Inktober & No. 14 of 365 Days of Art - 'Mr. Cimim'

14. Design a character based on an animal/mythical creature

This year, I decided to participate in InkTober, a yearly event in which you do an ink drawing for everyday for the month of October. I don't usually draw in pen and ink, but wanted to take it as an opportunity to improve this year. 

Yesterday, was the first day and I chose to also incorporate it into the 365 Days of Art challenge that I have going on this blog. This one is for number 14, "Design a character based on an animal/mythical creature"; I chose owls and mimic birds. I used fineliners between 0.1 - 0.7mm (in black, red and blue), a black 2mm fineliner (for thick lines and the background), and a silver rollerball pen for highlights. 

This is Mr, Cimim. He's an unusual, man-like creature, with bird talons for feet, four eyes, and a beak for a nose. He lives in The Forest of Unknown Visions and disguises himself with bird feathers and the head of a giant horned owl. He also constructs wings made of mimic bird feathers and spiderwebs, as he is able to absorb some of the attributes of each of the animals he clothes himself with. 

Mr. Cimim feeds exclusively on the one-eyed laughing snakes that live within the depths of The Forest of Unknown Visions. He lures them with mimicked songs that charm them up from the darkness, before striking them with his talons and ensnaring them within his sticky web wing. 

He then closes his second set of eyes and hypnotises the other snakes with the blue pigment and cloud reflections in his top set, ensuring that he is not bitten. Then he is free to extend his 20m long, scaly  legs legs down to the forest floor and calmly stalk away.

Art & Photography - Fruits of the Flesh

Ideology: 'Fruits of the Flesh - Rapture of 15 Underground & the Heavenly Ensemble'

For week 20 of Delightful Aberrations art & photography challenge the photograph of the"art" piece above was my submission. I decided to go the "art" route this time, and used the "ideology" prompt. This also counts as number 120 on my 365 Art Projects list: Religious Artifacts. 

Bonus - Ideology: 'Miniature Sinners'

I tried to represent the 15 fruits of the flesh, which humans are said to fall prey to, according to certain Christian ideology. 15 is also the number that represents either humans or Satan (or many other things), depending on which part of the Bible/which Biblical teachings you reference. Everything in the picture has specific meaning, but you can interpret it as you like. Even if you just want to interpret it as pretentious nonsense. ;)

Painted and "named" crosses

I began with 15 wooden crosses, each approximately 5 centimetres (just under 2 inches) high. Then I painted them black with ink, and wrote a version of the fruits of the flesh on them, creating a set.

Little jewel pots

Bedazzled and...classy

After that, it was time to add the "decorative sin", via jars of jewels and some Milliput.

Then it was time for the fun part - making the little sinners!*

*Disclaimer: This blog does not condone sinning. Obviously.

Unpainted, setting

Then, I molded them into the shapes/creatures I wanted them to be and left each one to set around its designated cross, making sure that I was still able to remove them for painting once they hardened.

Un-crucified. Temporarily, at least...

Painting them didn't take as long as putting on the crosses' glittery jackets, but their size and fragility made it a somewhat fiddly task. I also decided to repaint some of those pictured above.

The finished 15

Following the completion of the "sinners", the wall was waiting for them to perform on it along with a few old friends.

Lit with house lights & a torch

The photo to the left was not the one I selected to use as the photo on Delightful Aberrations. The main difference between them is the lighting. However, looking at it now, this one seems better than the one I selected!

These little darlings are still up on my wall and probably will be for a while until I can find somewhere better for them to reside.

More photos of some of the individual crosses under the cut below: