Prism City Archives

The Prism City Archives is a passion project born in December of 2024, following a surge in personal interest towards magical girl anime. All the magical girl stories I’d been exposed to when I was younger — and the ones that remain popular today — center around middle school or high school aged protagonists. Those are perfect for their target audience, but as that audience grows up, the stories get harder to relate to in the same way. I wanted to make something that centered young adult protagonists while still covering the same themes as the magical girls that inspired them.

In a world where magic is used to form an arcane police sector, Veridian Lavode and her team must solve cold cases to find out what happened to the magical girls who disappeared before them. Along the way they face mutated horrors, betrayal, and mystery as they uncover the unsavory roots of their own city.

The main squad

Four magical girls, each carrying a suit of the deck.

Veridian Lavode bears the suit of diamonds. Intelligent and reserved, she lost her mother before she got to know her, and wants to follow in her footsteps and find out what happened to her while honoring her memory. She takes a leadership role but is willing to share it. Her goal runs deep enough that she can come off as selfish in pursuit of it, though it comes from a place of justice — and once she lets people in, she’s extremely compassionate.

Jaida Alvarez bears the suit of clubs. Strong, creative, a bit temperamental. She lives with her single father and younger sister Carmen, and became a magical girl to inspire her sister and make her father proud. Growing up with a single father earned her a lot of snide comments about her identity, especially as she prefers a more masculine style. She pressures herself to be a perfect role model for Carmen, which has taken its toll. She’s learned to use art and exercise as outlets.

Chayanne Pierce bears the suit of spades. Standoffish with a hidden charm. She and her twin sister Charity spent their lives in foster care, moving through several homes before their current placement. She won’t admit it, but she became a magical girl to find purpose and to feel less alone. She struggles to trust people, having grown used to moving on from relationships in a blink — but when she does form an attachment, she’s fiercely loyal.

Indie Morgan bears the suit of hearts. Kind and highly sociable, from a large family where everyone seems to succeed. With five older siblings and one younger, she wants to stand out, and being a magical girl is how she does it. She likes to feel rebellious, usually dressed in several bright colors at once, broken out of the fold of her rainbow array of siblings.

Theodosia

Calm and collected, Theodosia was a magical girl in her prime, with a brooch in the shape of a swan. She was devoted to the work, but found herself pulled toward her family-oriented interests. Given an ultimatum by the head of the Prism City Police Department — she couldn’t have a child and be a hero — she chose to be a mother.

Her last act as a magical girl was breaking into the PCPD and uncovering secrets far beyond what she expected. Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Veridian, she vanished from the hospital. The case has been cold since.

The brooch

I wanted to dedicate a bit of time to thinking more about the way that the brooches my magical girls wear function as objects. I based them around pins with their backing, and gave them a raised center while keeping them relatively simple. On the back is the Prism Corporation logo as a reminder of who gave them out.

They’re accessories as a sign of their team affiliation, but I still wanted to make a mockup of one of them to give it some proper thought.

The device

I drafted up an idea for a communication device to be used between my team of magical girls. It functions similarly to a mix between an iPhone and a Gameboy-type device. The main screen shows all that there is to need, such as mission information, tracking software, and more. The lights at the top indicate which of each girls’ devices are online, as all four of them have a device for use.

Jaida’s room

I explored some environment design by making a room for Jaida that has small details about her personality and overall vibe.

The room has a lot of green elements, as that’s not only her representative color in the team but also her favorite color. She has some natural wooden elements like her headboard, bedside table and closet, along with a plant that ties her to nature. She does her best to remain grounded and down to earth, and not let her temper get to her. Her plant is potted in a pink vase, an element that signifies her friendship with Indie prior to the story. Her backpack is within reach if it’s needed, and she has a small jewelry box to store her accessories in. On her closet she keeps drawings that she’s made, a funny sticky note, and drawings of her and her sister Carmen made by each other.

Story illustrations

Comic cover

For my Illustration II class, I was tasked with creating a hypothetical comic book cover for a story of my own. I decided to make a cover of what may be approximately the third volume of a comic that could be made for the Prism City Archives. This volume would focus on the case of Veridian’s missing mother and the prospect of her potentially being alive after almost two decades of disappearance. The hardest part was the composition, but I settled on the current one through a lot of critique from my classmates and professor.

Comic page

Due to the fact I finished my comic book cover assignment two weeks early, my Illustration II teacher assigned me an extra task to create a hypothetical page from said comic. In this scene, Veridian attempts to convince her teammates that what she saw wasn’t just a hallucination, and that the monster they had just fought had the same eyes as she’d seen of her mother’s, while the other three aren’t quick to believe her. I’m still getting the hang of comic page layouts, so there’s a bit of room for improvement still.

Cinematic shot

Veridian’s mother Theodosia, known as Swan Song to the public, plays a crucial role in both the past and present of the Prism City Archives. Her alias serves as a prelude to her untimely fate, and she currently acts as a role model, inspirational driving force, and an element of mystery that haunts the narrative. In this scene, which I would imagine as the opening prologue to the story, it seems she’s discovered something that she isn’t supposed to within the cities’ archives, a red stamped file with her face on it. This piece was a challenge to my artistic skill, as I struggled with the perspective and lighting adaptations along the way.

Rooftop

This piece was made mostly for fun as a non-canon illustration. It came when I decided to commit myself to fleshing out the PCA story more and served as a reflection of my personal motivation. Getting the color palette in my head onto the screen was by far the most difficult part.

Waiting room revamp

Four girls meet in a dingy office after being selected as a part of a draft process to become the latest squad of arcane law enforcement agents; The Magical Girls of Prism City. Their story of mystery, discovery, and potential heartbreak begins here. This piece was a redux of the first piece I made of the PCA girls, and after a year of development I wanted to show personal improvement along with how the squad has changed.

How these designs evolved

First designs, early 2025

This generation is the earliest development of PCA, back before it even has a name as one of my projects. I had previously been into a lot of magical girl anime, notably Glitter Force and the subsequent Glitter Force Doki Doki, but noticed that I couldn’t relate to the shows as easily now that I am an adult. Thus, I embarked on making Magical Girls that were my age, and these four girls came to be, but they didn’t really have a story at this point. I experimented heavily with new face shapes and features, along with hair variants and color palettes. However, their facial anatomy was lacking in my opinion, and their outfits were lacking in personality and cohesion for their group outfits.

Second designs, mid 2025

This generation was spurred by a leap in artistic skill that I gained over the course of a semester at college. With classes teaching me more about facial and bodily anatomy, I could only look back and cringe at the first generation’s lack of differentiation in body types and faces despite my best efforts. With clearer set body types and more diverse faces, I attempted to keep some aspects of their old outfits, but leaned into a jester inspired look for their magical girl uniforms to add more cohesion to their designs. This generation and the last have the greatest leap in difference. From this generation to the current one, I solidified color schemes, added more small elements of cohesion between the squad, and simplified some details to make their designs easy to replicate many times over.