The final product is a 3 page comic based on the Heart
Finding the concept
This project started with an exercise to visualize metaphors pertaining to an essay about hummingbirds and hearts. https://theamericanscholar.org/joyas-volardores/#.Wn5plJM-eWY 
 Through this essay, I began to visualize various versions of the metaphors that were given through the essay in this phase.
The essay contained many references to the hummingbirds body parts, often comparing them to mechanical parts such as car engines, as well as lines such as "The shatter of glass on the road," and a description of the size of a whale heart in comparison to the human body. 
I took these references and represented them in these sketches above.
Here are more heart related sketches before I got to the comic. After researching many things about the heart, I realized that many civilizations held the heart dear to them. I thought it would be a good idea to incorporate this in my idea. In the center imageI drew a typical ancient roman man sharing a heart with an Egyptian man drawn in as a hieroglyph. At this point into the project I realized that I was more interested in the heart itself and its effect in language and culture. I conducted searches finding many different aspects about the heart such as biology, symbolism, origins of the symbol, and how it has been viewed in many cultures throughout history and the world.
The Storyboard
After many ideas, I decided to choose a completely different path from my explanations of history. I decided, instead, to take my own creative leisure and create a poem that ties into specific aspects of the heart that I had researched. Using the information and the poem, I created a three page short comic about the heart. I wanted to emphasize the flexibility of the heart in our language and culture, so I illustrated that by showing the heart as little as possible throughout the course of the three pages.
The Heart
There is a powerful force at play
It can adapt to it's surroundings,
And-performs-its-daily tasks-over-one hundred -times-per day
Even spread its influence like the roots of a tree
And keep intellectual machines on a rhythmic beat
It's big enough to spread webs of connections 
But small enough to wear on a sleeve

It comes with it's own list of desires and needs 
And can manipulate what the eye perceives 
It is the center all, yet at the center of none, 
It's the epicenter of channels and is the father of blood. 

This force has been with us from the start,
And regardless of its power, it can easily be broken apart
The force I speak of, is the heart.  
Heart Comic "Awareness"
This is a digitized version of the comic above. In this part of the process I had to use the sketches from the earlier sketch and make decisions regarding texture and color. The gray scale color seemed to fit for the mysterious flow of the narrative. We are hidden in the dark both literally and figuratively about what is being discussed through the text. As a continuation to this project, I'd eventually like to refine and expand it to become a fuller length comic that goes into discussing the heart in language more directly. 
First Draft
I am currently working on a redesign of these pages, as well as a cover page for the comic which can be seen below. It's not entirely finished, but it is already more promising than the initial illustrations.

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