Greyscale History

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The Context:

Greyscale as a concept for me was something that went through many, many revisions throughout me thinking about it. Changing wildly in tone, cast, concepts, themes, etc.

Greyscale : Dream Manifest

This was historically the first version of greyscale I came up with, and it lasted for a decent amount of time. Circa Mid 2018 - Early 2019.

Tonally the concept was a lot more lighthearted, and was more of a power of friendship story then anything. There was a main cast of four characters. Red, Maddie, Michel, and Lavender. Red would eventually become Grey; Maddie would split and become Lyne's role with Rose's personality; Michel became a much more secretive and laid back character, as opposed to the best friend archetype; and Lavender is a unique case where the character evolved completely. Initially the main "villain's" were more of a set of rivals then anything, featuring Ashe, Hunter, Mani, and Sol. Every character minus hunter was gutted completely from the project, and hunter got a personality overhaul. Mani sort of became Raymin, but the connection is overall loose.

The reason this project didn't last was because I felt like it didn't have enough substance to it, and not to mention I was in my senior year of high school and wanted to explore something a little deeper.

Specific Character alterations:
- Red > Grey:
  - Became a silent Protagonist
  - Dream manifest was changed from a manifest named inferno, into sentinel
- Michel:
  - Personality shift (now a much more secluded character).
  - Design was overhauled to accommodate.
    - His manifest was based off of an Archangel before, and is now based off of a knight.
- Hunter:
  - Formerly a hacker character, now is more of a tech nerd.
    - original character didn't even go to school physically and was borderline insane.
  - Manifest was originally dubbed technomancer, and lacked a design.
- Lavender:
  - Originally was one of the characters pet cat.... I'm serious.
  - Her dream manifest a human form, and has a homage in her new manifests design.
  - The character was reworked entirely from a comic relief character to something else entirely.

Original Lavender Artwork

Ashe's Design

Greyscale : Revision Crimson

This version was more so an expansion on the previous story idea I had, now featuring a central villian and a few new faces.

The tone did remain ultimately similar, however featured a villian known as "Lady Vermillion" who was the predecessor for Reaper. Blue, who was Reds younger brother (real on the nose I know), and didn't have a Dream Manifest form due to his young age. And Lyne, who has a bit of a history in her own right.

Lynes history is weird to put it lightly, but it ties back to this school project I did back in a science fiction class in high school; my final in fact dubbed "The Phantasm War". The project spanned over 50 pages of content and created a universe I might consider revisiting one day. Regardless, I did think about making a sequel for it following one of the main characters "Dr. Vi Planeswalker" siblings. A younger brother named Lucifer, and an even younger sister named eventually to Lyne. Due to motivation reasons and just not really liking it, the project was eventually scrapped; however I did plan to tie it in to Revision Alpha somehow, where the Lyne featured in this story was the same Lyne from "The Phantasm War 2".

Other then these alterations, It was ultimately the same story and as a result didn't stick around very long.

Specific Character Alterations:
- Lyne:
  - Was originally an android without a dream manifest, but is now just a normal human.
  - Was originally best friends with Blue and was around the same age as him.
- Lady Vermillion > Reaper:
  - Different story role.

Lynes Original Design

*The design is ultimately the same basis as the final design, but refined much more and lacks the robotic elements.

Lady Vermillion's DEsign

Greyscale : Revision Beta (Concept)

This version was the basis for what would become greyscales story today, but had a number of key differences to it.

This was initially considered a sequel to Revision Alpha, but featured the characters Blue, Lyne, Lavender from the previous story as the main cast, and now had the characters Rose, Raymin, and Reaper in the story, as well as the character Nocturne, for the first time.

The story would have been about the idea of accepting fate and how you cant change the course of history by yourself; everything has a time and place, essentially. Reaper had a different role at the time as well, but I can't remember what it was (the whole retrospective is off the top of memory after all)

Specific Character Alterations:
- Blue > Grey:
  - Manifest was changed from Chaos into Sentinel.
- Raymin:
  - Was given more depth as a character and joins the main party.

Nocturne's Original Design

Reapers Original Artwork

*Fun Fact : This is still used in a lot of the promotional artwork and is used once in game due to not creating the new artwork for a while

Reapers Second Form

*This would become the basis for Alice's design in her boss fight

Greyscale : DM Act 1 - X / Mirror World Anomaly (Og)

This version is essentially what the current project has become, which was almost like a soft reboot of sorts for the idea, taking what I liked about all the eras and just conglomerating them into what the story is now, that being said there are still a few key differences; as well as introducing Eve as a character.

The plot focused more on the idea of existence at the time, and what someone's purpose in life is. At least for the first two parts

The story was to be segmented into five parts, but I toned it back to what I have now so I don't create kingdom hearts syndrome, and bloat the story to a degree where you just cant process it.

Specific Character Alterations:
- Grey:
  - Was still titled Blue at the time
  - Manifest was still Chaos
- Lyne:
  - Manifest was named "Duality Glacier"
- Raymin:
  - Manifest was more of a physical attacker then a magician
- Hunter:
  - Was still very much the awkward stalker type
  - His manifest functioned more as a Stand/Persona, and was two parts, ECC (the user), and Nirvana (his summon)
    - (If you've seen JoJo's Bizarre Adventure or Persona you know what I'm talking about)
  - His manifest functioned more as a navigator of sorts then a form for combat
- Michel:
  - He was a rather expressive character but had a decent amount of baggage
    - This was changed as it felt too similar to Lyne's arc
- Lavender:
  - Played a very major role in later parts
  - Manifest was named "Lotus"
- Eve:
  - More character detail and introduced much earlier.

ECC and Nirvanas original Art

Lyne 2.0's Artwork

Covers for Each Project Era

Dream Manifest (2018)

REV Crimson/Beta (2018-2019)

Greyscale DM Act 1 (2019-2020)

Mirror World Anomaly (2020)

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