hhhhhhhh I’m gonna talk about Sing some because I keep thinking about her and I l o v e her so much !!
So first some background in order to contextualize this... Madir builds doppelgangers, right? He sends recruits (namely Sing, Yra, and Nareen) to travel through various dimensions with the fetal (?) doppelganger and collect body parts from the alternate versions of the target (the doppelganger’s “Original”) and basically has industrialized what should be a slow, natural process of growth, confrontation (between the Original and their doppelganger), and either acceptance or substitution. Obviously by expediting the process, he has a high “””success””” rate where the doppelgangers replace their Originals, but in actuality, it’s really bad science because the intention of a doppelganger ISN’T to replace their Originals but (ideally) subsume back into them as whatever mental/emotional/existential distress that caused the split initially is acknowledged.
(All this basically to say that Madir doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing)
Sing, like essentially everyone else that inhabits their universe (or perhaps more appropriately, their lack of universe? The “Otherworld” they reside in is essentially the negated existence of everyone who has “lost” to their doppelganger and thus become an existential paradox) is absolutely miserable, but she IS loyal and has (misplaced) faith in Madir, so she goes to him and asks whether he can turn her into a doppelganger.
(Now, just to note- not that it matters- this was part of my original idea, but I was unable to work it into an already too-long script, so this isn’t exactly “fleshed out” yet, but I feel really strong about this plotline and how it works in conversation with the main story, so I will find a way to write it in eventually)
Madir, being the self-important piece of shit he is, and actually probably potentially caring about Sing as much as is possible for him (I’m sure he would say he loves her, but I’m not sure he CAN feel love, and even if he can, it’s definitely not a healthy love for either side and is moreso indicative of his love for possessing and controlling), is sure he can find a way. His logic is sound- replace her body, piece-by-piece, from alternate versions of herself that now take the form of her doppelganger, working backwards from the usual order and finally finishing with the doppelganger herself (simultaneously completing New Sing and killing off the doppelganger, leaving a space open, so to speak, for replacement). But it doesn’t work (because, again, he doesn’t know fuck all about what he’s doing and MORE IMPORTANTLY, that’s just not what a doppelganger is? You can’t “become” one, you can’t replace it, you can’t kill it, etc. So like, the concept is fucked right from the start, right?) and her body begins to fail.
I know this (along with Sindri ultimately “beating” his doppelganger) is part of why Madir kind of loses it at the end, leaving himself vulnerable when Yra, Sing, and Nareen turn on him and team with Sindri and Goro to take him down, but I don’t know what happens after that? I assume that with all the mutilation she’s undergone, she would rapidly transform into a more monstrous version of herself, completely losing her identity and becoming yet another inhuman ghost that wanders the Otherworld... but like... I want a happy ending for her? For all of them (Yra, Sing, and Nareen)? And right now it’s just... not. It’s neutral at best... but it also feels right? IDK- again, I don’t think I can make assumptions for her ending before I’ve rewritten her arc (to include all this stuff), and I’m definitely thinking too much with my emotions and not letting the characters tell their own story but... yeh I just wanted to talk about her more because her arc is really important to me!!
Never gonna make it on your own
Never gonna make it cuz I cannot
But I never had feels like this before
I can’t stop thinking about Madir and Sing and how I want to save her before it’s too late
This was probably the time he took her arm? And when he realized he couldn’t lose her like with Goro
(Also I wanted to draw her when she still had...uhh... skin lol and both lungs/arms ;___;)
omg a lot of people have followed this project since i last checked !!!
first off, thank you so much- it means everything to me that anyone is even mildly interested in watching this develop ;____;
secondly, i just graduated and my animation prof (who oversaw the initial development of this project) encouraged me to continue developing this and apply for fellowships, so I will be doing a l o t more work very soon! i realize there’s not a lot up here yet- and what is here isn’t exactly great- but i promise more to come!
I’m sort of struggling with how to properly disseminate some of the background information that I feel will help draw people in to where I’m at with this project... I mean, I’ve got a short summary on the about page, and to be honest, the art should stand on its own (eventually) but as I’m still in such an early stage, I want to take a moment to talk about where I’m coming from with this script.
This isn’t an explanation of narrative or even themes, but rather the framework in which I approach/ed this project. It’s a lot longer than I initially planned, so I’m putting it behind a read more, but it would mean the world to me if you would take just a few minutes to read it! And who knows? Maybe- just maybe- someone out there will find it interesting/informative!
So firstly, I think I should say that the original version of the script was actually, not a script at all, but a novel written when I was mid-high school. I was struggling immensely with depression (though I didn’t know it at the time), and looking back, it seems almost painfully obvious that the concept of a doppelganger (and specifically, the kind that replaces you in your own life) is a big ‘ol, hamfisted metaphor for depression.
I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that everyone (depressed or not) has had a point in their life when they felt unhappy with who and where they were. Sometimes it feels like that unhappiness is built into your very character and that you’ll never be able to be happy or satisfied. Wouldn’t it be better if there could just be another version of you that’s confident and happy and excels at everything you hate about yourself? Wouldn’t it be fucking terrifying if you had to come face to face with that person? Could you stand up to them and honestly say that you think you’re better equipped for handling your life? Wouldn’t it just be so easy to see yourself- everything you ever wanted to be, doing everything you ever wanted to do (and with confidence and style to boot)- and give up your life to them? After all, they can clearly do better than whatever you’ve done (or rather, not done) with your pathetic life.
Now, of course, this is all in retrospect- as I’ve grown, my understanding both of myself and of my illness has matured as well. Rather than sort of uncritically regurgitating these feelings, I’ve chosen now to interrogate the nature of these feelings and posit an argument outside the experience itself (i.e. why is this such a universal feeling? what causes us to simultaneously reject ourselves while fantasizing about an “ideal” self? can an idealized self and actual self ever be reconciled? or were they ever separate to begin with? etc. i don’t want to get too deep into the philosophical aspect right now).
Similarly, I’m now able to verbalize (and thus deconstruct) a lot of the things I experienced, but couldn’t give name to as a teen- namely, my complicated relationship with my body. As mentioned before, I struggled with (and still do) depression, but that was only a drop in a sea of bullshit. I also have anxiety which revolved almost entirely around my body (its delicacy, vulnerability, etc.), an eating disorder, dissociative/paranoid/delusional symptoms (undiagnosed, so I’d rather describe symptoms than give a label), chronic physical illnesses, and gender dysphoria. All this just to say that my relationship with my body has always been... strained, to say the least... and I believe this is one of the most significant driving forces behind this script.
I’ve warned for body horror in the description and although it’s yet to really become apparent, this story is just as much about the horror and fear surrounding one’s body as it is about dissatisfaction with one’s life/self, and I choose to explore this in graphic (and symbolic) detail. Bodies mutate and degrade while others are literally built organ-by-organ- there’s vivisection and dismemberment, monsters and stolen body parts galore! I could even argue that the story is in many ways a pastiche of the modern guro community (which is both a nod towards the massive influence it has had on my artwork in general as well as rhetorical device), but I don’t want to imply that it’s mere reference for reference or aesthetic sake.
The use of specific forms of body horror is very personal to me, but more than that, I think something can be said for the way it’s used in guro. No one’s really taken the time to properly theorize and deconstruct the modern guro movement (which i believe to be significantly and dramatically different from the original ero guro movement), but just from a quick glance it’s apparent that most guro artists are young, trans and gender-variant people, many with mental illnesses, many the victims of abuse or trauma, and almost all with complex relations to their bodies. Whether they’re aware of it or not, they (we) are exploring very complex and nuanced conceptions of the body and the human experience through a surprisingly coherent set of motifs and themes- and I think this is an area worth just as much respect and discussion as any other modern art movement.
Finally, I think it’s worth mentioning that the first draft of this script was written for a class on dreams & consciousness (specifically, an independent study on “dream states & consciousness in film” for my motion pictures theory major). This is the third major thematic category (though it overlaps heavily with the aforementioned concepts) that encompasses what constitutes both the substance and style of this project. I was both watching a lot of films and reading a metric fuckton of philosophical/scientific works on the subject, and I think it really helped formulate a lot of the concepts I play around with in the script and (more importantly) give coherency to my thoughts. Writing or making artwork about dreams & consciousness is extremely difficult to do while retaining any sort of logic or coherency (e.g. watch any amateur- and shit, even many hollywood- films exploring dreams and try to make sense of them. At best, they’ll be “weird for weird’s sake”- as if oneiric = absurdist- and at worst, they’ll be absolutely incomprehensible and forgettable). I personally (though I wouldn’t presume to prescribe this methodology for anyone else) found that organizing my thoughts within a framework of theory and philosophy allowed me the freedom to open up and explore things more intuitively (might seem counter-intuitive, but I’m so obsessively Logical that the only way I can relax enough to do anything instinctively is if I already have the over-thinking part done and taken care of), making this one of the most personal and emotionally-engaging works I’ve done to date.
Anyways, that’s all I’m going to talk about for now. I want to talk about the philosophical implications of the themes, narrative, and (obviously) title of the script, however, this is so complex and will definitely be even wordier than this, so I’ll save that for another post. Let’s just say I was reading a lot of existential and phenomenological philosophers (esp. Heidegger and Deleuze), so it’ll be a little challenging to talk about in any sort of accessible way lol
Please feel free to ask questions about... well, anything! Whether it be something I mentioned here or not- I would love nothing more than to have a chance to talk about this in detail! If you’ve made it this far, I can’t thank you enough for your patience and interest and I l o v e y o u!!!
I was only happy with one of the concept pieces I did, but even so...
(full view to get rid of the obnoxious blurriness)
OK so to be honest, I really don’t like this, but I’m uploading it anyways 1. so I have at least one of the concept pieces on here and 2. so I can talk about Jherek Bischoff’s album art.
I didn’t start listening to Bischoff’s latest album “Cistern” until a couple weeks after I finished this, but I immediately loaded all of the songs onto my playlist for this project because they just fit really well and were all really haunting and great. THEN I noticed the album art (check out all three- for “Cistern”, the EP, and “Cas(s)iopeia”)... it’s uncanny how similar they are and it’s Freaking Me Out a bit. But I’ll just take it as a sign that the album is totally meant to be part of the conceptual soundtrack lol
I think I’d actually like to re-do this piece soon because it’s a neat idea, just sloppily executed.
Two backgrounds, just to get the style down of how I want to render things.
These were actually specifically for a short I wrote related to the script, so it’s all mundane, “real world” shit, but I could probably squeeze them in to the beginning of the script if I really wanted to use them. And anyways, like I said, it was more to nail down style than actually have a finished, usable background.
Essentially, I want the backgrounds to be “realistic” (as opposed to the more stylized characters), but still feel kind of dreamy and surreal. I used a really soft brush so that I couldn’t go in to too much detail- which would ground the viewer more than I’d like... I want them to feel as detached from their surroundings and dissociative as the characters do- but used a lot of pics to get the lighting and perspective right. I hate to over/mis-use the term “surreal”, but I really feel like it’s the best to describe what I was going for- like realistic rendering, but weird, over-saturated lighting and bizarre textures so it always feel just “off” enough or oneiric even.
A couple of prop sheets! Don’t really know what to say about them??
I think they’re too “realistic”- I want to push for more stylized/surreal shapes and exaggerate a lot of the forms, but I get so caught up in accurate perspective/shape/size/etc. that I forget to be loose with it. The exception is probably Goro’s house, which actually came out looking decent.
The top pic is various props associated with Sindri and Goro, so I wanted them to be a bit more organic and have more “flow”/stylization, while the bottom pic is all Madir & Co.’s props, which I wanted to be rigid/geometric/”sterile”-feeling (if that makes any sense?). Like, ideally, there would be no straight lines in any of the top props (and especially any of Goro’s things), while all the hospital junk would be nothing but straight lines and sharp edges.
Madir’s sigil, despite being so tiny and basic, actually took forever to develop (still not totally happy with it). I knew I wanted something evocative of cadeuces because of the original/doppelganger dichotomy, but I’d rather have something where one dominates (consumes?? i played around with ouroboros a bit but nothing looked right) the other in order to suggest Madir’s philosophy. Then there’s the obvious medical cross shape, but I also threw in some rune shapes as well just for my own personal in-jokes, I guess. It’s a really small detail, but I still want it to be important.
And just in case anyone happens to know what tools they’re looking at- yes, I did intentionally make most of Madir’s stuff autopsy tools and outdated instruments. He is a Very Bad surgeon and honestly, I doubt he even knows the difference (or cares).
Here he is... the Trash Lord himself... ”Doctor” Madir...
So first off, I’m so upset that I rushed this sheet because the poses/expressions are really bad and there’s not nearly as many as I want. Also his color scheme is really wonky right now... The only consolation I have is that I’m going to be drawing him s o m u c h that it’s sort of irrelevant what’s on this first character sheet lol
As the most visible “antagonist”, I wanted Madir to have that classic, This Is The Villain look (pointed/triangular features, broad shoulders, slightly femme gestures, TEETH), so that’s what I really focused on, design-wise. Some of the things I’m not really happy about are how slim he is (esp. in the shoulders, which I want to be closer to how they are in the bottom left, but also I want him to have that skinny-fat muffin top thing going on, u kno), his outfit (its meh- feels really uninspired), and the detail of his “hair” (drawing a headful of intestines that are simple enough to animate but detailed enough to register as such is Hard lol).
IDK I just want him to be more intimidating, but still look as pathetic and incompetent as he is? I guess I’d like to see him vacillate between those states and have it come across in his design. Mostly, I want him to be looser/more “cartoony”/stylized... maybe that’ll come more when I start actually MOVING him because I imagine his movements are really dramatic and ‘toon-y and over-the-top, but I was still in a lot of pain when I was doing this sheet so everything feels so stiff... I dunno, it’s a start! I’m trying to be more positive about these sheets since they’re only a starting point but I just want his especially to be Quality since he’s one of my favorite OC’s ever and I want to do him justice.
Well, I’m pretty sure this took nearly 3 years off my life, but i finished it. Lots of talking under the cut.
I have really mixed feelings about this sheet because on one hand, I love these three and poured a lot of my own self-perception into each of them, but on the other, this was the sheet I was working on when I had a terrible flare-up/mental breakdown so I just see Pain when I look at it lmao... Anyways, the important takeaway of that is that everyone’s a little stiffer than I’d like because I worked on it so sporadically and when I was able to, it was for very short bursts because my shoulder/arm would be unbearable lol
I wanna take a minute to talk about their mutations a bit, because it’s a pretty important factor. On one hand, they all kind of play with cliche/trope-y things within guro art (multiple eyes, medical equipment, mouths in places they shouldn’t be, mushrooms/fungi, etc.), but they’re more character development than reference. I haven’t talked about it much on here yet, but within the “otherworld” that these three occupy, your sense of identity dissolves and warps over time, so most residents aren’t recognizably human (if they ever were to begin with) and those that are relatively “new” to the world quickly begin mutating as their identity breaks down.
The mutations aren’t totally random, though. Some are the product of forgetting who you were before, while others are the result of the distorting and degradation of your view of yourself. Since everyone in the “otherworld” is there because they were so unhappy in their lives, their sadness/bitterness/anger/etc. is left to fester and slowly warps their (figurative and literal) view of themselves. And of course, if a body part is removed (as is the case with both Yra’s eye and Sing’s arm), it will never grow back as it was- and thus, injuries speed up the mutation process.
For example, Nareen is, quite literally, rotting from the inside out (subtle, I know) not only because he is so desperate to forget who he is, but also because that’s truly how he sees himself- infected, corrupting, and absolutely worthless. Similarly, Yra feels powerless and voiceless (despite being quite loud all the time, he never feels that he’s actually being heard or that he’s really “saying” anything), so the addition of a mouth is a sort of desperation made physical (though I want to point out, this is completely personal- it’s not like “mouth = x” or something- i have another character with mouth-related mutations which represent an entirely different concept). To be REALLY blatant/cliche, the mouth is sort of an id given a voice lol Finally, Sing’s is again pretty obvious; she feels like a monster- a beastly soldier good for nothing but violence and depravity- so she’s likely destined to some predatory, animalistic form.
Their “uniforms” are modeled after Madir’s own fashion choices, but I tried to keep them unique and feel like something they actually chose for themselves. The only other thing is that I don’t have a good reference for Sing’s oxygen tank yet, but that’s in the works too!
Omg hello and thank you to all the people who started following this project!! I’m so honored anyone would want to keep up with this despite there being so little right now ;__;
So I’m alive and ready to start posting again! I saved some of the stuff worked on for my independent study to my drafts as I completed them, but I’m going to go through now and actually publish them lol And I’m finally done with classes, so expect a lot more frequent updates and hopefully more interesting experiments/work!
i’m sure Yra ~canonically~ lost his eye through punitive surgery, but what’s the point of being The Creator if you can’t have fun every now and then?
just a quick one today since i’m waayy behind on my character sheets!
I love you like a lion loves its kill
and i will touch you like a doctor, just lay still
goretober day 1: medical
thought i’d start off my first goretober with an homage to jenny saville, my first art crush and still practically synonymous with “medical” in my mind (even if it’s not typical goretober style- don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of time for that :P)
New palette challenge: color a white-haired, white-skinned character on a piece of white paper and don’t let him disappear into the background lol Keep reading for notes.
But really, coloring Goro was the bane of my existence and I’m still incredibly frustrated with how it turned out. I think it will look better on a background, but the yellow-on-yellow just absolutely loses his face and I can’t figure out a better way to bring it out without wrecking the tones. Anyways, other than the color, he was incredibly fun to draw and the simplicity of the face allowed me to focus more on my arch nemesis: loose fabric.
Overall, I think this sheet is much more “descriptive” than Sindri’s, with consistent proportions and notes for anything that might seem random. I did, however, leave out one of his other disguises, as well as his “true” form, so I’ll have to throw those up here one day (though not as a full character sheet... just a couple sketches, probably).
I don’t think this design really pushes things in any way- it’s very generic... animated child proportions... As usual, I really need to keep contrast in mind since my tendency is always to sort of smooth everything out, proportion-wise. I’ve never drawn kids/cute things before, though, so that was fun?
(Also I keep flip-flopping on whether his name should be written Guro or Goro but both offer some meaning, and they’re pronounced similarly enough that either works for me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
janainaart
areudirty
origamiaround
theartofmadeline
dededos