On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project. I really had no idea that I could produce anything even remotely artistic and have it come out as well as it did. The research that went into the assignment wasn't extraordinarily difficult, but I did have a Fullmetal Alchemist marathon one weekend where I did little else than watch the show. The physical presentation was but a small portion of the whole project, and everything I found out was so interesting. Basically, Fullmetal Alchemist takes place in a parallel universe to ours where alchemy has replaced chemistry and is studied much more voraciously.
The main storyline takes place in the country of Amestris, an allegory for the Western world and specifically the United States and Japan. Amestris is a powerful military state that has been quickly conquering all of the lands around it. The Amestrisian military utilizes alchemy and alchemists as weapons and funds alchemy research quite handsomely. To the east is the nation of Xing which, as you might guess, is an allegory for the Eastern world, specifically China. The Xings make use of alkahestry, which began as a healing technique.
The hardest part for me was actually drawing everything out. I haven't actually drawn anything for years, and I've never done anything of this magnitude, so it was intimidating to say the least. Thankfully, I didn't have to spend an inordinate amount of time after everything was sketched out. I spent a while on the chakra symbols because they were the only part I had to free-hand (eek!).
