CC 06: Ghost and Raven

[MetaShinryu]

Some more idea development stuff:

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The story of Ghost and Raven starts with the death of Angus Ravenloft, a master toy maker who lived an insular life with his wife and only daughter.



Angus, a nomad at heart, was eager to explore the world, and find himself staring in awe at the novel inventions of other master artisans across the globe.

He stayed at home for very short periods of times, in order to share his stories with his family and to work on new pieces to sell on his future expeditions.

His wife was Amanda Woolf, was a very superstitious woman with obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

She enjoyed observing her daughter Celine play with the dolls her father made for her, as well as organizing them by size, dress, haircut and eye color after she finished playing with them.

They would wait for weeks on end for his return, impatiently awaiting for the new discoveries he would make on his travels, and the new kinds of toys he would be able to make with newfound creative techniques.

One day they received a message that explained in detail how he had contracted an incurable disease in one of his expeditions, and died shortly after without even being able to return with his family.



Amanda was not able to cope with the loss, every afternoon she would stand motionless in front of her husbands portrait, crying for hours on end, and would only ever feel compelled to move when something in her environment changed, dust settling over the figures on his memorial table, her daughter going outside to play, night time falling...

When not in front of his portrait or taking care of household tasks, she would spend time in her husband's working room, looking at each and every one of the trinkets and creations spread across the multiple tables, getting short lived enjoyment from the memories they brought back, and painfully deciding which ones she was willing to sell in order to survive.

Celine however was more akin to her father, who aknowledged death as merely the return to the place where people truly belong, and much like him, she was quite fond of nature, and enjoyed the company of animals and going outside to explore her surroundings.

As time passed, she started growing weary of the heavy air the death of his father had left on their home, and went outside the home more and more often, leaving her mother with more time to herself...

In one of her little escapades she made an unlikely friend, in the outskirts of the Ravenloft manor, atop a tree visible from her room, a white raven had made a nest from pieces of cloth left behind while she played with her dolls she brought to the forest.



The bird recognized her clothing as being the same he used to build a home for his offsprings, and started following her everywhere.



All of a sudden, she had a reason to stay inside again...



She begun dusting off her father's old books about folklore and family history, and reading them aloud became a recurring activity they both seemed to enjoy; it was as if the bird could actually understand what was being read to him...



His company also rekindled her passion for drawing, an activity that started to lose appeal as her father's travels became long-winded, and the delay to show her etchings to someone who cared elongated... 

Meanwhile, her mother started behaving oddly, speaking out loud every thought that crossed her mind, getting rid of objects that belonged to her father, cursing "the day that foul bird barged in our lives"...

Unbeknownst to her daughter, these birds were regarded by her family members as guardian spirits, which symbolized their embrace of fate and death, and once met, would serve as companions to guide them to the afterlife...

In one of the few brief moments of self consciousness she still experienced, her mother began to wonder why her daughter started spending so much time inside her room, knowing she loves to go into the woods that surround their household.

For the longest time, she avoided disturbing her daughter when she actually choose to stay inside, fearing the only true company she had left would feel estranged by her intromision.

Until the fateful day when curiosity got the best of her...



Never had she felt as unnerved as when she heard the call of her mother as stairway footsteps became louder, and she recalled the funeral of his father, and the way her mother reacted to the sight of a similar bird once it sat atop the tombstone of his deceased husband. 

As her mother entered the room, the very few traces of sanity she had left completely vanished, as her eyes fixated on the sight of the painting her daughter was working on, she opened the closet doors only to find her alongside that... THING...

In a fit of uncontrollable rage she ripped appart most of her husband's books, burned all of her daughter's artwork, and robbed her of the only friend she had ever earned. 

Only a small paper sketch that fell under one of the tables remained...



Once her mother realized she realized she had escaped to give her friend a proper farwell, and returned soaked, with her hair made a mess, and her clothes ragged. the last words she uttered before locking her in her room were:

"You are just like your father, too much like him".

After this episode, a single thought invaded her mind: she would make sure her daughter would not suffer the same fate as his husband.

She began by trying to force her to dye her hair black, changing the color of her clothes, making sure there was no way for her to leave the house without her noticing, and spending every hour of the day thinking of ways to make her change.

But no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much effort she put into it, there was one thing she would never be able to change...

Or so she thought, until one day, while through her husband's remaining possessions, she stumbled upon a strange looking box, which gave her an interesting idea.



She could not afford to lose her, after all, she was all that remained, their masterpiece, their precious little doll...



After all the things that happened once this disgraceful idea came to existence, all her daughter desired was to return to the only place she'd felt as if she truly belonged.




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I was fooling around with the idea of switching around who died, and who was going nuts, the father losing his mind after his wife died, and wishing his daughter looked more like her, but i think this works better for the final image i am going for(a one-shot narrative illustration condensing all of the former images in a connect the dots fashion).

Pencil studies:








Gotta start working on comps and the final image now, deadline is almost there...