Unused/Beta Content In Your Comics?

[Aspie_Gamer]

Hello Tapastic community! With a new year upon us as well as personally getting back to work on my shoujo comic, Life of an Aspie, I got into a thinking mood about how far my small web comic has come development wise. I haven't even scratched the surface yet story wise though I plan on making big strides this year in terms of advancing the plot. As creators, I'm sure we all know the wonderful feeling of coming up with an idea for a story you want to bring to life with your art. The most interesting part imo about developing a story and characters to go with it is all the unused content that you may scrap because you feel it doesn't mesh with the story you are trying to tell or somethings about one of your characters may change between the development phase and when you begin your comic. Heck, some plot lines you have in mind might change as you actually bring your story to life.

What I'm asking my fellow Tapastic creators is this. Do any of you have any unused content that never made it past the planning stages of your comic or content that was radically altered between the beta and final version? I'll go first.

Life of an Aspie initially began life in 2011 when I decided to draw a long haired shoujo looking school girl one day after drawing animu all afternoon. I was sort of into shoujo at the time and felt that I wanted to try my hand at making one I could call my own. Some key things I remember off the top of my head

Hiroshi originally had long messy hair that covered his eyes. This changed once I developed his personality. In LoaA, he's the straight man to Susan and her Asperger's. He's also smart from an academic perspective and takes his schooling seriously in comparison to Susan who doesn't care that much about school.

Takeshi and Hiroshi would've eventually fought over Susan as the story progressed with Takeshi being the popular guy and Hiroshi being the childhood friend. However, this would end up getting axed since I felt it would be too predictable for season shoujo connoisseurs.

Mizuki (who's only appearance so far has been on my wall and on my Instagram account. She'll make her first official appearance in Chapter 2: First Day of School) originally had blonde hair and blue eyes to match her sweet as can be personality. Once Eiji (Takeshi's delinquent friend) who also has blonde hair, but with hazel eyes came into the picture, I decided to give her light brown hair and brown eyes as by the point I made this change, the term "down to earth" had since become part of Mizuki's character.

Speaking of Mizuki, she originally went to the same middle school as Susan, Hiroshi, Takeshi, and Eiji, but I felt this be too contrived of a coincidence for the other main female character who somehow never met Susan until the first day of high school to go to the same middle school of her so I ultimately decided to make Mizuki...whoops almost spoiled future plot events. All will be explained in due time.

The first chapter, The Vow, was originally three separate chapters with the first being an overly long pilot episode, the second chapter being a personal piece with Susan and Hiroshi fleshing out their shared backstory while chapter three focused on Takeshi and Eiji having a conversation with Susan's grandmother while working out at the school rec center. Chapter four would've been when the first day of the new school year began. However, I didn't want to make readers wait THAT long for the actual story to begin (laughs) so I felt it was much better to condense those three chapters into one chapter. The first 22 pages are Chapter 1, the next third (about 8 or so pages) is Chapter 3 while the remaining portion is Chapter 2 of my original script.

[AnnaLandin]

A whole bunch, yeah! Grassblades has been living in my head for literally years before I sat down and started drawing the actual pages, so I've had loads of time to change my mind about things. And change it back. And change it again.

Masahiro's arm used to be chopped off at the elbow (now it's just his hand that's missing), his outfit has been tweaked and changed a dozen times, etc. Nothing drastic, beyond the change to his crippled arm, but he used to have a wider, bright red belt, and his clothing used to be a whole lot neater - before I decided that a grumpy man wandering the world without a permanent place to live would probably look a lot more ragged and worn. Which is when his shirt turned into this cobbled-together-from-spare-parts garment, and his sleeve got a ragged shoulder, etc.

Akane used to talk a whole lot in the earlier drafts of the story! The selective muteness is actually a pretty late addition to her character, but it fit so well with her origin and function in the story, so I just had to go with it. Used to be she'd babble Masahiro's ears off.

Kazue:

used to look like this:

... and her personality used to be different, too. In the final version, she's got a short temper, is stubborn and slow to change her mind about people, she's pretty irreverent and disrespectful (of everyone who isn't her captain), and she's confrontative and willing to pick fights. In the old drafts, she was a lot more stiff and formal and concerned about propriety.

... She's more fun to write these days. XD

There's a lot more, but I tend to save that for sketchposts on my Patreon, where I can - and do! - ramble on about character design and backstories and whatnot.

[mariusthered]

interesting topic.

And well timed too. Now that I am revamping at work from scratch to bring the pages here to Tap, It has given me the opportunity to work out a few kinks, and put in place a few scenes that I had intended to do with Talesfromswipecity.

Last week I posted a brand new fight scene Showing my main Star Cassie Finn defending her new Friend Roz and kicking boy butt. I originally did not bring the character who mugs them in for quite a while but it was nice to do so sooner.

I also have another character story line that I am working on now and will post later in the week Hopefully. It touches on a few grey areas of society. In my comic it has already been touched upon that my Character Lance Carter has a father who is MIA ( missing in Action) and I wanted to explain it a little more. I wanted to hint upon the effects to family's left behind who cannot move on until they know what happened to their missing loved ones. I also wanted to hint upon all the young people who are heroes themselves, dealing with situations that they should not have to but battle on each day for people they love and for the first time I am going to dedicate the pages of a story to these brave young people. watch my space....

[meatmaiden]

two whole characters vanished in between 2013 and 2015 x'D

I cut Lilias out because there was no reason for him to be in the comic, and ditched David for the same reason.
RIP these useless characters.

[getsuart]

There was a bunch of beta content in Echo too indeed. I swapped two men into women, my archmage Dynn was supposed to be a really old man to! And Hrodland was supposed to have a lighter skin as seen here:

Little comparison:

Storywise, too much things have changed to tell you what in particular. XD

[zetina]

I weep for the poor characters who get the axe <'D

I have some 3 big projects that have been living in my head since my school days so, naturally, they have morphed a lot. Since they're still not on paper //kicks self// then there isn't much point in rambling about it... BUT.
The biggest change to a character I've done is that this one dude got his arms lopped off and put in a 12yo kid's body lmao

[shaylafarley5]

I don't know where to start!... well, Psychosis started out back in 09, 9th grade and mini comic about a boy genetically made in a lab along with others, he even had a twin he didn't know about till later on.

This was before I wrote the story out. I have a very bad habit of drawing a comic without even creating the story. I'm not that way any more. I make sure I have at least 10 chapters written before a sketch.

After 50 drawn pages I scraped it and started over 7 times! (So much printing paper wasted,lol mom was mad)
I was too lazy and to proud to redraw chapter one so I kept it which is what I have posted on this site, I'm still rewriting the story as I draw/color. On chapter 31 right now while drawing out chapter 7.

I wish I still have pic of how everyone use to look before redrawing them. I think I have some on my DA?

[Stellamari]

I can hear artists sighing and shaking their head when talking about unused/beta contents haha. For me, some of it will eventually become alternate universe or another story on its own for me. Plot and characters underwent various changes over the years, for example:
Mina (2011) in a superhero story where she's just a side character (civilian).

Mina (2015) from Goldlocks' Agency for Superheroes a 6 years old ghost working at a superhero agency.

[rainbowolfe]

Uhhh, let's see here... Destiny Awaits started in about 2008 under the name Beyond. At the time, it was about three girls with wings(as well as other powers) who went around fighting monsters and hiding from the government/hunters. One could also shapeshift into a wolf, another had telekinesis, etc.

I drew the pages as I went before I even wrote a thing down, convincing myself to just add the words in later XD I'm pretty sure I still have the sketchbooks with all my old stuff in it. But all I have now are random artworks I did on DA. At the time, the main characters names were Wolfie, Nightmare, and Shadow. I started over four times.

The second time I started over, a year had passed and I decided I wanted a little more substance. I had the girls created in a lab, and having identity crisis' because they didn't know why they had to fight monsters.
The third time I started over, because I left it alone for like 2 years. I changed the title and rebooted all the characters and rethought the plot. I actually started posting this version online, and it's pretty similar to the one you see today. Tai was the only "chosen one", but she was also a pacifist who just wanted everyone to be friends. Alistair was her cold and stoic sidekick, and Kayla was the one who wanted him dead.
The fourth time I started over, was actually 6 months ago and I rebooted the characters once more, fleshed out their personalities better, and created Neo-America as well as a few other things. This is the final version I've stuck with.

First Tai:

Second Tai and Kayla:

Third Tai:

//Destiny Awaits has been through some shit

[aspiderjonny]

There is a lot of "Beta" concepts for the Jonny Web Series that might be lost in time because this series has been in the works for several years. There is a big change were originally wasn't going to have superpowers at all. He was going to be similar to Batman, a ninja-type hero with semi-futuristic gadgets. This would've completely altered the main story if I stayed with that idea. Sadly, it's from a verrrrryyyy old sketchbook, probably around 2009 or 2010, and /i have no idea where it is.

I do have some of these though, most changes from the original 6-issue min series I made in High School and the more finished Web Series:

Originally The J's costume would have been red with orange shoes. Again, it's an old concept that's lost, but as an inside joke I gave those colors to young Jonny in the flashback

Jonny's present street clothes also reflect some old designs for the actual suit, like the white stripe placement. Also, Jonah (left) was given the same old color scheme, because in and old concept he was a some-what rival to Jonny, also having the same name but spelled "Johnny" (That was a pretty stupid concept tbh). Now they're old friends.
'

On picture I do have (to my embarrassment) is this one of Dr. Mechtavias from Book 6 of the Original HS Mini-Series (which I dub Jonny OMS). As you can see he has his left arm. That's because in the OMS the idea was that the first fight with The J-Man would have the Doc's arm destroyed by the Cosmic Generator. It ended with him making his cyborg arm and vowing vengeance (you know, the usual).

For the Web Series, I said F**k it and went to the good part, him having the cyborg arm long before he met The J.

My other series, The Valve Web Series, has less unused concepts because it was created much earlier that the other one. I do have this, which is the first sketch I ever made of the character/series (I really need to get a better scan)

I don't want to get into much detail, but you can check out my post of it on my extras series. Below is a comparison shot so you can see how they actually look as opposed to how they appear in the sketch.

Also in my extra series are old vs new post showing pages from the Jonny OMS that were redone for the Web Series:
Book 1's Cover
A fight sequence from Book 2

[grovylegirl]

for me in Fragments of the forgotten ones
I have some outfits that I eventually changed like
here's the changed one

and here is the original

also I have one character who i never used in the story