#oafk

This fic has truly changed my life, I cannot even put into words how incredible of an experience this has been to write and to share with all of you. When I started 'The Once and Future Kings' almost four years ago so much was different. Writing this has genuinely been such a life changing thing - it has pushed me to pursue my dream of being an author again, introduced me to a whole new interest in life (arthurian legend) and challenged me to see what I can achieve if I really dedicate myself. I don't know where I'd be without it, and even knowing how much time, sweat and energy it would take to get here, I do think I would do it all again if given the chance.

A massive thank you to Rachel, my editor, without her, OAFK truly wouldn't have been possible. And also a huge thank you to every friend, and loved one who has listened to my endless rants and rambles about this fic.

Thank you to all of you for every single kudos, comment and kind word you've given this fic. I have read every comment, I have cherished every message and heart and smiley face you have sent my way. You have made this experience so wonderful, and I owe a lot to you all for getting me through to the end.

Bonus meme

the junior thesis assignment was the adapt a book into a six page comic and we could have creative freedom with certain things and the book only ever mentioned the color of guenever's hair and eyes, NOT her skin color or features and so I had my fun with her design. the ONLY description they give lancelot in the entire book is that hes ugly and beauty is subjective so i gave him "non traditional" features. In one of my original sketches for him, he was going to have crooked teeth, but unfortunately i do not draw teeth well LMAO. I wanted Arthur and Lancelot's designs to contrast each other as well. Arthur is shorter and stockier where Lance is taller and thinner, Arthur keeps his feelings quiet while Lance wears them on his chest, and then i wanted there to be the stark color difference too between them.

Morgause and Mordred were fun, but they both had a lot more descriptive descriptions in the book, so I didn't get as much creative control outside of their outfits. I assigned the Lot family the color blue and the Camelot cotizens red to try and contrast better throughout the story and it was kinda fun cause it made mordred look like an ice prince or something.

also despite gwen lance and arthur being around the same age at the point of my comic, i wanted to try and make arthur look the oldest, sort of visually show how much being king and his decisions has weighed on him, especially since the scene I adapted was pretty heavy.

also i did have a reference page for gwen but at some point it got deleted? so in this its just a fun drawing I did of her holding excalibur instead. I do also have a full reference drawing for exacalibur in my files that was useless because i never ended up drawing it in the comic LMAO

the last photo is the cornwall sisters, Elaine, Morgan and Morgause. With their designs i had fun trying to make them look related to each other, to Arthur and their parents but also try to not make them all have the same face. Elaine looks like her mother, Morgan looks like her father, Morgause looks like a mix of both (Uthers hair color but Ygraine's hair style, Uther's face but Ygraine's eye color) and Arthur looks like a perfect blend of both too. I sort of did the same with Mordred where I took features from both morgause and arthur to make him look related but like his own person. Ygraine and Uther are only in one panel so there's no proper ref for either of them.

This project was a five month process, six if you count writing the script to fit within a six page comic without losing any details from the book and creating my pitch for my professor (all of which was done over winter break)

The project took FOREVER and I definitely am not happy with the final result but its due to the fact i had frequent doctor visits and hospitalisations and wasnt able to work on it as much as I had wanted, PLUS i had an eight page comic for another class i worked on also over the same five months (and i was more focused on that one as it was my own original characters)4

regardless though, i do still like it, just wish it cane out better in the end lmao