Artist Statement
Creatures are my way of getting away from things. As I draw them, I let their designs flow and change with accidental marks, and from that shape their personalities come. I like thinking of how they would react in different situations and interact with other characters. However, I find these stay stagnant, isolated on paper without a world to live in. This project was a way for me to take my hobby and turn it into something bigger. I put my designs into an ancient Mayan story, where they had room to move and breathe. I created the world around them, too, from simple homes to the underworld itself. I pushed myself to do more with my ideas, to gather design aspects into a palette I could choose from. I kept these palettes messy so I wouldn’t get bogged down in the details and so I could allow room for accidental discoveries. All of my drawings are laid out in such a way that they could be used as concepts for a movie or storybook. My hope is that someday I’ll be able to take my other creatures and give them a world of their own.
. . .
Well, well, well. An ambitious little beast I was. This world is still full of holes, and its inhabitants still trapped in paper. Still- this was a good learning experience, a try at picking something and sticking with it. I think they’ve grown and gotten better over time, and my skill as well. It’s nice to look back fondly at the path I’ve taken. Despite its length I hope it still proves interesting.
My first task was the Hero Twins- the protagonists of the story. I had a bit of trouble deciding their species, so there was plenty of flipping between ideas, but I finally settled on bulls to emphasize a scrappy, headstrong feeling. However the experimentation later inspired other characters; I was able to borrow plenty of ideas from this first step.
Also notably was the idea of the twins being the anthropomorphic sun and moon, since that was what they represented in the story. It didn’t stick but sun and moon motifs were kept in their final designs.
Next up were our main villains- Hun-Came and Vucub-Came, the lords of the underworld. When drawing the twins I played around with the idea of them being dragons, but decided it fit our antagonists better. The silhouettes in that page also inspired them.
To the left there’s some thoughts on the ball court in the underworld, one of the most important settings since it’s the final showdown between the lords and our heroes. Several ideas on the minor denizens of the underworld lie further to the right- I wanted this court to have an audience of hooligans cheering their leaders on.
And then there were some more minor characters which I played around with here. The macaw in the top right is the god Vucub-Caquix, a self-absorbed creature who convinced everyone his beak was the sun and his shiny nest the moon. His eyes get replaced with corn kernels as punishment, if you must know. His sons are Zipacna, the large crocodile, and Cabrakan, the rhinoceros below him. Both are known for wreaking havoc over the lands, and the twins have to stop them using their wits.
Those two monkeys are the Hero Twins’ older half-brothers who are rather jealous of their younger siblings’ skill. In the original story the twins tricked them and turned them into monkeys, so I thought I would take advantage of it for the design.
This was just a brief idea for a scene- the Hero Twins’ future mother finds their father’s head hung from a calabash tree in the underworld. This is when the twins are conceived, believe it or not.
. . .
Now, as I laid out my papers I had a feeling this just wasn’t enough, for my satisfaction at least. But I’ve done plenty of character design over the school year, just foolish little things in my spare time… so I thought I would add some of it here.
. . .
Thank you for stopping by. Have a good day.
Artist Bio
Kelsey was born in May of 2006. She was not a star student in school, per se. She liked to let the hours wash away while drawing. When she was younger it was often dragons and cats, but as she grew older her attention drifted to stranger and less defined creatures. These monsters range from the nearly human to those far from it, but never necessarily terrifying- just people with their own lives to live. Her love for the natural world helped inspire her drawings, and later access to a stream of others’ ideas through the magic of the internet. She allows these ideas to bombard her and from the melting pot new creations form. Oftentimes her own traits or current problems crystallize within the creatures, which can add a spark of life to them as well as being a way to deal with things.