newjackcole
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Monster
🕑 Added 2022-10-05 19:36:31 +0000 UTCNormally I don't draw a lot of weapons, and almost never with the goma. This is because I when I was a teenager I had a moment where I came to the realization that the only purpose of a sword is for humans to kill other humans. What became the goma was my way of exploring a fantasy world that didn't center around violence, particularly the hierarchical violence that most often accompanies the construction of swords and armor.
I still think that a sword is just a really long knife whose only purpose is to punch enough holes in the other person's meatbag that they either bleed to death, get infected, or impaired.
However I'm beginning to ease off of such a strict aversion to violence in favor of the fact that violence and fantasies of violence are compelling and important parts of the human imagination (swords and violence still restrict the imagination though because of the way that they alter what kind of story you can tell, but that is an entirely different essay that I plan to go in depth with my thoughts on at some point).
One of the things that fantasy violence does that I think is really intriguing and compelling is explore the physicality of bodies. Bodies in motion, stretching, bending, and hoisting great weight. It's always riveting to see two equally matched forces clashing with one another, until one gives way. Seeing the way things break in interesting ways when they reach their limit. It is why violence in fantasy stories, science fiction, superheroes etc has a sports like quality.
There are several themes I'm trying to explore and formulate with this image, and with what I'm going to try to have be some following images, themes centering around the body and movement of the body, the strained limits of the body in relationship to violence, the subverted (and in many cases, particularly in fantasy) overt eroticism of combat and violence in fantasy, and also the relationships of violence and eroticism to hierarchies.
No idea if any of those goals will pan out, or if I'll accidentally just create something that goes against the ideas and principles of the body of work I already have, but I guess these are the sorts of thoughts that I would normally keep quiet if I was posting like I regularly do on other sites.
Comments
Thanks Lórien
In this instance, this isn't a goma, this is a monster. The goma are their own class of spirits, a bit like how djinn, or angels, or fauns and nymphs are their own sort of class of spirit. Monsters on the other hand are closer to how I conceptualize deities, which is as ideas and metaphors with one foot in reality, that they are simultaneously themselves and representations of other forces. As far as sport and violence goes that analysis applies more to the way that narratives, genre, and storytelling treat violence, rather than characters in those narratives and stories. But as far as how violence, monsters, and the goma intersect, I have no idea. That's what I'm trying to figure out through illustration.
Why is the Ghoma using a weapon in this image if violence is not in their nature? Is it like a sport to them, in the way you mentioned violence was like a sport in fantasy/medieval settings?
Lórien Fëantur
thank you for always sharing such elaborate thoughts with your art; I really enjoy reading your insights and views on things.
Your attention to details and how it fits in your compositions have always been astounding. Seeing Goma wield that scythe with such apparent ease dances with my curiosity as to how and why he became so skilled with such a weapon. As well as his predatory stance, like he's ready to pounce.
