-learned advice to aspiring writers or even veteran writers: Do not enter into a collaboration project without some sort of legal understanding. Yes, it’s often a fun and enriching experience, but it won’t be worth the heartbreak and resentment when the darker elements of human nature inevitably raise their hydra heads.
Art created in Manga Studio 5.
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