“Shifting Souls” is a webcomic concept created as a project in a class called Idea Development, Writing, and Storyboarding. This story follows a young woman, named Mira, who can shift into ten different animals based on her emotions. This ability has prevented her from living a normal life, as her family kept her ability secret in fear of the public’s reaction. After Mira convinces her father to let her get a job at the local coffee shop, she discovers life is truly worth living, even if it means you might spend your weekend stuck as a golden retriever, or even worse, a grizzly bear.
This project consists of a pitch bible illustrated using Procreate, and the text was added in later using Adobe Photoshop. The packet discusses the different characters, themes, and episodes that would be created if it were a real accepted concept for a webcomic or animated series
Though the series tackles issues like self-acceptance, grief, and intimate interactions between characters, there are even bigger notes of humor and wittiness through how the main character, Mira, acts when she is certain animal shifts.
As an avid reader of webcomics, I wanted to create a story that reflected the themes I enjoy reading about and to illustrate something fun and interesting for people to enjoy. “Shifting Souls” was my first time creating a pitch bible for a story, so gathering up my ideas and setting the scene for people to want to read more was a fulfilling experience.
I was deeply inspired by the pitch bible for the animated cartoon “Adventure Time” (2010, Cartoon Network). I enjoyed how the characters were shown. As a fan of the show, I wanted to create fun characters and add some comedy to lighten the more mature themes of the story.
For the design and storytelling, I found my biggest inspiration to be from myself. The main character does have some similar characteristics to me, and her boyfriend, Jasper, is pretty similar to my husband. It wasn’t intentional at first, but I decided to just lean into it and accept it. For the aspect of Mira’s shifting into animals, I was inspired by the Anime, “Fruits Basket” (1998, Natsuki Takaya), as the explosion-like transformation is nearly the same, and Mira’s clothes don’t rip when she shifts; they fall to the floor.
Please feel free to scroll through the pitch bible below!
Shifting-Souls-Pitch-BibleTo the left is the final design for the pitch bible I created for Shifting Souls. Viewers will be able to meet the main characters, see what animals Mira turns into, and get an idea of what the first few episodes of the series would be like.
For the future of this project, I think it would be cool to try to illustrate one of the episodes as a webcomic. There is a specific webcomic application called “Line, Webtoon Comics” that supports small artists in creating their own webcomics and having users read them online or in the app.
Maybe one day this could be a multi-season webcomic series!