ADragonSoulArt
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Comic Cover for A Queen's Diary

A Queen’s Diary

Completed 2023

Content Warning:

 Insects | Ommetaphobia | trypophobia

Recommended: +13

A cosmic horror story about a queen ant’s journey in life from her ant perspective but narrated with a human element.

Featuring abstract depictions of the environment inspired by the limited sight line of ants.

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Behind the comic

A queens diary was a fun little challenge for my self to complete a more “spur of the moment” story within the year. I was inspired by my own interaction with the species featured in the comic (Prenolepis imparis). I had started writing this comic about a year after first encountering this fascinating species. And now I keep a couple colonies of this fascinating species.

In a funny way you could say this comic is an autobiography of ant keeping but from the ant’s perspective.

And just in general diving into my love for ants and getting to share just how remarkable and tender these animals can be.

I had played around with different methods for the styles. With my main focus being on time saving and enjoyably. Drawing ants en-mass is no easy feat and considering it was going to be pages full of them just because of the nature of ant colonies. I really wanted an easy and enjoyable way to achieve this look.

Because of this, I had the idea of; What if A Queen’s Diary used 3D? I had been wanting to try  a 3D + 2D comic already so this would be a great opportunity!

So, I set out on making this a mixed dimensions project.

A cartoony but still respective to the anatomy depiction of the inner workings of ant colony. Done to practice the style for the comic A Queens Diary.
One of the initial style practice for A Queen’s Diary. While it was visually appealing it was very time consuming and not quite reaching the feeling I was wanting for the comic. Most of all, it wasn’t very enjoyable to draw this way.
3D models of ant worker, queen, and drone, all in their respective T-Pose.
The models prior to rigging.
3D models of an ant queen, worker, drone, and brood post rigging allowing them all to be posed more naturally and scaled proportionately.
Post rigging and scaling.

During that spring semester I spent my time both scripting the comic and making the 3D models for it.

None of the models were sculpted, their mesh was done by hand for better optimization.

Gif of the worker ant 3D model doing a little side to side stick bug like dance to demostrate the 3D model's rig.
little dance to show off the rig.

However, once I got to the page making process I found myself having to force myself to work on the pages, and generally not enjoying the process.

I took a step back to reflect on why I was feeling this way and also what my visual goals were originaly.

A 3D render of ants in a stylized underground environment with purple tones
An initial style test when I was thinking about doing A Queen’s Diary in full 3D.

I ultimately came to the conclusion that I had drifted far from my original concept for the comic. The idea of mostly monotone with exception for the queen we follow was something that had stuck with me.

Part of me felt bad tossing aside the 3D models I had made, but I do hope to find a use for them eventually in the future. However they did come to use a few times during the making of the comic, and quite honestly I should have used them more!

A Queens Diary page 1 depicting ants in their day to day activites. The ants are made of 3D models were as the background are digitally painted.
First iteration of page 1 with the mixed 2D 3D layout and models.
A Queen's Diary Banner image
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