“Witch-Hazel” Concept Art Zine
Design development for a fictional story and world.
Principle Cast Design
This illustrative zine showcases concept art of a fictional world, characters, and story inspired by the Warrior Cats book series. The story revolves around Witch-Hazel, a cat who has the ability to speak to ghosts. The zine contains design development for many feline characters, as well as visual style tests for important locations in the story.
Most important are the design explorations for the principle cast of characters in Witch-Hazel’s world. These cats are her immediate family. Above are the initial designs for the characters, and below are the finalized designs, as well as the addition of a fifth family member. Witch-Hazel is the small purple cat. She acts as a scale reference for most other designs going forward.
Witch-Hazel Reference Material
Hazel’s reference material is the most detailed, being as she is the title character of her story. Her references contain a variety of expressions and angles in order to define her model, as well as several test illustrations to work out mood and personality.
Side Character Design Concepts
Other important characters to the story and world received full-body design references, while more minor characters were brainstormed in the form of head shots. Pictured here are full-body design explorations for two principle antagonists and several head shots of their henchmen.
The antagonists are twin brothers named Shrike and Arrow. These two are central to the main conflict of this story: a murder-mystery that Hazel must solve using her supernatural powers. Their cronies (left to right, top to bottom) are a mother and son named Mustang and Colt, a young upstart named Peppercorn, and an old teacher named Holloway.
Finished Zine
The “Witch-Hazel” zine was left an editable, living document to be added to over time with more location and character design concepts, as well as design and story notes. The zine is text-heavy, presenting the character concept art and subsequently explaining each character’s motivations in detail. The goal was to create a solid conceptual basis for this fictional world using both illustration and written prose, while also leaving it open for additions and further development.
See a full scroll of the zine spreads below.
