It started in 2008, with the old-ass lineart. There was some kind of character-generation challenge either on DA or at the Tower (can’t remember which, now) involving Sailor Senshi based on art supplies. I wound up with Sailor Tempera.
That really didn’t go much of anywhere, so I got to rethinking the concept and eventually she became Chroma…and got teammates. The designs have changed a lot, as has just about everything else, and two of the girls are gone now, but at the top is the final product.
I have a whole story concept to go with them; it’d probably count as YA, but since it’ll never get serialized or written, I’ll just lay it out spoilers and all.
Old ↑ vs New↓
New ↑ vs Old ↓
It centers around Weave (second from the left, with the yarnish hair), or as her teammates call her from day one, Weaver. Actually Chroma starts doing that, but that’s just the way she is. Everyone else follows suit to make Weave squirm.
Weave’s real name is Adelaide; Weaver is her surname. She’s 12, perfectly normal, ordinary, and content to be that way. She doesn’t much care what people think about her, but that’s because she usually has her head buried in a book. Addie loves to read, and she has a very active imagination. She attends a stuffy sort of boarding school for girls, and while her particular talent is in creative arts – crafts and the like – she spends more time in the library rather than in the art room, because she’s a little embarrassed about how she always has new ideas and starts things…but never finishes them. One day she’s sitting atop a radiator and finishing one of her favorite stories when, upon closing the book to savor the moment, she notices one particular painting on the wall for the first time. It’s a very nice one, of the school’s patron saint all done up as an angel…except Addie’s sure angels should have halos, and this one doesn’t. It looks like it was supposed to be there, but for some reason although the glow is in the painting, the halo itself is gone.
The search for information on the painting turns into a quest, and Addie winds up roaming the pages of classic children’s books looking for clues. She finds Chroma painting roses in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. They go on for a while as a duo before picking up Scribe in Just So Stories. Structure eventually completes the team when they double back to Through the Looking-Glass. They don’t have specific attacks or named powers, but while each can work alone well enough, they function best when working together. And yes, they do fight with their hair.
Chroma – the Best Friend. Outgoing and playful, the first thing she does is start calling Adelaide by her last name. The second thing she does is style her bangs to look more like Addie’s, something Addie finds flattering but is too shy to say so. Addie isn’t even aware her appearance has changed at all (no, her hair isn’t normally outrageous) until Chroma points it out, exclaiming over how similar they look.
Chroma’s abilities lie in fleshing things out by way of coloring them.
Scribe – the Big Sister. Scribe is actually somewhat tomboyish. She’s the first into the fray every time, though she doesn’t always think her approaches out very well. She makes up for that with her strength and determination and ingenuity.
Scribe’s ability is to call things into being by drawing them.
Structure – the evil twin? They’re not sure at first, since she looks like a color-reversed version of Scribe. She’s very quiet and serious, and can be quick to point out and shoot down foolish ideas. Structure is graceful, though, and seems much older and more sophisticated than she is. She can be very gentle when doing her work.
Structure’s ability is to end or stop things.
Weave – the Protagonist. Weave is the key to everything they do, and the center of the team, since she’s the one who brings their constructions to life and controls them. She’s still young, and not too sure of her decisions sometimes, so she relies on her teammates often, and trusts them – even mysterious Structure – very much.
The books they adventure through span almost all the classics of children’s literature, up through Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web, as well as romantic little versions of the Arthurian legends and Robin Hood. In each book they meet a character who helps them. For example in Wind in the Willows, they rely on the aid of the capricious Piper. In Robin Hood they meet an androgynous sprite of a child named Dogwyn, who makes Addie blush an awful lot…
In the end they do find the halo, and in returning it to the angel, Adelaide is granted one wish. Having found out her friends can’t go with her after this, she tries to wish for them to come back to school with her…
…only for the angel to smile and make the standard Moving Speech about how Addie’s being silly; these friends of hers are all aspects of herself anyway, and she’ll never be without them.
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