Just watched the movie awe the Moder, suddenly familiar with the style from your artworks. End up to your blog to check and surprised that's really you!
These are amazing! I am gonna go back to the movie because I missed it the first time, but the parishioners start out as humans and then slowly morph to resemble the creature? Or are those body modifications they did to themselves? It's really creepy and fascinating either way
Yes! The parishioners are some of the oldest members of the cult, they live long past a natural lifespan and start to mummify alive. The body modifications are performed by the cult to shape them more in the image of their vain god. The immortality blessing is bestowed by the Jottun, in the movie you can see it mark a victim this way with its hand, and one of the cultists reveals her mark on her chest. The mark is the Norse rune for “ancestry” and you can see it in the bottom posted parishioner's stomach here. The outer five circles of the rune correspond to the five digits of the Jottun’s hand as it pushes them into the flesh (and over time bruised lines appear to join the five points into the rune).
Were you inspired by satanic symbolism or more modern ideas of demons not having proper souls, ergo the head of the body on its head is missing? I remember the designers on Constantine 2015 made their design of brainless demons that way.
But the focus on the genital region being where the eyes come out and the secondary pair of arms is also somehow familiar w medieval demonic depictions- very cool.
I kept the mystical framework here pagan and pre-Christian. Not to say that it wouldn't be a potential framing that could also exist in the world building, which would certainly lend itself to the satanic qualities you've noted, but that would be a bit like old figures like Pan or the Green Man being interpreted as Satanic. Nobody Gets Out Alive shares the same world and the god is designed in a similar fashion. The movie series planned was going to expand into a lot of mythologies so it all would have ended up encompassing much more.
The Jottun is hollow, and the glowing eyes might be the real god dwelling inside the body and only slightly seen. A working name when I was designing was The Gutted God.
I have a whole other project where I explored the medieval motifs of demons with faces in the stomach, crotch, and rump, and I hope to present it all as something in the future.
He lives!! Stunning work as always 👌
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy to finally see the designs behind The Ritual.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see some activity from you too!
Just watched the movie awe the Moder, suddenly familiar with the style from your artworks. End up to your blog to check and surprised that's really you!
ReplyDeleteThese are amazing! I am gonna go back to the movie because I missed it the first time, but the parishioners start out as humans and then slowly morph to resemble the creature? Or are those body modifications they did to themselves? It's really creepy and fascinating either way
ReplyDeleteYes! The parishioners are some of the oldest members of the cult, they live long past a natural lifespan and start to mummify alive. The body modifications are performed by the cult to shape them more in the image of their vain god. The immortality blessing is bestowed by the Jottun, in the movie you can see it mark a victim this way with its hand, and one of the cultists reveals her mark on her chest. The mark is the Norse rune for “ancestry” and you can see it in the bottom posted parishioner's stomach here. The outer five circles of the rune correspond to the five digits of the Jottun’s hand as it pushes them into the flesh (and over time bruised lines appear to join the five points into the rune).
DeleteWere you inspired by satanic symbolism or more modern ideas of demons not having proper souls, ergo the head of the body on its head is missing? I remember the designers on Constantine 2015 made their design of brainless demons that way.
ReplyDeleteBut the focus on the genital region being where the eyes come out and the secondary pair of arms is also somehow familiar w medieval demonic depictions- very cool.
I kept the mystical framework here pagan and pre-Christian. Not to say that it wouldn't be a potential framing that could also exist in the world building, which would certainly lend itself to the satanic qualities you've noted, but that would be a bit like old figures like Pan or the Green Man being interpreted as Satanic. Nobody Gets Out Alive shares the same world and the god is designed in a similar fashion. The movie series planned was going to expand into a lot of mythologies so it all would have ended up encompassing much more.
DeleteThe Jottun is hollow, and the glowing eyes might be the real god dwelling inside the body and only slightly seen. A working name when I was designing was The Gutted God.
I have a whole other project where I explored the medieval motifs of demons with faces in the stomach, crotch, and rump, and I hope to present it all as something in the future.