THE CHARACTERS (used and not)

The troll: the misunderstood creature thought to be vile and dangerous by outsiders, but known to be the protector of the forest by the creatures that live in it. Regardless, the troll is still carnivorous and not very picky as to what he'll have for dinner (concept described in The Lion King as the 'Circle of Life'). He was one of the main characters of all the stories I thought of, but following advice given, I started thinking about the story from a different character's perspective and that's when I made the troll the very main character to follow.

Very early concept working around structure

The second design, primal inspiration for the final outcome

Trying out body proportions and anatomy as I wanted the troll to also walk on his fours

Final design turnaround, less realistic and with a more solid structure (hopefully)

The deer: a stranger in the forest, there is little that can be known about her. I ended up letting go of this character, but at first she was the faun girl's adoptive mother.

I did very little drawing for this character apart from practicing how to draw deers and a few tries at simplifying the forms

Ainya: she is a young, orphan faun girl. She was the adopted child of the deer until I took the latter one out of the picture. Now she is a wanderer, trying to survive alone after her parents were killed by a pack of wolves. She was one of the main characters from the start, and the one which the story developed around before I swapped her with the troll.

A few drawings showing the evolution of her design

A few drawings I did over Summer that became the main base for the final design

Final design turnaround

Some expressions, although I'm not very pleased with a few of the drawings

The Tree: even though this tree will most likely not be seen as a character by others, I like to think of it as one. This is the Mother Tree of the forest, majestic and old. It is also the tree that housed the few tree troll families that lived in this forest before the raid that almost wiped all of them out of the forest's history. Now only the one troll lives in it, right at the top where he can watch over his forest.