The Way of Animal Powers!

Hey all, this is installment one of the process toward my contribution for the YARNS book and beyond. For awhile now I've been baking this idea of a world where these gifted, shaman-like people unite their souls with a twin animal spirit giving them amazing gifts and powers related to their twin beast. Think strongly Hayao Miyazaki inspired (particularly Princess Mononoke) with a dash of Naruto. I have a bit of a mini-series in mind that I'll continue as a web comic, so one challenge with my YARNS contribution will be finding a logical "to be continued…" point at the end.

So far the story stars the young Honovi, a carpenter's apprentice and his work dog Noku. He and Noku are gathering wood in the forest for his master when Noku spots a strange apparition that he can't help but chase after. Honovi follows in hot pursuit and when he catches up he finds that he's no longer in his forest and Noku's getting a belly rub from a beautiful forest spirit named Sylvia.

I'll leave it there for now as I have have many more pieces to figure out and still need to develop the characters to give them a voice. I'm feeling pretty stoked about my story and really looking forward to hearing what the rest of you have in mind! Until then, excelsior! Oh wait, that line's taken.

- Mike A.