Less than a month before Mayhem at Misfit Mansion is out! To celebrate, I’d like to share the creation process behind the first book, and how it developed over time. Misfit Mansion went through quite a few different versions over the years before being pitched as its current self, so this will be a multi-part series!
“Lily of the Dead Valley”
Back when I was working on Oddity Woods as a webcomic, I was brainstorming ideas for potential book pitches. The main two were A. a story based on “Journey to Stars,” which became Star Knights, and B. a story about a monster hunter that wound up in a world of monsters, titled “Lily of the Dead Valley.” I ended up moving forward with Star Knights instead, since I ran into a few roadblocks with the second idea, but I’d come back around to it while working on SK.
The monster world was called Dead Valley, and had a wide array of monster inhabitants. The monster hunter was a hooded girl named Ava that somehow fell into Dead Valley, and had to team up with “Lily” (Iris’s original name) to return home, learning that monsters were actually good in the process. These are sketches from around 2018.
The earliest version of Iris was a vampire.
Less vampire and more monster. She was friends with a werewolf girl.
Hoodie with a pattern— I didn’t want to draw this in every panel, so the pattern got scrapped!
Ava’s face was hidden by a hood for most of the story.
Early Iris with a devil tail. I think the guy on the top right was her brother?
I wasn’t sure what this monster world should look like, so to make it a little easier on myself, I ultimately decided to change the setting to the real world. The story then became about a human summer camp at odds with a monster one.
A moth girl named Juniper, she was a little snooty, and didn’t like Lily.
A ghost and kelpie camper! I liked the kelpie, so I reused them later.
Ava is accidentally signed up for the wrong summer camp— one for monsters instead of monster hunters. Hiding her identity, she eventually befriends Lily, and ultimately comes to learn that hunting monsters is wrong. This idea didn’t go anywhere as I never went to summer camp as a kid, and so I had no idea how to write a summer camp story… I decided to channel the experiences I did have as a kid in order to figure out what Misfit Mansion would actually be about— found family and belonging.
“Home for Horrors”
In 2019, the story became about a foster home hidden in the woods. When conceptualizing the house, I originally wrote the caretaker as a woman, but I wanted to write a father/daughter bond between Iris and the caretaker, so they became Halloway instead. “Lily” was changed to Iris, as it matched her color scheme more. Instead of a random monster, I wanted her species to have an effect on the story, so she became a dreamon, or a “dream imp” back then.
Very quick concept sketches to figure out the new characters, including a female Halloway.
This version was a lot closer to the final Misfit Mansion, but there were still many differences plot-wise! I’ll save it for part two, but I did want to briefly mention another story I was working on at the time.
“Doll House”
This was a very small and undeveloped idea I was writing in 2018, but I couldn’t figure out the story, so it ultimately got scrapped. It followed a mage who was trapped in a haunted house of living dolls, and had to help himself and a trapped soul escape, which lived in a small cage he carried. This idea doesn’t have much to do with Misfit Mansion, but I liked the designs and ended up recycling them to create Mathias and Dahlia. This version of Dahlia also had a giant stuffed bear butler, which I still kind of like.
Beta versions of Dahlia and Mathias. They didn’t have names at this point.
Beta Dahlia and her bear butler. She was more antagonistic in this story.
Random side character, I liked the beanie and gave it to Kel later.
Next part, more story notes and pitch pages!