Sketches: Sena, Dominance War, 1714, and Pokemon

Every so often, I find I have a new follower. Thank you, it really brightens my day to know people are reading this. :) Even if you are secretly making fun of it. No matter how weird my stuff is... Now, speaking of weird.

I have a thing for very old mythology, and a lot of old mythology is very dark. Prior to the Victorian ages, fairy tales were very different, and I'm trying to craft my own set of similar stories which possess these themes - in particular, transformation. Obviously, male-female relationships have been a point of contention since the beginning of humankind.

Long ago, the ocean was perfectly still. Sena Mahara is one of four gods and goddesses whose human forms were crafted from animals. She was a great, silver fish. Her human body retained the same svelte qualities, and every mortal man worshiped her, hoping to find a woman half as beautiful. Verulis was the only man who dared court the goddess himself. After much searching, he trapped her in a net and impregnated her against her will. Enraged, the goddess took him between her legs and dove into the sea where the ocean bloated her flesh like a beautiful corpse. The mortal man clung to her like a parasite, and the water beasts turned them into a tentacled, symbiotic creature. Since then, the sea has always been a seductive yet furious mistress towards all sailors, and Verulis is a name for men whose downfall is caused by women or their own rampant libidos.



Ta-da. More Dominance War - his final design, I hope. I'm sick of drawing him, though. So I'll color this and be through. The 3D model is so close to completion as well. Color compositions soon.


During my friend's swing dancing show, my other friend leans over and says, "Grace, your spirit animal is a zombie." My other friend, Joe, says, "My spirit animal is a bear - with sharks for hands!" It escalated. So, here we are: YiYi (Wall-E), Kristen( Cat in Apron), Daniel (Black Hole), Alice (Piranha Pete Plant), Jake (Talking Cupcake), Hamster Riding A Dog Riding a Bigger Dog - All Pink! (Rebbecca), Meerkat (Zoey), Other Meerkat (Nirav), Zombie (Me), Drunk Golden Retriever With Eye Patch and Bow Tie (Ted), Penguin with Shotgun (Rob), and Bear With Sharks for Hands (Joe).

I have awesome friends.


Also, continuing on the "cute" theme, I'm making Pokemon keychains for convention season. It's going to be a lot of work, especially since I have to re-draw almost all of these. Only Espeon and Jolteon don't look like they're diabetic. :(

Advanced Animation Project: Samsa-kosara and Sena Mahara

Just some tentative character sketches whose stories I likely won't follow through with. I was attempting to make some interesting deity figures, which were at once human yet not, and all together rather gruesome (because old fairy tales were, well, actually rather adult). For me at least, I've discovered that developing story and developing visuals go hand-in-hand - that doing one helps a lot with the other.

This drawing is Samsa-kosara ("samsara" means suffering). I wanted to play with the idea of Siamese twins, "grey twins" who are the children of the Yin and Yang deities (yet un-named). They are male and female, which is impossible in nature. This gives them an otherworldly duality and unison. The female, Kosara, is immaculately pregnent with a child that grows every year with the seasons and is always stillborn. Samsa-kosara is similar to the Fates - jaded, wise, sinister, ever-present, cyclical - the kind of characters mortals seek help from ... at a steep price. They make instruments from the bones of those who don't pay up.


I guess every culture has some sort of mermaid, and I have Sena Mahara. I've always loved the concept of the sea as a woman - both loving and beautiful yet furious and death-dealing. The slime, tentacles, and barbed tale hint at her sexual relationships, all of which were sour.

Sena's father was a poor fisherman who prayed to the for a child. Therefore, the Trickster god slept with his wife, and they had a beautiful girl with jet black hair and ocean-colored eyes. Even at a young age, every man she spoke to fell in love with her. A gift from the gods must be treated carefully, but people always seem to forget that. Her father decided to arrange a marriage for her. Although her suitors offered plenty of material bribes, Sena hated all of them. One day, a red goose showed up at their door, and she chose to marry it because it is the only man she has met who does not want her for her body. Her father arranged a marriage, anyway. On her wedding night, after sleeping with him, the man her father made her marry strangled her because he did not want any other man to have her. In horror at his own actions, he throws her body into the sea. The red goose dived in after her and revealed himself as the Trickster - he real father. At his bidding, the sea creatures came to her body, filling it with their own lives and giving her control of the tides. From then on, all men had best to be careful when entering the water lest they die at the hands of Sena Mahara.

My problem is the goose. I feel it should be something that draws her into the ocean. Geese aren't ocean creatures. Maybe a herring, a red herring (just kidding). That, I also don't want to imply that beastiality is okay, either. He's meant to represent a relationship without ulterior motive.


Human folly when dealing with gods, abuse of talent, men turning into birds, and forbidden lovers seems to be a recurring theme in my work. Although, what's the difference between a "strong recurring theme" and a "re-use of old material because you can't think of any better"?

Thinking up character names has to be a weak-point of mine. They always sound like they came from a bad fanfiction. It's hard because I need something that doesn't reference anything easily found in the real world without sounding like I randomly hit letters on my keyboard. I'm very well open to changes.