Sep 28, 2021
EVA-03
seen from Malaysia
seen from T1
seen from Germany
seen from Canada
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Sweden
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Canada
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Canada
EVA-03
Grand Exit:
An unfinished piece for Holy Shito!, intended as a follow-up to this one. Planning began in January 2002; the Photoshop composite was done in August; and then... nothing. Damned if I can remember what happened. School, maybe? School is always a perfectly reasonable distraction from the frivolous things.
The intent here was to launch the fic in a big way, with most of the gang rushing out of the theater -- following the Eden premiere of EoE -- in a mad frenzy. Judging from my earliest thumbnails, the title “Holy Shito!” would have been featured top and center in the final version. That certainly explains all the empty space. I assume the matter had temporarily slipped my mind when I put Arael’s layer where I did, and would have eventually corrected itself.
Most of the featured figures are self-explanatory to the seasoned NGE fan. I’ve attached solo drawings for the more straight-forward Angels to this post. Drawings for the Evas and the remaining Angels, along with my delightful rambling commentary, may be found here and here.
Note #1: All of the humongous Angels are made much, much smaller in HS! on purpose. Though, true to NGE scaling tradition, sizes continue to fluctuate dramatically depending on the scene...
Note #2: “Alephel” and “Bethel” are fabricated names for the Israfel twins. In Japanese, they’re only called Kou ( 甲 - the gold one) and Otsu ( 乙 - the silver one), which roughly mean “(Target) A” and “(Target) B”. To make those sound like Angel names, simply convert A to Aleph and B to Beth, and add the “-el” suffix (”of God”) to both.
Note #3: I have no idea why there is a doodle of an Eva on a bed on the Sahaq rough. There are some things (wo)man was not meant to know.
I’m a little behind, but here’s an oldie-but-goodie all the same. She’s been tidied up a notch specifically for this repost, with a fancy new background and everything!
This image will likely prompt two questions. First one is, “WHY???” Second one is, “Why ‘Barb’?” Let’s tackle them in order.
Back in late August 2002, a friend alerted me to a thread at AnimeBoards that provided a perfect opportunity for hi-jinks. See, someone had posted Tony Taka’s (in)famous pinup of Asuka in a kinky Santa Claus outfit. Another user “BK”, whose whole thing was being obsessed with Eva-03 (while insistently referring to her as a “he”), insinuated in response that he would prefer to see his favorite Eva in said kinky Santa outfit. Of course, he meant it in the usual way, where the armor is treated as “skin” and any clothes are laid on top. (An enduring visual cliche of Eva fandom, but one that never made a lick of sense. Let the poor oppressed girls show their goods off, already!) The possibility of unleashing something totally unexpected upon the unsuspecting forum-goers delighted me. “Santa Barb” was the inspired result.
The reaction was about what you’d expect. "Unique" and "disturbing" were the most common responses. The ironic and satirical aspects of the image didn’t seem to reach anyone. The go-to interpretation was (and likely remains) that I’m a sick weirdo who wants to screw Evas. Now, I won’t say this is completely wrong (my psycho-sexual relationship with Evas is very... complicated), but it also missed the commentary I was making. Which, if absolutely nothing else, was poking at one small facet of the (to me) self-evident absurdity of human sexuality.
“Santa Barb” is a young woman’s reflection upon the incessant drive with which every interesting and distinctive female in fiction is transformed into endless piles of derivative cheesecake and worse. Stripped of everything but her ability to appeal to the primordial lust for boobies and a tight, moist flesh-sheath. The younger and “hotter” the dame, the more motive force with which this furiously masturbating homogenization-objectification machine operates. Back then, I studied the pumping pistons of this engine with a steady gaze both dispassionate and disgusted. Truly, I’m powerless -- my thoughts on all such things don’t matter; they have no effect on anything. Fighting is pointless. The only gestures worth making in the face of this perpetual onslaught are those that please me.
A subject of my own fascination was regarded with bewildered disgust by most. It was a simple thing to take that grotesque, undesirable subject, and swap it in where normally the lusted-after object would be.
Thus: an unarmored Eva-03 in a kinky Santa outfit.
Now! Why in the world “Barb”? Simple. I was a young, not always well-informed Eva fan at the time. Back then, I assumed that any mother’s soul would do, and that it was just preferable for the soul to be related to the pilot. (I blame episode 8 for this.) I further assumed that Eva-03 had been already ensouled in the U.S. (I blame... I dunno, pre-Platinum subtitles for this?), so I made up a new character for the purpose: Barbara Caraway. "Barbara” probably derived from the similarity to “Bardiel” (Bard, Barb), and I remember “Caraway” came from The Great Gatsby character. I can’t say for sure that I picked it because both Nick and Barb are gay, because I just have no recollection of the “why”, at all. An appealing explanation, though.
That answers one of the questions posed back here. So who’s the soul of Eva-00 in Holy Shito!, then? The wretchedly predictable answer!... another time.
Original sketches for “Santa Barb”. Her somewhat more enthusiastic expression in the rough inspired me to create an alternate head. So preoccupied was I with whether or not I could, I didn’t stop to think if I should...
