Sneak Peek - Hollow (a "werewolf" story)

"The smith": A worn-looking man of uncertain age.
His eyes are grey, dull and cold, almost lifeless, with just a tiny hint of green showing under the right angle. His features are tired, belying his actual age. Whoever would look at him couldn't help but notice broken nose and a long scar running horizontally across his left temple. It cuts through both his left eyebrow and left ear, leaving the latter partially severed. Hair along the scar is discolored. If he were to undress, there would be more scars to find, usually on the left side of his body. Most of them appear to be clawmarks of some sort.

"The wolf": Eerily otherworldly beast, its coat mostly pale or white, to the point where it's hard to spot in the snow, but glows in a moonlit forest. Its form is vaguely wolf-like, but distinctly different. Long, bear-like claws, odd, non-wolf-like proportions and head devoid of readable features give it an uncanny appearance. Its body has a flow to it, with very little to break the form from head to tail. It should appear broad, but not visibly muscular. When standing on all fours, it is shorter than a man, but visibly larger then a common wolf.

Remember how I posted that "Calico" concept a few weeks back? I have a few ideas like that constantly chittering around my skull; ideas with little more than a name, a face and the basic concept hanging around their bones. I generally pay them little mind until they grow on their own (or ignore them if they never do).

Such was the case with Hollow. It originally dates back to some... 2015, I think? It basically started on a whim of me wanting to write Slavic fantasy somewhere on my bucket list. There wasn't much to it – I knew I wanted the protagonist to be a blacksmith, I knew what he looked like, I knew where I wanted the wolf design to go and I knew what kind of... a relationship I want between the protagonist and the supernatural element, for the lack of a better spoiler, but that was about it.

But earlier this month, when I was sketching out my Patreon wish fulfilment, my memory dug up those ideas, so I roughly threw them at canvas, and then a thought for a scene came to mind, inspired by my recent endeavors in other places. So I sat down and wrote it. Then I wrote the cause and consequence. Then a few more here and there. And then I wrote The End.

And then I had a script on my hands?

...

Wait... that can't be right.

Huh. October was certainly the month of interesting changes, to say the least. I mean, I wasn't planning on finishing an entire script for a short graphic novel; were you?

So yeah, there's now a script for a short (well... 50-60 pages, which is short by my standard) story about a blacksmith living in the dark ages of Central Europe who has a bit of a problem and who goes on to attempt to solve said problem with varying degrees of success.

I have a bit of a dilemma on my hands now; on one hand, I could finish the storyboard by February. On the other, I need to work on Pirates, too, and those are under a bit of an arbitrary deadline. Whatever ends up winning, I can promise you that a) you'll be the first to know and b) at least watching me juggle those things should provide rather amusing.

P.S.: There is a story reason for the smith to be this mangled. I generally don't add this amount of scars and bodily damage just willy-nilly because it "looks cool" or something. x)