March MOTM: Saint of a Distant Galaxy - concept sketch + design commentary // sfw

thanks again to lostmisfits for suggesting a MOTM theme based on the aesthetic of galaxies!

as with many other prompts i broke this one down into its constituent parts, because it helps me get a better idea of what kind of design elements might be "necessary" to get the relevant theme(s) across.

the first component of this prompt is "saint." the meaning thereof might go without saying, but merriam-webster defines this word as "one officially recognized especially through canonization as preeminent for holiness" and cambridge as "a holy person, esp. one who has been officially honored with this title by a christian church." in other words, the design needed to have a holy and ... "religious-looking" vibe. the second part of the prompt is "of the distant galaxy." i chose to interpret this phrase as a general space theme with more or less of a sci-fi feel, so i could draw inspiration from any space related phenomena or aesthetic. the monster should look like a being from a different world, lightyears from here.

so, how could i make the design look 1) saintly and 2) spacey?

the concept of attaining holiness is part of many religions, but this time i wanted to go with the christian angle. one might ask why a saint from a far-away galaxy would employ the catholic imagery of earth, and to that i say ... because it looks cool. it also gets the point across better than if i had invented a wholly new way for a sci-fi culture to express sacredness. basically, i wanted to use familiar symbols and aesthetic choices to make it easy for the onlooker to understand that the character is a space saint.

naturally, i couldn't resist adding a veil and halo. they're both favourite design elements of mine, as you may remember from several other designs. the veil fits into the religious symbolism because it looks like the large mantle often worn by virgin mary, and creates a silhouette of the head and shoulders that feels very ... holy. for the halo i wanted it to have a more or less unconventional appearance that somehow tied into the space theme. i considered a gloria shaped like a planet or even a ufo, or like several geometric shapes stacked on top of each other, emitting light like a neon sign. but then i thought of maps of planetary orbits forming concentric circles, and i really liked that stylised look.

many saints are associated with certain attributes that relate to their life stories and help identify them in art. i honestly can't name many of these attributes or their related saints at the top of my head, but one of the few i knew of was st sebastian often being depicted as pierced by arrows. while doing some research i also found out that the mater dolorosa aspect of virgin mary is regularly portrayed with swords through her heart. i sort of combined the two, with arrows piercing a "bleeding" spot on the monster's chest.

in search of more symbols i ended up scrolling through a list of saintly imagery and made note of any attributes that caught my eye. i wanted to include both obscure and common attributes, without resorting to "easy" choices like crosses, lambs, doves, or a crown of thorns. i figured i could give the character many arms, each of which could hold a symbol -- and while reading up i also learned of the prayer position referred to as orans, so i posed the upper two arms in a somewhat similar way.

as for the six symbols i ended up choosing, the cup with a snake hints at a story about st john being told to drink poison, from which his faith would save him. the lily is a symbol of purity and virtue that may also represent virginity, so naturally i had to incorporate that in my very non-virginal art. the axe is a reference to how quite a few martyr saints are accompanied by the weapon or tool with which they were executed (or with which people tried to kill them), like swords, saws, arrows, and axes. the keys represent the keys of the kingdom of heaven associated with st peter, while the palm symbolises the martyr's palm and palm sunday.

last but not least, the wolf head is in reference to the story of st francis of assisi taming the wolf of gubbio. the wolf had been attacking the inhabitants of the town, but st francis concludes that it was driven to such acts only because of hunger. he forgives the animal and asks the townsfolk to feed it for the rest of its life, as long as the wolf promises to never again hurt any humans or livestock. i haven't researched how this tale is conventionally interpreted, but it seems to me like a metaphor for desperate people committing desperate acts and earning punishment from the wealthy and powerful rather than sympathy; the morale being that they might never have been driven to harmful behaviour if society had better cared for them from the very start. it really struck a cord with me and many of the monstrous stories me and kubi tell through our OCs, so i really had to include a wolf symbol in this design.

as mentioned earlier i had considered a neon sign look for the halo, but ended up using it for the arrows and other saintly attributes instead. it's a sort of sci-fi update to classic symbols, enhancing the futuristic undertones.

as for the space theme, i absolutely wanted to use nebulae as inspiration for the colour scheme. i went to look at pictures of nebulae and space, but couldn't decide which colour palette i liked most -- however, it's not like i had to choose just one. i could simply use a few different surfaces as canvases for ... "spacescapes" with different colour schemes. i admittedly thought about dressing the character in the draping clothes that many christian figures wear on frescoes, stained glass windows, and icons, so that i could colour the fabric in a spacey way. but i ultimately decided not to cover too much of their body and simply added pieces of flowing cloth (that i could also use to balance the composition and add some dramatic flair).

in other words, i ended up with three different surfaces to colour in a nebula-esque way, although it took some trial-and-error to figure out exactly which hues i wanted to use. the veil is pink, yellow, white, and red; the body a dark blue-ish green with some fuchsia; the pieces of flowing cloth fade from gold to dark blue; and stars and other glowing celestial bodies twinkle all over. i don't often combine so many vibrant colours with each other, so it was fun to venture a bit outside my comfort zone.

designing the details of their body was quite tricky, but it clicked when i started experimenting with the pink lines and details. it makes them look either 1) a little robotic, especially because of the lines that delineate their joints or 2) like they're wearing a skin-tight suit, which feels like a staple in many sci-fi stories. either interpretation seems pretty futuristic, so mission accomplished.

i also wasn't sure how i wanted to design the character's face. i initially meant to cover either the upper or lower half of it with an intricate mask, but then i remembered about bejewelled catacomb saints. i first learned of them from the book "heavenly bodies" by paul koudounaris; they are unidentified bodies from roman catacombs, found in the 16th century and distributed across europe to "stand in" for various saints. many of them were extravagantly dressed in fine clothes and jewellery, but with parts of the underlying skeleton still unveiled. the skulls were sometimes wrapped in a layer of sheer gauze, which is how i ultimately chose to draw this space saint's head (...even though you can't see that detail on the concept art, hah).

i added only minimal jewellery to the concept sketch and painting, since i wanted to avoid adding unnecessary clutter to these full-body pieces. however, i turned the sketch into a portrait and went absolutely ham with the jewellery; it has a nightmarish amount of detail, in direct reference to catacomb saints. the painting lacks the headpiece of the concept art but it's present in the sketch; it resembles a solar monstrance, which is also an attribute of some saints. it's also worth nothing that the sketch has a gold background inspired by many icons ... but spacey.

in sum, this design is a combination of saintly symbols + space-like colours and patterns --   familiar imagery, but re-imagined in a more sci-fi way. i'll call myself out and say that this monster turned out looking like the lovechild of the neon aesthetic seth cyborg and the eldritch angel from last year -- but hey, i'm here for it.

// art + character © me.