K.o.D. has an interesting story of creation. It is my first truely plausible, and worked on manga story idea. Concept work for K.o.D. dates back to late 2008, but the inspration for it is almost a year older.

K.o.D. was based on a few plot themes used in a conversational adventure roleplay (a story between two or more people, not a prewritten one) The plot themes (mostly brotherhood) were very strong and both I and the other person involved in their initial use agreed to use them for other stories. K.o.D. is, from this, a story that evolved to provide a medium for some of these plot themes.

Thanks to its age, its length, and my interest in this, it is unlikely K.o.D. will be my first widely published manga, and will more likely be something I release once I am confident it will be relatively safe from piracy and also able to reach its intended audience.

Until that point however, I do frequently enjoy working on the story and making it more interesting, so I have a lot of concept work!

These are the original sketches of Fox and Phoenix and their original colors. They were meant to have a similar relationship to the one that Naruto and Sasuke share in the manga 'Naruto', (Phoenix was meant to be the most attractive) So that explains their slightly similar expressions. Phoenix's similarity was an issue I immediately set about resolving.

This was the first attempt at Fox's costume. As you can see his outfit was rather boring at the start. The pant-leg is something I've kept however.

Phoenix was redesigned again, because although he has a similar plot position to Sasuke (as the main character's best friend) he really shouldn't look so much like him. Unfortunately, trying to visibly design him as a beautiful, half-japanese individual didn't make the escape from that similarity very easy.

So in the following design, Phoenix changed entirely. The new blonde design suited his personality far more. Fox doesn't change much yet...

This piece was to refine Fox and Phoenix's features and colors. I also tried new designs for their 'fallen forms' (bottom right) (something which I had tried before with pointy ears and sticky up hair and generally things that weren't so visually appealing) Phoenix initially in his blonde design has green eyes.

I made a second costume design for Fox, and a first costume design for Phoenix. These are quite accurate to how they will look in the actual story. Phoenix's design is based on his love of flight, so he sports a flight jacket and occasionally goggles, all accented with rank stripes. Fox on the other hand, almost completely randomly, developed a coat based on a magician's coat, which added his love of magic to the plot, which in turn tied up the entirety of the story for reasons I can't really explain.

Breaking away from character design for a moment; since there are a lot of strange surroundings in parts of the story, I took a shot at designing a place called 'the demon realm', or maybe 'the reverse realm' would be a cooler name?

'Grim Forest' is part of this realm. (This picture is a bit older than the previous one) Unless I explain it, it will look relatively normal. However for now the details remain secret!

Phoenix's eye color officially changed to violet with this picture; violet eyes reflect his strange and calm nature very well.

Fox's looks and outfit have changed a lot since the initial designs, but have now sort of leveled out in his magician-styled coat and red, white and black shades. His hair's become a lot more defined, something I'm happy with, so he should remain quite static in looks from now on.

I'll update with more in the future!