Environments - Albersfield

Environments. The stage where your characters come alive.

For us, this panels sets up a couple main storytelling details (and a small one)... Ridley journals, much like Maddie does at the same age. They are also both left-handed (re: creative) which also ties parallels to each others' lives. Ridley would have to be pretty stubborn because most school teachers would try to force left-handed students to write with the "correct" hand. We like stubborn. (Oh, and Scars the Troll also sports a ponytail and ribbon like the two school girls).

Ridley is raised in an imaginary hamlet called Albersfield. The concept is inspired by Westerham, a small town in England. It boasts a small clock tower, an abbey, Winston Churchill's family home, and an air field, the Biggin Hill Aerodrome. We needed to create a small country town in the middle of nowhere because they will need land and workers to build an aerodrome to train pilots in World War I. The clock tower is an important storytelling detail and is based on a clock tower found in Aberystwyth, Wales.

We also set out to create a lush woods and rolling hills. The turn of the century was a pretty innocent time, and we chose to portray a town unspoiled by the industrial revolution. When we open the scene, the town is about to welcome its first mechanic. So in other words, we wanted to set up two sides... a developing town and nature still in it's glory.

We wanted to draw idyllic. So here you go!