May MOTM: Adagio & Allegro - concept sketch + design commentary // mildly nsfw

thank you to ciyu and toreadorkable for the suggestions that combined into this design prompt! ciyu had suggested two complementary monsters, and at first i was going to use one of the excellent examples they gave. but as i was looking through my excel doc of MOTM design prompts, i saw that toreadorkable had suggested a music theme. out of nowhere, i thought of combining the two prompts into "adagio & allegro."

the funny this is, i know next to nothing about music theory. but i have a very clear memory of my 8th grade music teacher playing adagio in g minor by albinoni/giazotto. i'm not sure why i knew that allegro is also a tempo marking, but after studying italian i at least know that the adjective allegro/a means "cheerful," while adagio is an adverb meaning "slowly."

i double checked the definitions of both tempos, just to make sure my assumptions were correct. quoting wikipedia, adagio is a tempo marking for "slow with great expression," while allegro is "fast, quick, and bright" (also, in ballet, the latter refers to "brisk and lively movement). there's many other musical tempo markings, from larghissimo to prestissimo, so it's not like adagio and allegro are total opposites. but for my present purposes they represent contrasting and complementary energies.

the first part of brainstorming this design was to research monsters and entities that may be associated with music, song, or even just sound in general. a few themes stood out to me, though this list is by no means exhaustive: first, there's deities or specific mythological figures associated with music, like apollo and orpheus. next, music is an important part of the sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll lifestyle of rambunctious beings that live to party, like satyrs. on a more sorrowful note there's wailing women, whose crying or singing forebode and/our mourn the death of loved ones, like banshees, bean-nighe, and la llorona. other entities use beautiful music and song to lure humans to their demise, like mermaids, sirens, and näcken playing his violin in the middle of a brook. music can also be used to literally sing someone's praises -- as in the case of angels -- or to create a chaotic environment, like the cacophonous music of hell (directed by the demon amdusias, according to the ars goetia). and let's not forget that the devil himself is skilled with a fiddle.

out of these, i was most drawn to satyrs/fauns and mermaids/sirens.

the original greek sirens were more or less bird-themed, whether they were depicted as a bird with a woman's head or a woman with a bird's wings and legs. with time, "siren" became more synonymous with mermaid -- fish-tailed ladies who lure sailors to their watery death with their enchanting song. i noticed that water was a common thread that also ran through a few of the other entities listed above. the restless la llorona wanders along the waters where she drowned her children and herself. the bean-nighe sits by a body of water, washing the bloody clothes of someone who is marked for death -- and may sing as she does so. näcken, much like mermaids, attract unwitting humans with his music, only to drown them. note that several of these monsters are associated with human misfortune and demise.

and as it so happens, "adagio" always makes me think of mourning, because the aforementioned music teacher told us that albinoni's adagio in g minor is often played at funerals. it all seemed to come together so nicely: for adagio, i decided to draw inspiration from the sorrowful, ill-boding, and water-based monsters mentioned above. basically, i extended the theme into mournful singing, water, death, and funerals. at first i couldn't decide if i should make her a birdike siren or a fish-tailed mermaid -- but then i remembered it's mermay, so that pretty much settled it. (i always keep forgetting about mermay and have never managed to partake, but this is at least Something!)

i thought about making allegro a mermaid as well, but ultimately decided she should be a satyr or faun. it would create a nice contrast to adagio, given that satyrs love life and are joyful, energetic, and wild.

aside from having decided what types of monster people they should be, i had some ideas for their respective aesthetics. i started sketching, and more puzzle pieces started falling into place, one after the other.

i pictured adagio as wearing some kind of mourning veil, and i initially meant to show more of her face, cheeks stained by tears and/or mascara. the shape of her tail is pretty generic, but the edges of the fins also resemble mourning veils of black lace. mermaids commonly have long hair but i made sure to draw it in an eerie way, dripping wet and clinging to her skin, cold to the touch.

the water theme made me think of water lilies and lily pads and at first i was simply going to place a few flowers and leaves as adornments, not least on her head (almost like a fashionable little hat).  but then i thought of covering half her face with lily pads, showing only her mouth and making her look much more Mysterious -- not to mention a little unsettling. it serves a similar purpose to obscuring her face with a mourning veil, but looks more unique. from there i kept dotting leaves and flowers all over her tail, more like it's the actual patterning of her scales than something worn as decoration.

the albinoni piece is for strings and organ, and prominently feature the cello. it gave me the idea of giving her a cello-shaped silhouette, with markings on her stomach that resemble the S-shaped openings of such instruments. the lines that run down her sternum, flaring out over her hips and neck, represent the strings. (alas, as it so happened, these details don't really show up on the paintings because of the pose and the way her arm obscures her torso.)

my first concept for adagio's colour scheme had been gloomy greens and purple, but including water lillies and lily pads took the palette in a slightly different direction. her tail is dark blue, like the water upon which the flowers would sit, with the fins fading into a somewhat more translucent emerald green. i was going to give her a wooden torso, to keep with the cello imagery -- but changed it to unnatural white, since it makes her look more eerie. just picture her gliding by, right underneath the surface of the water, face to the sky -- she'd look like an underwater ghost (and i just keep thinking about various depictions of ophelia's death).

allegro's aesthetic is the complete opposite. she's physically smaller, but has a big and loud personality. her colour scheme is sunny, fiery, and warm, and instead of cold, fish-like scales she's covered with thick, soft fur. her hair is huge, with bouncy and buoyant curls, and horns that shimmer like copper (i made them bigger on the painting, so they'd blend into her hair less).

if adagio is somber and calm, allegro is animated and expressive, with her perky little tail and large ears. she wears gold accessories and yellow flowers, and after incorporating the cello imagery into adagio's design i started thinking of happy and energetic instruments for allegro. i can easily see her playing a joyful tune on a flute, so i drew a syrinx on the concept sketch, but changed it into a double-reeded aulos in the painting. next i thought of attaching a few large bells to her belt and smaller ones to her anklets -- she literally jingles everywhere she goes. last but not least, the hair adornment is literally a tambourine.

in the end, their designs ended up including a bunch of complementary themes, in more or less apparent ways: water and (sun)fire; lake and land; sorrow and joy; death and life. but i admit that it was hard to think of ways to represent the musical theme more obviously. after all, how does one depict music in visual art? my brain solved this conundrum by focusing on representing the mood and vibe of each tempo. we could imagine that adagio and allegro references what each character's theme song would sound like -- or that they're personifications of their respective tempos. i eventually thought of how i might have incorporated the aesthetic of yellowed note paper, elements like piano keys, materials that instruments can be made of (like polished wood and brass), and so on ... but at that point i had already finished the designs and it was too late to simply start over. i'll certainly keep those ideas in mind for any future music-related designs, but in the case of these two ladies the musical theme is more indirect. and hey, what matters most is that i'm incredibly pleased with the designs -- especially adagio!

// art + characters © me.