How much has your story changed from your original idea?

Quite a lot to be honest! When I first started writing it, it was a "manga" (at least, thats what i called it..) that took place in the typical Future Japan. It had a major monster-of-the-week set up going on, and was VERY Naruto + Inu Yasha! XD After picking the entire thing apart (and substituting the Japanese aesthetics for my own original world) it became something quite different. But I dream often of putting together an art book and dedicating quite a bit of it to the original designs in a compare and contrast kind of way! XD

My current ideas of what I'm doing with Ray Thunder have def changed from the original ideas I came up with in 2001/2002. The only thing that is still kind of the same is the a bit of the core dynamics in the relationship between Ray & his mother. In the original Ray was younger(8 yrs old) with powers and he was more cocky than angsty, Miranda was a bit more anime-sadist in her handling of Ray & his ego, and there was no Melanye, no Susanoo. Me changing up things, I added Melanye to be that calm to Ray's angst(though she too has her own issues- in which he tries to be there for her as well)...Miranda isnt sadist, but she isnt exactly Mom of the Year either. I created the element of Susanoo as a central plot line through which I can explore these characters.

Welcome Back Series was re-written and thought about so many freaking times it's unreal. At first it was just some weird exploration of an empty dreamworld with no plot and no ending, then some weird fetch quest plot involving collecting signatures for a journal, then I abandoned some of the plot to have some random female character come into the story and lament about her sad life who I never used again, I had jacob as a petty criminal who did drugs and got thrown in jail, then I abandoned it forever thinking it couldn't be made and recycled the main character into a separate canon where she was a wizard, I made mallena able to breath underwater and kris could fly. There was even a musical portion designed for it?? It was a mess how many separate storylines I thought out for this old comic of mine.

my main character was tall and goofy ..now hes more close to a gnome than anything else

The overall story of neon rabbit hasn't changed very much, other than a few details. Originally I was not going to explain the origins of the explosion that occurs at the outset of the comic. I was thinking of going for the same mystery elements seen in the movie 'Chronicle' where the source of the kids powers was never explained. Later on while fleshing out my story I did add in an explanation for the source of the explosion. (which is a long way into the future, but nevertheless will be touched on eventually.)

Another thing that changed dramatically was the type of hero the main character would end up being. After some contemplation I came to the conclusion that I didn't want her to be a run-of-the-mill superhero or a run-of-the-mill anti-hero, but to be somewhere in between the two. At the outset of the comic I wrote her with the notion of what a normal person would do with powers put into a though situation, but had to work that idea over a few times to get it to the point where her actions and choices were feasible.

What has changed most dramatically though is probably the characters personalities.
Originally, Dakota and Ai were both more laid-back, unmotivated, and passive. Their personalities were too similar so I had to change them up. The relationship both girls have with their families also changed dramatically.

Not a lot actually! I guess at most Wednesday7 has become a bit more serious of a story than before which I don't know if I'm happy about

My answer has pictures. There's a story behind my comic! Aren't I special!?

When I first started writing Templars in 2012 (that picture is from then) it was a very different beast. It was much more of a comedy-fantasy in the same vein as Discworld (but obviously not as good).

There was a story in there with some level of seriousness in it, it was much more brutal (in the opening chapter an entire town is destroyed) and it was much more concerned with the workings of the world it was set in, with lengthy scenes with bureaucrats arguing about wizards etc.

It was also not drawn by me - I was working with my at-the-time girlfriend. I would sketch out a version of the page and she'd work on it:

--->

However, all things move towards their end, and when I started to feel that her and I were moving towards our end, I started drawing it myself. When we reached that destination (in Starbucks) I threw everything I'd done out of the window (not literally, but I did shift+delete a lot).

First I rewrote the whole thing in a more sincere style with a more measured, pared down story without explosions. At the time I was reading a lot of sad books and listening to a lot of sad music, (which certainly makes it into the opening pages1). The fact that I take forever to draw the bloody thing means that by now, chapter 3, I'm doing less sad stuff because I find that part of me harder to draw from - which is a shame because everyone tells me that's the best bit!

My comic POW! Right in the Nostalgia started as basically drawings in sketchbooks where I was just drawing these characters to do with certain things I'd hear about in toy, gaming, or movie news. They'd comment usually comically about things. Just drawings though, no real comic.
Later on, I started pondering turning the sketches into a full fledged comic and in 2010, I created a very brief series called 'The Slack-Offs' on deviantART...

1

I was also obviously very influenced by the movie Clerks back then a bit I'd say. I made atotal of 3 comics for the idea, but then quit due to life issues.

Flash forward to 2014 after some incidents in life making me realize if I wanted to make a webcomic, it was now or never and revisited the Slack-Offs idea, but tweaked the characters, their designs, and a bunch of other stuff to where I am with it now...

for my series I used to talk about anime, video games, and current events. But somewhere within my third year of making my series I focused more on comics about school, work, and life (not to say I stopped talking about those previous things, but the focus has changed).

2015:

2017:

For the comic I am working on now (Adventures with Capt'n Heroic), my story changed quite a bit.
First, I started with a rough draft script for the first story. Once I was happy, I wrote the next two. With the two new stories, I came up with ideas of things that I wanted to happen in the first story.
Next, I went to story board for my first script. Things changed there as well.
Then, When I create the art, I change things around.
Then finally, when adding dialogue, it changes again.

All of these changes in the first story, affects the second and third stories. I am glad I took my time though, because I believe the changes made it a stronger, more solid story.

Just remember, there is always time for changes up until the point that you release the comic.

I first started working on I Was Melody1 about two years ago. At that time I didn't know who the main character was going to be, so I fully developed complete story lines for all three of my key characters. When I decided to tell the story from Lyric's point of view, I had to scrap (that's a strong word, more like just not mention) elements from Luke and Michael's parts. I ended up leaving out an entire romance plot, as well as private school drama.

But, at the same time, there is a lot that hasn't changed. Lyric has remained the same since the beginning, as have nearly all of the important plot points and the order in which they occur. The name has even remained the same.

I guess this would be an example of "You can always pull back, but it's hard to create more from too little".

Yes, Remember has changed quite a bit XD
The story was originally called "The city of Dragons" with actual dragons in it with absolutely no relation whatsoever to the main plot Hey, I was 14, okay? =P

Now it's better =) The Remember-world has expanded, the characters, the society and the politics suddenly got more complicated and overall I am glad that the story has changed so much

My comic, Osca has undergone a lot of revisions through Middle School and onto now. Before, it was called King Hirro. But, that made it too character focus and I ended up changing the main character's name to Cos.

The first episode of my script was too long! If I didn't cut it down I'd have 70 pages! & I redid the beginning pages because i felt it didn't do justice to introducing the main character's goals, ambitious and who he is! So it was remade and shortened!

To be honest my original idea was so far off from what it is now I would hardly even consider it to be the same story, aside from some character names I kept. It was originally based it off a sort of game me, my sister, and our friends made up a long time ago (there were five of us and we all had self-inserts in the story), but has since turned into somewhat of a mash of a lot of other different concepts and stories, mostly mystery/adventure kind.

Thinking back to its roots makes me nostalgic, though.

In the original version of Witch & Were, Lenora Mallory was Leonard Mallory and was still a former lumberjack who was turned into a werewolf. Irene was also originally white with British ancestry and one dead parent while the other was at large for a crime they didn't commit.

As I was writing one day, it hit me: Why does Leo have to be a guy? Why is Irene white? Why am I telling the same old boy-is-saved-by-girl story?

I scrapped four chapters of content (which are now permanently lost after my computer fried itself back in March,) and here we are now.

My story Star Heroes changed A LOT. I originally started writing my story 3 years ago. When I first started, I had a completely different main character, the plot was completely different and it was originally a comedy where as over time I re-wrote it into a tragedy. My main character, Ellie originally had straight hair but I changed that to puffy curls. The anatomy and style of the characters changed a lot as well.

My comic Chasing Little Lights1 has definitely gone through the biggest changes. I first got the idea for CLL maybe two years ago? But back then I was more into writing, so it was going to be a novel.

I think CLL was more of a realistic-fantasy story, it was about parallel worlds and a war and those types of things. I'm still in love with that concept, but the worldbuilding was too hard to pull off for a smol 12-year-old at the time ;w;

For now I'm trying to stick with a simpler concept for CLL, especially since it's in visual form now and my art skills don't equate to a written description. The characters have stayed similar to the way they were, but the story's definitely changed!

My comic, The Flipside, always had to do with the 'Uncanny Village' or 'Stepford Suburbia' tropes, but the actual location in question was going to be futuristic society in a different dimension/planet. And my main character, Lillian, was going to be the daughter of the queen/ruler. She also had a twin sister. But as I developed it more, there was a lot that didn't really make sense to me, and I was never really a huge fan of it having a Sci-Fi feel to it. There's still going to be a lot of fictional elements, just not... in outer space. I started thinking about this comic when I was 15 and I'm almost 20 now, so it's been through a lot of changes.

Well seeing as my comic, Cowan's Crux, started out as a short-story, I suppose it's grown quite a bit, but I don't think it's really changed that much as holding to its original idea goes. I have had to obviously make decisions that were up in the air before, like why the main character ends up reliving a day in his life. There were several possibilities in my mind as to why it was happening, but now there's a definite reason. If you want to know that definite reason you'll have to read the comic and also wait until it's explained in the comic, but I digress. I went through the same thing with endings, ways I thought things might turn out. The actual idea and story is still the same though.