Daugther of Atlantis - graphic novel
3rd place winner in Egmont's comic contest 2021
Written by Lucy K. Østmann & illustrated by Tiril J. Bellinghiri
In 2021 me and one of my closest friends got together to participate in Egmonts comic contest with our graphic novel "Daugther of Atlantis". The concepts and ideas had been with us for a while, but the contest was the kick we needed to finally produce something to show for it.
Over 200 talented artists and writers participated with their works and we made it to the top 25 semi finalists, which in itself was a huge honor considering how amazingly skilled all the participants were. So we had to do a double take when we found ourself in 3rd place during the finals, it was incredibly humbling to get that kind of recognition for something we were so passionate about. So thank you so much to the judges for giving us that love and appreciation!
Concept - characters
The story is fully written, but still a work in progress as far as publishing goes. I won't say much of anything about that aspect of our process here however, since I merely contribute as far as design and illustration goes.
We wanted the feel to be high fantasy, very ethereal and dreamy, to contrast Iris's dull and frustrating life on land. Atlantis is full of magic and colors, and the creatures are fantastical, so we wanted to bring the reader the feeling of escaping reality through the visuals all the while relating to the pov character.
Added importance was representation and inclusivity; we wanted to tell a story of relatable lgbtq female characters. It was a big part of the creative process to create something we ourselves wanted to read, or would have liked to read when we were the target demographic.
The story is beautifully fleshed out, and I hope I can catch up with the visuals in a timely manner, but for the contest we primarily focused on the aspects that would be visible in the snapshot 12 pages over a 1 month deadline.
Progress - sketches
I just want to include a little slideshow with the development sketches for the 12 comic pages we did for the contest over a 2 week period! The required amount of pages was 5, but I wanted the breathing room to properly show off the intended pacing of the story so I added 7 additional pages to get the desired effect.
We chose a snippet of the story that would be artistically possible to render for the deadline, while still giving the reader an idea of the story without giving away too much. Lucy participated with some layout planning and murals.
