For this year, we proposed a short comics story and a papercraft toy that’s based on one of the characters in the story. We had a few story ideas and eventually the school nailed down on an intergalactic space race story. So here we are, presenting some of the character design for the short comics.

Ray is a student of Fuchun Secondary School and a member of the Youth Flying Card. He is smart and loves adventure but also arrogant and full of himself. He’s an extremely talented pilot and in part 2 of the comic, will save the world from destruction. Oops.. there is never going to be a part 2.

Tom is Ray’s best friend. Tom is humble and kindhearted. Unlike Ray, Tom doesn’t like to take risk and tends to worry too much. He’s the kind of guy who you tends to take advantage of in real life.

Starbee is a friendly transforming robot aircraft that brought Ray and Tom to the planet Dalny, where the intergalactic space race is held. Initially, the aircraft wasn’t meant to be a transforming robot but we thought if it has a humanoid robot form, there would be some character to it. Fans of transformers might have spotted this. Starbee’s name is derived from Starscream and Bumblebee. Having Starbee is yellow is a no-brainer. Yellow is a cheerful colour and Bumblebee is in yellow too.

Kubari is a female humanoid alien from the planet AKB48. We drew inspiration from the Japanese female idol group of the same name. Kubari is cute, sweet looking but arrogant, a similar character trait that she shared with Ray. She’s a great pilot and her flying skill is on par with Ray.

Yoggi is a male aquatic alien and an ace pilot from the planet D-24. The co-creator of this comic has been eating a lot of durians when this comic story was written, hence the name D-24. This character is not inspired by Yogi Bear.

Go to our main company website for more information about the promotion brochure for Fuchun Secondary School.

Here is an introduction of the characters that appears in the Quest special edition cards. Go to our main company site for more information about the Quest special edition cards.

Go to our main company site for more information about the Quest special edition cards.

You can also go to Quest website for more information.

Stronger than ever, Ethan is fueled by his passion and will to save all that is good and his sense of justice amplifies his magic and makes his power one to behold.

Hand in hand together with Ethan, she combats the forces of evil with the powerful new magic spells she has in her arsenal. With a great sense of justice, Rinzen shares the same goal as Ethan… to take down the Chief Executive Office. Once and for all.

The boss of the underworld, this is the man behind the masked plots to claim the world for himself. The malicious and powerful Chief Executive Officer strikes fear into the hearts of his foes by ruling with an iron fist.

With cunning and deceit as his weapons of choice, Tozap rose to power by cutting down all who stand in his way. Rising up the ranks quickly, Tozap had countless enemies who cannot tolerate him.

Caught in the crossfire between Tozap and Ethan, Richard saved Ethan from the clutches of death by sacrificing himself instead. A brave man whose status is now unknown.

In the second part of the fantasy trilogy, Ethan and Rinzen are summoned to Rivatuan. The people in Rivatuan are terrorised by a mysterious group of militants who are after the Pearls of Luminous Light. Unfortunately, the Rain Dragon and River Guardian are missing! As the hunt for the Rain Dragon and River Guardian continues, the most important question remains: can they stop the militants in time? The story are released weekly by chapters on National Library Board’s Quest website.

Ethan stared out of the window gloomily. It had been raining continuously for the whole month. Initially, he was happy that the days had turned cooler but after it rained day after day after day, he started to resent it. He could not go anywhere without getting his feet wet and the grey days made him sleepy and grouchy.

“I didn’t say we wouldn’t help. I just said ‘later’. Can’t you see that the fisherman is worried and wants to get back to the village as soon as he can? We won’t be helping by arguing. At least now we can creep to the village unseen. Isn’t that better? We can help more by being unnoticed,” said Ethan quickly, in an attempt to calm his hot-tempered friend down.

“That was hardly necessary Chang,” said Tozap as he walked to the centre where the two groups of people met. As he walked closer to the headman, he raised his arms and pointed to the young man who had shouted out in defense of the headman. The young man raised a cry of alarm and as he was raised off the ground.

Ethan felt something cool being poured into his mouth. It tasted like honeyed water with something else he could not identify. He opened his eyes to see the village headman, the fisherman and Rinzen looking at him. He was in a hut lit by an orange cloth lantern and the one who poured the honeyed water into his mouth was a lady who looked as old as the headman and had her hair all tied up in a bun on top of her head.

Never in his life had Ethan imagined being led by a school of fish. In front of him were hundreds of the luminous blue fishes followed by the crab, light-bulb fish and lastly, the two of them as seahorses.

The dragon curled itself back to its original position, satisfied with Rinzen’s answer and then said, “Can you find her?”

With hurried thanks, the children and Pong made their way into the thick jungle with the River Guardian and half ran, half trotted till they were a safe distance from the village. They stopped at a huge tree and Pong gently laid the River Guardian on a large banana leaf.

In the greenish-blue world of the river, Ethan found hundreds of eyes looking at him. Most belonged to fishes and there were a great many of them.

Ethan panicked. He had expected divers, not a marine taskforce. How would their army be able to attack people hidden in vehicles of steel? Before he could tell Hong that these vehicles could not be easily broken, Hong had shouted the command for the fishes to charge.

Quest 1 was a roaring success and we are proud to be a part of it. In order to inject a fresh look to Quest 2, we decided to go for an illustration style that’s different from Quest 1. Taking into consideration the target audience, we decided on the anime look and feel since young boys would find it appealing.

Check out the launch of Quest 2 at Woodlands Regional Library.

You can also go to Quest website for more information.

In the meantime, here’s an introduction to the key characters in Quest 2!

With his ability in magic growing day by day, Ethan discovers that he possesses the rare ability of magic control by thought and imagination.

Freshly awake, Rinzen is all ready to embark on another adventure with Ethan, this time in search of the Rain Dragon.

Anh Ha the River Guardian lives on a floating invisible island in the middle of the River Vian and is kidnapped by Tozap for the location of the luminous pearls.

The guardian of River Vian; this young and slightly plump River Dragon falls into the depths of despair when his best friend, the River Guardian, goes missing.

The courageous headman of Rivatuan risks his safety in spite of his old age to protect the village from being raided by Tozap who wants the luminous pearls.

With his past a mystery and revenge his goal, the Chief Executive Officer will stop at nothing to get the luminous pearls which will aid him in his mission for absolute control over the different realms.

Without his memories of what happened in Chushan, Uncle Richard suffers from frequent headaches and is forced to take orders from Tozap.

Having risen to new ranks of power since his days as an advisor to the King of Chushan, Tozap utilises his position to the fullest in order to get what he wants, whether by force or magic.

From the enthusiasm of the kids at the Quest launch, we knew all our efforts are well spend! If you have kids between the age of 8 to 13, its time to encourage them to go to the library!

The author of Quest of the Celestial Dragon is Felicia Chan, a librarian in NLB. Ethan has been entrusted with the responsibility to restore the Celestial Dragon’s power and save an entire country from an unscrupulous outsider. With the help of Rinzen the Dragonkeeper, will Ethan succeed in uncovering the plot of the mysterious traitor? Here are a selection of story illustrations for Quest 1 which we did for the National Library Board as well as its story extracts. The illustrations were updated bi-weekly on the National Library Board’s website. Visit the Quest website to follow the adventure of Ethan and Rinzen!

Ethan had barely reached his room when the door clicked open. Ethan looked at the four new bundles of bags being hauled in and let out a groan. “Not again, Mom. There is no more room in the house. Why don’t you sell off what we have first before getting new stuff?”

Ethan eyed the dragon statue suspiciously. It certainly did not look like treasure. There were scratches on some of its scales, the gold looked dull and not to mention, somewhat pasted on like cheap gold paint.

Before he had the chance to get out of bed to pick up the tank, he heard his lizard hissing. Adjusting his eyes to the darkness, he turned his head in the direction of the sound and thought at once his eyes were playing tricks on him. The dragon statue was glowing in the dark!

“Who are you and what are you doing here? If you are thinking about stealing any of my goats, I warn you that there is more strength in these old bones than you think.” he spoke harshly, pointing to his limbs.

Just as he was about to get up from the bed, the door burst open and a girl of about fifteen stormed in. She was beautiful, fair of skin, with jet-black silky hair that fell down to her waist.

By the time Rinzen had finished explaining her elaborate plan which involved creeping out that night from the inn where they were hiding, breaking into the palace, finding the king’s advisor who would have a clear picture of the situation and fishing for the location of the dragon’s eyes, Ethan found he could hardly keep his eyes open.

When the sky turned dark and the streets emptied, Ethan and Rinzen slipped out and slid unnoticed into the streets, keeping to sidewalks and back alleys. It was deadly quiet. Everyone had retired to their homes especially since no one was sure what was happening and therefore, wanted to be safe in their home once the sun had set.

He saw the face of the attacker. Something was terribly wrong. The man was none other than Uncle Richard, his mother’s brother who traded in goods together with her! Both stood staring at each other in complete shock.

A man as thin as a bean-pole with pale, sickly white skin rushed into the king’s chamber, picked Rinzen up from the floor and hurriedly dragged Ethan away, mentioning something about being the king’s advisor He led the way quickly down the many corridors.

There, at the entrance, Ethan’s uncle and his men were loading huge quantities of gold on a wagon; the old king was their hostage. Rinzen was nowhere in sight. Ethan’s uncle had a book clutched tightly under his arm and Ethan assumed that it was the book that contained the charm to turn metal into gold.