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The Champion - WorkDoc
🕑 Added 2017-05-01 05:18:45 +0000 UTC
NOTE: You can download a PDF version of this WorkDoc at the bottom of this post. This was made by Andrea, and you can find a complete version of his beautiful project on the Priapus Encyclopedia page.
Beauty and the Beast
The main theme of The Champion is the crush of a young man on a massive sports hero. It´s the idea of a daydream we all have at times, where the unattainable idol - the one that´s always far out of your league - suddenly answers your prayers. It’s about fantasy coming true and all the things that could eventually happen, if only....
We first meet our hero (David) walking the streets of London towards the Old Boxing Club, where he’s assigned to a massive boxer (Ben) as a cutman, the fighter’s assistant during breaks. David is visibly impressed and somewhat intimidated by this massive athlete, and while watching the champion knocking all his opponents out of the ring, he slowly drifts away from the sideline into a longing and lustful daydream.
In the second chapter, the scene switches to the locker room where the unimaginable happens; while treating the champion’s swellings, a small tender touch on the chin turns into a kiss, and after some intimate playful fun, more serious intercourse ends in a hot rough ride culmination against a mirror. The climax opens a window to another dimension, into a world that defies gravity and logic, where the tables are turned and David eventually becomes the dominating champion in a whole different arena. It´s here that I´ll be picking up the story for the final round.
The idea of the young man slaying a giant is in part inspired by the Biblical story of David and Goliath. It’s probably the most famous underdog story, where the much smaller hero defeats a far bigger and stronger opponent. In art, David has become the symbol of strength and youthful beauty, whereas the champion of the Philistines is always depicted as the giant pagan beast.
Our David is a young blond guy - and no, he's not a minor - living in London and, according to the street view, I should say somewhere in the late 1930s. His dress is most certainly from around that period, and most of the boyish character is based on my all-time favourite comic hero, Tintin. (I guess I should have added the dog!)
The champion is more of a generic oversized sportsman, but his name is actually based on the legendary Ben Caunt, a 19th-century English bare-knuckle boxer who became the heavyweight boxing champion known as the "Torkard Giant" or "Big Ben". According to one legend, the clock tower of Westminster in London was named after him. But, like so many other nice stories, this has no documentary support. Anyhow, I guess it gives at least an impression of how big his stature must have been in those days.
From rundown rooms to baroque grandeur
The Champion series is with 124 images (and still one chapter to go!) the longest I’ve produced so far. It all started with a simple test of the main character is a walking pose, with a vague idea in the back of my mind on how he would somehow meet and slay a dominant champion and make him his tender lover. This simple idea eventually became a long adventure, where our hero walks in a sequence of scenes from one setting to another, switching spaces and time, into a whole different world, where contrasts between big and small fade away.
From the streets of Victorian London, David walks into an old boxing school. After their first meeting, the couple is nearly caught in the locker room, and they take refuge in a mysterious, adjacent, rundown room with a big mirror. It’s here that some random boxing exercises get out of hand and, once the heat is on, the order of nature breaks down and the real world seems to fall apart. As the temperature starts to rise, furniture, papers and books begin to react in response to the growing tension in the room. The scene becomes a dynamic world in suspension.
For the street scene, I used the magnificent model, The Streets of Old London, by a guy called Stonemason. His models are by far the very best, and I only needed to add a few cars and characters to complete the scene. The boxing school is a modified version of the Boxing Gym by Ansiko, adding lots of dark panelling and windows from The Barlow House series, created by The Management. The room with the mirror and the locker room next to it were created from a model called Loft 4 Lease (by Predatron) with lots of additional stuff from other scenes, like the rundown bathroom and dilapidated furniture from the West Park collection by Jack Tomalin. Wonderful stuff to work with and perfect for this setting.
This surrealistic floating world was inspired by the Dalí Atomicus portraits, a collection of pictures by the artist Salvador Dali and photographer Philippe Halsman (1948). It’s a wonderful and amazing series, created far before anything resembling Photoshop or any other digital manipulations was invented. It’s a masterpiece, and this single image took 26 tries, jumping around and throwing cats and water through the room, to get this magical, gravity-defying scene. Even with modern technology at hand, there’s really nothing like it!
Once the world is upside down, it’s a small step through the looking-glass and, like Alice tumbling into Wonderland, the two characters enter a whole new baroque world. What they enter is something that vaguely resembles the National Library in Vienna. The library in the series is a high room with one corner a large and lavishly decorated canopy, with luxurious drapery, golden ornaments, and a huge crowned priapic shield in the middle. Not entirely sure what the heraldic meaning of these symbols is (1), but I guess it has something to do with the founder's achievements in life or the content of his literary legacy. Who knows what´s hidden in all those books!
(1 ) Joël kindly commented on what the heraldry of this coat of arms could mean: "Quartering 1st and 4th Gules (red) with acorn leaf Or (gold); 2nd and 3rd quarters Azur (blue) with a phallus in pale (standing) Or, overall on a bend (or bar) Argent (white). This matches very well with the couple. The "quartering" brings together mostly the two blazons of a couple: the phallus for the strong Ben and the acorn leaf for the bashful David. The white bend can mean belonging to a knight."
The library was created using the Mage Tower by Laurie as a basis, adding lots of books, golden ornaments and decorating the dome ceiling with scenes from the previous series. The canopy was largely inspired by the work of Egid Quirin Asam, a German plasterer and sculptor active during the period of the Late Baroque. I used an image of one of his altarpieces (the Assumption of the Virgin) for the Heavenly Creatures series, the first works I published on my Blog and still one of my favourite photo manipulations. So there’s some continuity in this scene, like completing a full circle, going way back to the very beginning of my priapic work.
In the final part of the chapter, our hero is in a state of endless bliss when suddenly a bright light appears from behind. The delightful weightless illusion is roughly interrupted when, out of nowhere, the boss suddenly enters the scene. The library dissolves in a cloud of swirling papers, and David returns to a harsh reality. The books and papers disappeared, the champion is gone, and the mysterious room with the mirror is nothing more than an adjacent storeroom. So it was all a dream?... Or was it?
The big boss is visibly irritated and immediately assigns David to a young boxer in the locker room. The new guy has been resting for a while after winning his first big match. Although still a beginner, he's obviously the future champion. David is astonished to see him. Could it be the boy from his dream? It’s love at first sight, and they seem to be made for each other. It may have helped that David knows what’s in store for him when his partner becomes that massive guy, The Champion.
The messy storeroom was the first set I created for this project, and initially, the idea was that the whole series would take place in this cramped little space. Plans changed, but somehow I still wanted to include this set somewhere in the project. It seems to be working very well in this final section.
Postscript
We meet the two lovers once more, a few years later, in a postscript. Times have changed, and the world is a different place now. London lies in ruins, and the Old Boxing Club is largely destroyed. Nothing is left of the locker room, and the adjacent storeroom is also severely damaged. However, they quickly discover that for them, the magic is still there…
The ruined city in the postscript is based on a model by Stonemason called After the War. I incorporated the parts of the storeroom with the ruins of London as an experiment, just to see if it could work for the story. I abandoned the plan soon after starting the project, but I thought it was too good to be wasted. Eventually, I gave an opportunity to return to the scene and have one more glance at our hero with his champion.
Hope you’ve enjoyed the result!
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Comments
Priapus of Milet
Hi Kat, That's really very nice of you and much appreciated! It's a great pleasure working on these stories and I'm delighted with all the positive response. Truly amazing! :o)
Kat
These background stories really make me appreciate the time, thought and effort put into each piece. This really set you apart as an unique artist producing images full of passion, emotion and tenderness. Thank you for sharing the thoughts behind the creations.
Priapus of Milet
Thanks! Yes, those creatures are still heavenly. Must revisit those themes one day!
Arnaud
Heavenly Creatures is one of your greatest series! I love everything you do but these ones stand out, with the Mythical ones and some early others. It's amazing to discover your intellectual and artistic journey with every series. Great work! Thank you!
Priapus of Milet
Ha, yes, the portrait. Forgot to mention that. Thanks!
Joël
Hi. Thanks for all this informations. It answers many of my questions. For the curious, the painting is the portrait of a unknown young man by Pompeo Batoni
Priapus of Milet
Thanks! Glad to hear that, and you can always have a look at the previous published chapters, the links are available on my Patreon main page, at the Projects overview. They´ll link you to the chapters on my Priapus Blog.
Ian
I'm glad to see the work doc for this. I remember when we started getting into the most recent chapter that I was thinking, "Huh... how did we get here?"
