October MOTM: the Void - concept sketch + design commentary // sfw

thanks again to sonya mann for suggesting 'the void' as a MOTM theme!

concepting this monster began with doing some research and looking for inspiration. i widened the scope a bit and also read up about the concepts of 'nothing' and 'emptiness' and 'zero,' just to give myself more clay to build bricks with.

i'm generalising a lot here, but it seems the concept of 'void' has often been associated with nothingness, emptiness, non-existence, and the absence of things on the one hand; and on the other with something higher, the sky and heavens, something quintessential and maybe divine. inbetween there's the association with the distant and unknown, beyond human reach; the void as something that can't or shouldn't be known or described or understood, if it even exists at all. it's incomprehensible, ineffable, and undescribeable, absent of features or qualifying characteristics, non-existent and infinite. on the other hand there's also the view that void and emptiness is at the core of all things and beings, and that it can be sensed or achieved.

the nothingness of the void could be imagined as something that once was but that is no longer--or something that has the potential to be anything. it can also be associated with death, especially with respect to the idea that there is nothing for us after death, only endless void. but there's also a creative aspect, with many creation myths having the world being created out of nothing. the void is simultaneously undone reality and unrealised reality; it's nothing, but holds the potential for everything. 

it's been associated with aether, the air of the greco-roman gods, the fifth element, the heavenly quintessence of alchemic tradition. philosophers and scholars of the past proposed that the universe was permeated by aether, and that aether carried light through voids and vacuums. the buddhist concept śūnyatā can be translated as 'emptiness' or 'voidness,' the indian ākāśa as 'aether,' 'space,' or '(upper) sky,' and the japanese fifth element kū as 'void,' 'heaven,' or 'sky.'

all are complex concepts with multiple meanings and interpretations, relating to the self and the world. but the bottom line is that throughout history the concept of void has occupied the minds of philosophers from all over the world, and some recurring ideas seem to be the association between void and the sky, the paradox of void as something simultaneously omnipresent and nonexistent, and the essence of void as something beyond humanity. 

how the hell do you draw a concept like that, tho?

i decided to go with the idea of a monster that basically looks like a person-shaped hole or a silhouette cut into the fabric of reality, a window onto the endless void beneath. 

i wanted to 'fill' that void with a spacelike effect, because even if space is not void it felt like an appropriate aesthetic to embody the concept. many people feel a mixture of smallness and awe looking up at the night sky, vast and endless. even though we know that it's full of other galaxies and planets and suns it's easy to think of it as a neverending, empty expanse of nothing simply because it's so distant and unfathomable to most of us. it felt like a good way to illustrate the paradox of the void as something all-pervading and non-existing.  also, in astronomy, a cosmic void denotes a large area empty of galaxies. to reflect this i made sure that parts of their body was very dark and void of details; areas of black emptiness contrasting the purple-blue-pink mimicry of galaxies and stars. 

i didn't want them to have any clear or defined features; their body shouldn't have much in the way of lines or shadows or highlights to give it shape and form. i used little white lines to hint at their basic anatomy, mostly to make the drawings and poses easier to understand. as already discussed they shouldn't look like a dark, threedimensional shape so much as a person-shaped hole opening up onto a void, the effect being kind of flat and weird-looking since the colouring doesn't follow the presumed shape of their body. their outline is very clean and their design is void of any individual features, details, or characteristics. as such their design is simple but conceptually complex, which sounds pretentious as fuck but yknow what i mean? (it should be noted that this aesthetic is best portrayed in the painting; i did give them more threedimensionality on the sketch, mostly as a result of my sketching technique. oops?)

they're pretty tall and lanky, with long angular limbs, though their body is malleable (carrying within it the potential for nothing and everything) and as seen on the motm artwork it can form tendrils and tentacles or 'drip' as with oil. they can shrink into a disembodied consciousness or expand themselves into a field of void; and i think their tendency to assume a humanoid shape is because they're trying to mimic a human appearance. they're faceless and their body language is fairly understated, and they have no mouth but many voices, in the sense that when they speak their voice seems to carry within it an endless echo of itself.

it was pretty difficult to find much imagery or symbolism directly associated with the void, but i managed to work in a few symbolic details. mayan calendars wrote 'zero' with a shell glyph, and comparing this glyph to shells used for jewellery it seems to be an oliva shell; so i gave my monster jewellery made of this material and drawn in a similar way to the glyph. the sketch of this monster features the outline of a gorintō in the backgrund, a carved pagoda representing the five elements of japanese tradition, with the topmost--skyward--segment representing kū, or void/sky/energy/spirit. their halo is an allusion to the association of void with aether and the heavens and a higher state of being. i also designed a sigil to represent them, literally using the letters V O I D but also incorporation the ∅ null sign. (in case it wasn't already obvious, this monster isn't supposed to belong to a particular culture or time period; i'm mixing and matching ideas associated with void, into something that may not even belong in any real-world setting.)

as for their personality, i felt like there was several possible ways to go. the void can be scary and threatening--just imagine the horrifying idea of eternally floating through the emptiness of space, or facing a neverending darkness after death. a void monster could be a destroyer, seeking to consume others in it's desperate but doomed desire to become something. alternatively, a void monster could be painted in a much more positive light. perhaps it is and has nothing because it has given so much to others; perhaps it is a creator, the nothing from which things spring and to which they all eventually return? then again, it could also be an accident, a sentient rift in reality that simultaneously is and isn't. it could be all of the above, or neither. who knows? 

// art + character © me.