[PROCESS] GODS - PART 1

Bless up!

Jun 08, 2022

Hey everybody. Here goes another process post. This time we’re breaking down yesterday’s story called GODS with artwork by the insanely talented, Nimit Malavia. Nimit did such a beautiful job interpreting me and Mike’s vision, he truly is a deity himself. He’s also a fellow Canuck which makes him comics 6God.

Let’s go in!

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VATRA

Ok soooo I dug through old files and sketches trying to figure out how I came about this concept. Sometimes I look at the finished piece and I say to myself WTF was I on? How did I get to this point?

I managed to find a few remnants of the beginnings. I realized the initial sketches for Vatra weren’t even based off an animal. It was actually based off of a futuristic b-boy design I was messing around with. But eventually I scrapped that whole idea and went for something that resembled an owl. The eyes of the initial sketch of the b-boy already looked like an owl so I’m sure that’s where I got the inspiration to move forward and try a bird design instead. The description described Vatra as regal, royal, majestic and powerful which totally fits the demeanor of an owl. I also just love creature design so any chance I can go animal, I’m in. The description also describes Vatra to be a fire God which explains the added flames on it’s head. Once again, I dipped back to my love of coral so the flames on the head actually was based off the pattern of corals. Fun fact, I did leave a part of the b-boy sketch in the form of Vatra’s prayer pose. The hand sign is inspired by Tutting which is a dance form based on poses seen in ancient Egypt,“King Tut” so the b-boy element wasn’t totally scrapped. In terms of the coat of jewels, the goal was to go insane with it, I mean, we’re dealing with a God so I couldn’t go half ass. I had to design something Slick Rick would nod in approval. Check below to see the visuals and more notes on Vatra.

VODA

Voda was a lot easier to start on. Since she was a Water God, I pretty much just started pulling elements of the Ocean into her design. Their’s two versions of Voda. The Voda in Glory which is the beautiful side of the Ocean and the Voda of Damnation which is the total opposite.

Let’s start with Voda in Glory.

So the cool thing about Voda is she is where all Khor comes from. Immediately I thought, what if she literally gives birth to Khor and that’s how I came up with the womb made of Coral. The idea is that the Khor would emanate from the Coral and all forms of Ocean life would either protect it or be part of the life cycle in creating this sacred substance, maybe the movement of the fish would create the ripples that would give energy (food)to it. From there the rest of the ideas just started flowing but I have to credit a lot of the ideas in the descriptions of Al Ewing/Jonathan Hickman’s breakdown of the Gods. They’re so visual it’s pretty much telling me what I have to draw.

“First came VODA, the Powerful One, eternal as tides, strong as rushing waves, deep as restless oceans”.

The visuals are right there in those words, I automatically visualized an eternal tide and rushing waves draped over her like a cape. A cape made of waves and vast ocean life.

More detailed info in the pictures below and some original sketches.

With Voda in Damnation, what caught me was the description of Voda being as deep as restless oceans. So first thought was Voda of Damnation would be the darkness of the bottom of the Ocean. Almost just the silhouette or shadow of Voda in Glory and within the deep where all the mysterious and undiscovered parts of her live.

Last but certainly not least HAVO.

Here’s a description I took from Al’s and Jonathan’s breakdown.

“HAVO, the gambler, encourages those who earned none of their wealth to waste even that on song and sport, to seek gain without effort, to fritter their time on hobbies and unserious pursuits – and such was VATRA’s intent, for those that fall and lose everything will learn their lessons and build themselves up in VATRA’s embrace, learning the value of hardship. Prayers to HOVA take the form of kissed dice and large bets on impossible odds.”

“The personification of chance and play, so mischievous, carefree, smirking, tempting”.

So Hova is the demon of our story, I guess our version of Lucifer and what caught me was his mischievousness, carefree, tempting and lazy character. My whole intent was to go once again, creature design. So it was pretty much a brainstorm of what animal resembles some form of all that. At first I thought a tortoise but then thinking even slower and hanging around, a Sloth would be perfect! Now I know I’m probably gonna piss off a lot of the Sloth lovers out there which is pretty much everybody including me but I couldn’t help thinking of the imagery for it and how perfect an Evil Sloth would look literally hanging from the moon it infects. It just had to be.

And since it came from Vatra, we had to drape him in even more jewels but more in the arms and the belly. He would literally infect greed with whomever he touches with these gems. The fake face was another cool thing to add to his mischievous behaviour and adding the real face hiding underneath with the creepy smile pretty much brought it all home.

More detailed notes below.