The story concept
This idea for this world began as a series of sketches for a potential comic/short story in a collaborative anthology of fairy tales — among the ideas kicked around at that time were an altered version of “Sleeping Beauty” (jokingly referred to as that feminist story with unintentional bondage but will evolve to the yet-to-be-written “Sleeping Prince” alluded to in the Tales) and a tale about Red Riding Hood (in which I wanted to destroy readers minds by combining sci-fi/fantasy/abstraction). That project went into parking mode as the collaborators got distracted, but I continued painting the characters.
I’m not sure what happened to the idea of a comic except that I had traumatic flashbacks to a comic turned fiction work called “The Intended Heir” that derailed because I hated my own attempts at sequential art xD. So after some soul searching while on the anime Artist Alley circuit, I decided to develop the art into a longer written work. I thought that I could grow a story from Red Riding Hood, one in which I could build a base upon the basic theme found in that fairy tale and make my own brand of Jane Austenian fantasy xD. (Of course, being a huge warped fan of fantasy and Bradbury/Asimov/Vonnegut, thought I would explore drama to its fullest – playing with complex characters, societal themes like prejudice and racism and class, and toss in random human drama of the television variety sort.)
That said, as additional artwork started to be added to pile, it was clear that Red Riding Hood was only a small piece of a larger world with multiple stories and anecdotes to share.
It got huge.
Introducing the World: Red Riding Hood Arc (Book 1 and 2)
This first “arc” will begin when a “Red Riding Hood” appears in the Northlands, domain of the troubled and aloof Wolf.
Unlike his Grimm Brothers counterpart that is all beast, the Wolf is a key figure in a world filled with strange halflings (as it were), who are neither human or creature and who live in a strange mix of fantasy and science fiction oddities.
As for the young Red Riding Hood, she arrives as a messenger from another domain, one of the first that will arrive in the Northlands over various story arcs.
Other stories, other creations:
“Unicorns Walk Among Us,” was a concept originally thought of from the perspective of the girl Lily and the unicorn but was changed in proposed format and thematic element to test my appetite for short stories.
Other short and long works are planned, although many may consist of narratives about the kinds of creatures that populate the larger world (beyond the Northlands). These include stories designed to explain other artistic works that appear at Deviantart.