#papa emeritus secondo

[mebbrrr]

oh yeah baby we’re BACK in BUSINESS

[lingenmustdie]

Cardinal Secondo, anyone?

[frckldmnstr]

just silly sketches

[vamp-revenant]

The amount of time I spent staring at Perpetua to get him right and I still think I am way off but progress is made. As for Copia, personally I will always see his Cardinal Copia look I decided to go ahead and design Papa Emeritus IV the way I see him no harm in a little change. Terzo got any sort of hat privilege taken away, I don’t think his height difference bothers him much anyway.

[comfysanda]

Papas heavily inspired by Dolce and Gabbana Alta Sartoria fashion show

[biolumestudios]

Skeletá

After over 1000 hours of drawing, and almost a year of effort, my personal Ghost project is finally finished!!

May I present to you, Skeletá, a piece based on the album cover featuring my portraits of the 4 previous Papas!

[squallic]

Thank you @bebellsoterel for helping feed my Copia and Secondo brother papaganda!!! I just love the idea of them as a reluctant older brother taking care of the younger and now thats everyone else's problem too 🙂‍↕️

[zombei-queen]

The Three-Layered Mask: A Theory on Ghost's First Three Papas

So, I was studying classical drawing techniques in my art class—you know, starting with the skull, then layering on the muscles, and finally learning how light shapes the face with chiaroscuro. And suddenly, looking at Ghost's first three Papas, it all clicked. What if their iconic faces aren't just random cool designs, but a deliberate, artistic progression—a perfect, three-part reveal of the very process I was learning?

It starts with Papa Emeritus I. He is the foundation, the absolute baseline beneath everything else: the human skull. Stripped of all flesh, he's the cold, elegant truth of our anatomy. A memento mori. Not just a "spooky skull," but the literal bone we all wear beneath our skin.

Then comes Papa Emeritus II. Where Primo revealed the bone, Secondo builds upon it the architecture of life. His makeup isn't a skull—it's the musculature, the sinew and form of a face. The cheekbones, the jaw, the suggestion of lips. It’s like an anatomical drawing sprung to life. If Primo is death, then Secondo is the potential for life, the biological machine given shape.

And this culminates in Papa Emeritus III. His face is the masterstroke. It’s neither bone nor muscle, but perception itself. His iconic paint is a study of light and shadow falling across a living face. It’s chiaroscuro. It’s the illusion of depth, expression, and character created purely by black and white. He is the spirit, the fleeting image we project and recognize in each other every day.

Think about it: It’s a progression from the most solid (bone) to the most ethereal (light). From what we are (Primo), to how we are built (Secondo), to how we are seen (Terzo). It transforms their succession from a simple costume change into a profound artistic statement about identity, illusion, and what lies beneath the surface.

It makes Terzo, in his final perfection, not just a pope, but a ghost in the truest sense—an apparition of light and personality, born from the anatomy that came before him. I haven't been able to see them the same way since.