Illustration, traditional animation, film and more. Brush, ink, watercolors.
Storyteller working in the bardic tradition, adapting Irish mythology and folklore across multiple mediums.
Commissions are open!
https://oreganillo.org/comics
Absolute Batman soaring over a moonlit and dreamlike Gotham.
This is an example of the De Luca effect. where a character's movement is tracked across a page. Without the use of panel borders in between, there is three singular moments in time occurring across the page.
The use of a maskless Bruce conveys his interiority.
All my work is made with a brush and ink on paper, coloured with digital or watercolours.
Let me know what you think! I will be sharing more pop culture works soon.
I present to you the festival of Lir, held for his children who have been transformed into swans through a scornful spell. They are: Fionnuala, Aodh, Fiachra, and Conn. 🦢🦢🦢🦢
The tragedy of the children of Lir is the most popularly known Gaelic myth. I was recently commissioned to create an ink and watercolor illustration using this myth, and I chose this moment to illuminate.
I resonate with the myth for a number of reasons. One of the swans is named Aodh, for one. Their fate, casting them across several seas over 900 years, without solid ground to land on, resonates with my current station in life. They witness an ocean of time in their passage, and observe as their world is increasingly abstracted, they cannot truly return.
Though their shape is changed, they maintain their voice, and take it upon themselves to communicate through poetry and music, to learn the tales and languages of the oceans and the islands, preserve and pass them on.
Among fiery and passionate musicians, Lir is strewn like seaweed, wearing a ribbon of ocean, full of grief. As with any shapeshifting across this mythology and others, there are always two ways to read such a transformation, given its often violent nature. Yet, a great music brings levity to this fierce nature of change, and mortality.
This is the first work of Irish mythology I’ve created since the passing of Manchán Magan, my collaborator on 'Ireland in Iceland: Gaelic Remnants in a Nordic Land'. Without him I wouldn’t be doing this work with such ferocity. Part of the joy of creating this work became sharing it with him. There was so much more work to be done, connections to be found. Alas, I’ll forge on in this bardic tradition with gratitude, I’ll carry forth the insights he passed on. I am indebted to him, he was my druid, and a legendary fili (poet) in his own right.
See more of my work in Irish mythology here:
Aodh Ó Riagáin is Oreganillo., producing comics, illustration, animation, graphic design, modelling and more.
A bird’s eye view of the River Boyne, named after the goddess Boann in Irish mythology. 💧
From Manchán Magan’s ‘Ireland in Iceland: Gaelic Remnants in a Nordic Land’ which I illustrated 120+ pieces for using a brush, pen, ink and watercolors. It is published by Mayo Books and available in shops in Ireland, also available to order internationally on Manchán’s and Mayo Books website. It is a windswept adventure by land and sea preserving myth, folklore and history. 🌀
Aodh Ó Riagáin is Oreganillo., producing comics, illustration, animation, graphic design, modelling and more.
Brush, ink and watercolor illustration from ‘Ireland in Iceland: Gaelic Remnants in a Nordic Land’ written by the late Manchán Magan.
The illustration supports the phrase:
Cuirfidh mé cloch ar do charn (I will put a stone on your cairn/burial mound).
An old Irish phrase, a premonition and an elegy to those who’ve passed. One of innumerable gemstone phrases and old words I learned from Manchán.
Mythology and folklore is bound up in the world of the dead as much as it is the world of dreams and visions. To pass on myths is to share stories of those who have bit the dust, those of the soil and the particles, or ‘scim’. Those of the mists, of the ‘sí gaoithe’ (gust of wind/fairy mist).
The bard or ‘fili’ forges a glimpse of the forms they used to take and lives they lived. In doing so, the moments of their lives are reactivated in a sense across spacetime. The past takes presence again, in hyperbolic fashion. Mythology is reality through stained glass.
Manchán, cuirfidh mé cloch ar do charn!
Aodh Ó Riagáin is Oreganillo., producing comics, illustration, animation, graphic design, modelling and more.
The March of the Tuatha Dé Danann, otherwise known as the tribe of the goddess Danu - an otherworldly pantheon of gods and goddesses in Irish myth and folklore. They are part of ‘na síoga’, the fairy folk who inhabit nature. 🍃
An illustration with ink and watercolor from ‘Ireland in Iceland: Gaelic Remnants in a Nordic Land’ written by the late Manchán Magan.☀️
The book is available in shops in Ireland and online to order! Seek it out! 🌞
Manchán’s work and words are a lighthouse in these cruel times, rising beyond nationalism and instead shining a light on the migratory roots of our interconnecting cultures, how interwoven we all are through language and culture. Together on the big earth village, with the sea as our belt. 🌊
Aodh Ó Riagáin is Oreganillo., producing comics, illustration, animation, graphic design, modelling and more.
Here is my latest hand-drawn animation, a marriage between fashion illustration and hand-drawn animation. It was a collaboration between myself and a fashion designer based in Lisbon, William Mason.
It sings with music, which you can see on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8ruG2ssukv/
See my other animations here: https://oreganillo.org/animation
I present to you - my storyboards for 'The Four-Angled Whale', the origin of the Irish harp, according to Irish mythology! These storyboards are for an envisioned short film or animation.
Based on one of my favourite Irish myths, whereby Cana Cluadhmor invents the Irish harp based on a beached whale.
This is set in pagan Ireland, in a pre-Christian era.
Aodh Ó Riagáin is Oreganillo., producing comics, illustration, animation, graphic design, modelling and more.
I present to you - my storyboards for 'The Four-Angled Whale', the origin of the Irish harp, according to Irish mythology! These storyboards are for an envisioned short film or animation.
Based on one of my favourite Irish myths, whereby Cana Cluadhmor invents the Irish harp based on a beached whale.
This is set in pagan Ireland, in a pre-Christian era.
Aodh Ó Riagáin is Oreganillo., producing comics, illustration, animation, graphic design, modelling and more.
The art of my new single-page comic, TĒ MĀNGŌROA (The Long Shark). A short comic about the origin of the milky way according to the Māori of Aotearoa or New Zealand, featuring the Polynesian trickster god Māui. Read it in colour and with captions here: https://oreganillo.org/te-mangoroa
Here are the storyboards I was commissioned to create for the Aludariari Story Cellar in Lithuania.
At first, it was intended that the mascots would begin as humans, and then transform into glass mascots in the finale. However, it was then decided that they should be glass mascots throughout. Hence, there are two versions of each storyboard! This decision was made before they were completed, hence the unfinished nature of the human-focused storyboards.
They say storyboarding is all about REboarding.
Only the first animation was completed before the project was abandoned. See it here: https://oreganillo.org/aludariari-charles
This was an advertisement in Instagram reel format, commissioned for the Aludariari Story Cellar in Lithuania. It features a glass mascot, a CEO named Charles.
The animation was created traditionally, entirely on paper.
The company decided to take a different direction in their marketing campaign. There were three more animations which were intended to follow this before the project was abandoned. Such is the nature of the creative industry.
Aodh Ó Riagáin is Oreganillo., producing comics, illustration, animation, graphic design, modelling and more.
