Here’s a glimpse at what could have been. I did a LOT of designs for the characters in Imaginary Daughter, finally setling for the ones you know and love (?), and here are a couple of different versions of both Father and Daughter that I quite liked.

Alternate Daughter

You can see some design decisions at work there. Four fingers, or five? I settled for five, but think of the possibilities! Round face or not? I love round faces! I’m not sure what that keylock shape is there. It seems to say FROI… could it be “FRO”? Maybe I thought of giving a character an afro? Who knows!

The hiragana on the top left says “yonkoma“, which is a popular style for japanese comic strips consisting of four vertical panels. Though I didn’t follow that path, you can see that the earlier strips all consisted of three vertical panels, undoubtedly influenced by this.

And then there is Father:

Alternate Father

There isn’t much to say about this guy. I guess he was a bit more realistic in this design. Also, you could see his eyes. I’m not sure at which point I decided not to show Father’s eyes in the strips. Anyways, there you go. A glimpse of an alternate timeline, if you will.

On a side note, even further links were added to the links page. I recommend that you take a look at them, as they’re all fine webcomics/artists/whatever, plus there’s a variety of choice so there’s something for everyboyd.