Book One takes place in the fictional town of Ambraedash, about two hours outside Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was looking for a place on the map where rainy weather and farmland was abundant. The nearby city was the perfect place for Mierna to get her PhD, eventually settling back in her hometown and accepting a job at the local doctor's office in Book Two.
Mierna has an older sister, Lizzy, that has already left home to claim her job dream as well. As far as Mierna knows, she got that job. On the day she left, Lizzy tells her, "One day you'll see me fly." Since then, there's been no mention of her and no communication other than a couple of letters. When Mierna calls to check on her, it goes straight to voicemail.
In my original rough draft, the sister was nothing more than a conversation piece between her and her father. As more artwork got completed for the book, more backstory started to develop that wove between the pieces and added better depth behind the characters. After a about a year and half of developing Book One, I knew that the sister would play an important role in Mierna's life.
Blender.org played an important role in character development because it helped define what some of them looked like the more I learned how to sculpt in 3D. When the pandemic hit back in 2020, a friend suggested the program to me. It's an open source program and completely free. Still, I was a little hesitant at first because I didn't want to sculpt something that looked like plastic Barbie dolls. That, however, soon changed because the more I played around with it, the more I fell in love with what it could do! Being able to telework at the time helped discover and learn more about the program. Soon, I had an array of images that helped with both environments and characters.
The extra 3D help turned simple 2D art into something extraordinary! And that was only the beginning...
