Twin Dragons

Let’s continue the poll summary from last week, shall we? 😀

1. More backgrounds for the characters

I saw this one appear several times. You people ask for more background on Benji, Cleo and Rex. I’m glad to say that everyone will get more screen time eventually. Especially Benji has two full chapters planned around him and his backstory already. I can’t say exactly when it will appear, as the next two chapters are planned to be different, but the chapters are there and will happen!

2. Hybrid abilities!

How do they breath fire? Do they have scales? How strong are they? Many questions, and I did say last year I would go into more detail about these. I even has some sketches to go with it, but things happened and I forgot about it until it was time for the poll again this year. I do have some ideas on how to implement this in between chapters now, but we will see.

3. Build that world!

Worldbuilding, the basis for the entire world of the story. While I based myself on our current world, there are quite some things that have to be adjusted to fit the hybrids in there. Not all things are adjusted, even in Hybrid City, since we are still in the first generation of hybrids. Many of you wanted to see more of the world, and I will try to do so, both in the comic and outside of it. One thing I saw asked was how hybrids were treated in other parts of the world. Maybe I do some small side comics about that at some point. What I can tell you already is that it’s not like Hybrid City everywhere in the world. Some hybrids don’t get treated very well. This is the reason that many of them move to Hybrid City or another part of the world where they are accepted when they are able to. Jesse and his little brother are such an example. While not treated bad directly, they wouldn’t have much of a future in their home country because they were hybrids. It’s new and lots of people just don’t understand or trust them for some reason.

4. Why dragons? Are there other mythological beasts?

Good question. If you remember my earlier post about inspiration for Twin Dragons, you will know that the inspiration for Kai came from a great dragon OC from RuDragon. This is the reason why Kai and Kaya are dragons. Pretty simple reason, I know :p Are there other mythological hybrids? Yes! They are rare and far between, and generally there is only one of each. Kai and Kaya being twins AND mythological is extremely rare. We will see another mythological in the next chapter, so look out for that 😀

5. How did their old town end up?

I didn’t expect people to want to know what happened to the twin’s old town so much, but here you are, asking anyway xD Truth be told, I didn’t plan this and I can’t answer that right now. Since so many of you want to know about it, I should come with an answer to that, so I will. Once again, I can’t say when, but I’ll try to implement it in the story somehow.

I normally keep the newsletter content contained inside the mails that I sent out, but it was pointed out to me that this week’s content was something that should be kept online. To say it with their words, the post should be ‘immortalized’ on my website.

The post talked about inspiration, and more specifically about what inspired me to start making the story of Twin Dragons. The following text comes straight from the newsletter. Enjoy ^^

So I recently had a talk about where my inspiration for Twin Dragons came from. Questions like this make me think and I came to the conclusion that inspiration is such a weird thing.

Back when I was inspired to take up drawing, I knew that I wanted to make comics. I was inspired by webcomics, anime, manga,… to make my own stories and I would draw them! My inspiration back then was a whole lot different than it is now. My first inspiration was Love Hina from Ken Akamatsu. He is still my favourite manga authors to date. Sure, there are manga authors that have better art, better composition, better stories, better characters,… But Ken Kamatsu holds a special place in my heart as the person that got me to draw. Needless to say that a lot of inspiration back then came directly from his works.

Fast forward to now, and I see I took inspiration from a lot more places over the years. Inspiration, in my opinion, comes from something that excites you. You could be playing a game and suddenly get inspired to make a story about it. You could see someone walking across the street and wonder what is in the bag they are holding. Suddenly you have all the inspiration needed to write a story about a serial killer that carries around parts of their victims in bags xD

When I was talking about what inspired Twin Dragons, I went and talked about the very first version of the story, that was vastly different, and how I got to where we are now. As I type this, I realized that wasn’t really the answer to that question. It was the process of going from an initial idea to a fleshed out story.

So, the real answer to what inspired Twin Dragons, would be a very simple one. I got inspired to draw my own dragon character when I discovered the artist RuDragon (Phation on deviantart) and his little pink dragon character named Ru. I loved his artstyle and I loved Ru, so eventually, I drew myself a dragon as well. This first drawing of Kai looked nothing like what Kai looks like now. But through the years, Kai stuck around. He wouldn’t let go, and in turn, I wouldn’t let go. Now the comic has been running for over three years, Kai got a twin sister and some great friends. He’s on an adventure of life right now.

So that’s the real answer to what inspired Twin Dragons. It goes to show that great ideas can be inspired by the simplest of things.