Hello Internet, so let me introduce you my characters

Dera, the “Skin Writer” Princess

A princess of a kingdom filled with people born with the skin condition Dermatographia, the Land of Skin Writers. The King, her older brother who was a Skin Writer, thus made it a decree that Skin Writing to be the first and only language in the whole country.

However, Dera isn’t Dermatographic and feels like an outcast so, she decides to leave the castle as she feel like she can’t hide her true self any longer.

Edit: I was inspired by the condition of Dermatographia & watched movie The Huntsman as I did this project.

Melech, The Young King

Melech is a young, stoic but assertive king. He takes traditions of the family earnestly and would do anything for the sake of the kingdom’s profit. He is wary of Dera’s rebellious ways towards how he rules the kingdom but for his sister very much.

Edit: I loved how my moodboard for Melech turned out that I wanted it to be part of the poster. It also gave the mood for how everything would fit.

Nathan, The Guardian

Nathan lost himself in the dark forest of the kingdom in his early years as he was running away from the soldiers chasing him for being non-dermatographic. He was bright eyed and passionate until he was found out that his tattoos did not change and quickly, his family turned against him and he ran.

He, in the dark forest, was slowly losing his humanity and his skin began to gray out. He was starting to look like the symbol of death, as his own benevolence died as he stayed there.

Edit: He was a character I experimented more on. I liked the model Reese King and simply just played along with features that would fit a facial feature and that was how the Guardian turned out.

Synopsis:

In a world where skin writers reigned, the way of communication was from the writing of the skin that you own. Under King Melech’s dictate rule, there was peace all over the kingdom. However, the minority of people without dermatographia were weary and drained restless. Men and women alike without dermatographia were deemed abnormal; and most of them would have lived as outcasts or even secluding themselves into the dark forest for the cover from King Melech. One of such people was King Melech’s own young sister, Dera, who had an inquisitive perspective of the world around her. Her heart yearned for something more than the rules of the palace could ever offer her.  Hidden in the castle for years in the fear that the public will find her deviant from the norm of the kingdom, one day, Dera escaped the palace in which then she met someone similar to her, Nathan, a young guardian protecting the dark forest…

Edit: All We See are Butterflies, was a title I thought of when I thought of my story, where there was a need for freedom and butterflies personify that. And how just the kingdom and the people simply witness it and never lived so yeaaaa… And yes, I’m a very poetic person…