Glass Houses

Ceratinus' art ✴ Fine Arts Student ✴ Oil painting, printmaking, & digital

[ars-ceratinus]

☞ Welcome to my art blog. This is an archive of all the work I make, whether for school, work, or personal projects.

☞ I am currently developing a graphic novel [?]. I post a lot about that, whether through paintings, doodles, or comic art.

☞ If you have any questions, send me an ask and I will be more than happy to answer.

☞ I'm in my 20s and have no idea who I am or what I'm doing, so bear with me.

[ars-ceratinus]

Been trying to force myself back into writing recently. Not easy, but it's left me considering Theodoric and Belladonna's relationship a little bit more, especially in comparison to her parents and to Hartwin.

I guess I've outgrown the "pure evil" angle that I used to see their dynamic from. Belladonna's parents were cruel and emotionally abusive, and saw their eldest as a faulty investment more than a person. I think that their behaviour stems from this extreme objectification and desire for complete control moreso than a joyous glee to do harm. Looking at Hartwin, there are obviously good intentions, but an inability to actively help Belladonna. He enables her impulses, which ends up negating any positive effect he might have had on her in the end.

3 parent/figures. Then we arrive at Theodoric. If you were to read the first 10 chapters, the notion that Belladonna is being passed around like an employee to different departments or a workhorse to different farms, is deliberate. A large part of her internal struggle is one of self-definition against a lifetime of depersonalisation. Anyways. Theodoric is also abusive, and also takes some sense of "ownership" over her, but I believe that this differs significantly from the way her parents treat her.

Theodoric sees Belladonna as his one and only project. He masks his twisted concern for her trajectory with disdain, but deep down, Theodoric knows that she is the only thing he has. He is immortal in a technical sense, but logically, one day even that will end. He views his ability to create a perfect version of undeath as proof of his legacy. I think that in his own head, he sees his cruelty as necessary. The world is cruel. He also believes in a "Survival of the fittest" cycle of violence that calls for elimination of anything thought of as weak.

In Hartwin's goodness there was a nuggest of selfishness - to live out his former glory days through Belladonna. In Theodoric's evil there is a hint of loneliness and of desperation. I mean, his culture is long gone. The world he grew up in breathed its last 1100 years before Belladonna was even born. His mother tongue is extinct. Who wouldn't long for someone to share that misery with I guess

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Kind of moody sketchbook painting of a young Theodoric a few months after his death

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There came a day when all the stars went out

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New sketchbook, new cover

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Unreal Bjornament 5, Round 3: "Boss Fight"

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[WIP] of my UB5 round 3 illustration

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Oil on panel of the family dog and a pumpkin

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Unreal Bjornament 5, Round 2: "Resistance"

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Perdition (2026), oil on canvas. Thesis painting for my BA

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Now we're back on model

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Obsessed with everyone in the notes of Three Lies just assuming its a necrotic body

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Yes the hands could have used more effort yes some of the facial anatomy is questionable,,,, I'm just trying to get back inro the habit of drawing at ALL rn

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Now we're back on model

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He got a haircut too but idk if I actually like it

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Officially hit with the curly hair beam

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Unreal Bjornament 5, Round 1: "The magical item granted otherworldly powers"