I spent about 3 years in the preproduction stage of my series before creating the first page in mid 2019. I look back on those first 3 years fondly; coming up with ideas, having the story play out in my head, building up my artistic skills to draw my characters, and writing out those stories once I settled on a iteration I liked after the first year. There were hurdles off course where I struggled to translate ideas onto paper but it was moments like those that taught me how difficult it was to create a story, as well as helping me with creative thinking and such. Its because of that that I don't regret making this series in the first place because I feel it's made me a better person, outside the artistic skills of course.
I know 3 years might seem like a long time to let an idea sit as it could potentially grow stale by the time I want to make it but that wasn't the case here I feel. My reasons for pushing off drawing my series was because around time Crescent Blue would've been 'fresh', there was a massive gap between the detailed depiction in my head and my crap drawing ability. I wanted on holding off drawing my series until I could narrow that gap. And I honestly feel that was a good move in hindsight because I was able to refine my ideas and turn them into something great. Initially, what would become Crescent Blue was nothing more than a mishmash of things I took a liking to at the time. Two that stood out were Dragon Ball and oddly enough Lady and the Tramp. I never drew the characters around that time (couldn't draw dogs) but to say characters and story were nothing more than bargain bin clones on of their disney/anime counterparts wouldn't be off the mark. As time would go on, this would shift and the story would slowly morph into what it is now. Becoming something I feel that could stand on its own whilst still retaining its good qualities from its early days. I was also writing out the chapter drafts within those 3 years so I wasn't letting it sit in my head occupying brain space.
Now onto the artistic side of things. Like I alluded to in my last paragraph, my artistic skills were not that great. I mean compared to my peers, I was good but not by much. Around the time I came up with the idea for series, characters, etc, I was mostly making reference drawings from screenshots from the Dragon Ball franchise. Not as a way to become a great artist but mostly for fun and something to do when I wasn't watching youtube, hulu, netflix, playing games on my computer and ps4, or going outside because it was the summer. But once Crescent Blue came along, I had a lot more of a drive to improve my skills just so I could draw my characters. I spent about a year or so grinding; drawing eyes in my notes from different art styles, drawing way more dragon ball than I did in my life time and begrudgingly, to my precious 14 year old ego, drew from the lady and the tramp films (which I did feel some embarrassment for reasons too stupid to explain here without going off topic). Now I had no idea if my handwork would actually pay off, but I didn't pay too much attention to things not working out to not distract myself from my single minded goal. And after a couple of months, that grinding payed as I could begin to draw stuff directly from my mind semi well. I would continue to build up and improve on my skills onto May 2019 when I finally felt I was ready to draw Crescent Blue after 3 years of pre production and planning.
Of course that's not where the story ends. Just drawing out the first Chapter is a whole story in itself (dont write out chapters like 24 minute tv show episodes and please for the love of God, do not write out your comic's first chapter like a 45 minute piolet unless you want it to be close to being 200 comic pages long and want to be working on it for more than 2 years) but that's a story for another day. I would include some pictures but it would take me a while to scroll though google docs to find the earliest story drafts and rummage through my old drawings pilled up in boxes somewhere just to take pictures. I only recently began putting myself out there online about 3 years ago in 2019 and nothing before that. Which Im greatful for because I'd be a lot worse off with my teenage fuck ups being immortalized on the internet for all to see 
