March MOTM: Lady of the Blood Moon concept sketch + design commentary // sfw

march's monster of the month prompt was "lady of the blood moon," based on a MOTM suggestion made by Kell! <3 

as with last month's rain bringer, this blood moon lady isn't supposed to be any particular individual or monster from any particular culture, but her design is partially inspired by a few different moon-related myths. she belongs in a fantasy setting, not in the real world. with this in mind of course i didn't have to find any real world folklore to draw inspiration from, but it can still be fun and interesting and helpful in generating design ideas. i didn't do any proper research, i just briefly went looking for something to get me started, if that makes sense?

to be honest, step one was a lot about deciding what i did NOT want to do with this design. the most obvious monster associated with the moon is, of course, the werewolf. i love werewolves as much as any other teratophile, and i have a bunch of wolfy characters--but that's exactly why i didn't want this design to be lupine. it would've been too easy.

i also didn't want to merely make a 'monster version' of a lunar deity like luna/selene or chang'e. i considered drawing on the various rabbit moon myths, but for some reason it didn't feel quite right either (probably because i had just painted some rabbit character smut and i wanted to draw something different, lol). 

plus, neither werewolves, rabbits, or any of those goddesses are particularly related to blood moons. a blood moon is a pretty name for a total lunar eclipse, so in looking for a point of departure i had 'allowed' myself to look at moon mythology in a broader sense. but ideally, of course, i wanted to draw inspiration from something specifically associated with lunar eclipses.

in the end, the starting point for this design was the incan and mayan myths about blood moons being due to the moon getting devoured by a jaguar.

i had previously brainstormed some things i wanted to incorporate into the design--a very red outfit, red pearls/rubies, a blood moon 'halo,' red eyes (... in other words, a lot of red), and her having this noble, kind of royal vibe--she's a Lady, after all. i kept thinking about byzantine icons--saints with halos against a background of gold foil. but it was only once i started picturing her as a jaguar person that i started forming a tangible mental image.

she's got jaguar spots (though the hue of her fur is more muted than that of a jaguar), chunky big cat paw-hands, and retractable claws. her tail is feline, though it's curiously solid rather than fluffy, judging by the way the gold bands wrap around it on the painting. her face is cat-like, but mask-like and stylised--the way her teeth, mouth, and eyes are drawn are vaguely inspired by some pieces of historical and contemporary mesoamerican and south american art, but it's mixed with my own style so you can't really tell. 

on the other hand, her head being detached from her neck is a detail that alludes to a hindu myth about how eclipses occur when the decapitated but immortal head of the demon rahu eats the moon. the 'horns' and disk of her headdress is in reference to ancient egyptian lunar deities, who could be seen sporting this combination of a crescent moon and a full moon.

the rest of her outfit isn't inspired by anything in particular, but the gold headdress and flowing red cloth enhances the aforementioned royal vibe. on the concept sketch she's looking almost wraith-like; she's floating, with a gravity-defying veil, and originally i meant for her legs to sort of ghostily fade into nothing, hence why she has no calves or feet. but the painting would have looked kind of weird if she didn't have visible legs, so i ended up giving her stocky feet to match her hands.

the red orb in her belly is in reference to the jaguar eating the moon. the idea is that her torso isn't made of flesh and bone--it's more like a glass vessel, with the 'moon' suspended in the middle (as if floating in a thick liquid) and lighting her up from within. it's framed by interwoven gold bands that wrap around her shoulders and hips, matching her jewellery and separating her flesh parts from her artificial parts in an aesthetically pleasing way. her limbs and groin appear very fleshlike, judging from the painting--but i'm thinking that her oddly solid tail might be artificial too. and perhaps her face is in fact a carved mask, a replacement head after she got decapitated?

i feel like coming up with this design was an exercise in the process of elimination--in determining which direction i wanted to go in by first narrowing it down a bit. it would have been so easy to play it safe and make her a blood moon-themed werewolf or a 'red' version of a lunar goddess, but playing it safe isn't really conducive to coming up with innovative and unique concepts. i do feel like she's somehow different from many of my other designs, in an interesting way. and i keep thinking she looks like a video game boss. is that just me?

// art + character © me.