Been a hot minute since I updated this space. Here’s a rundown of what’s changed.
Refined concept
Initially, my concept for the banner was to portray ghosts in a more human light, by incorporating human traits into ghosts from Asian mythology and folklore. But after working on it for a few weeks, I felt that the concept lacked depth. I decided to tweak the idea a little — to portray us humans as ghost-like, like our souls have been sucked out of us because of the destructive rat race mentality in modern life. (essentially it’s not a huge concept change, but I feel better about the idea now)
As for the style of the motifs, Ina and I agreed that the illustrations looked better without a black comic-like outline, so that’s what I went ahead with.
Motifs
T O Y O L
Originating from Malay and Indonesian folklore, a toyol is a mischevious child spirit invoked by a witch doctor from a dead human fetus. The toyol is often described to have green/gray skin, big red (alien-like) eyes, pointy ears and rows of sharp teeth.
O I W A
The story of Oiwa originates from Japan. Oiwa was a young, beautiful woman whose husband had an affair with another woman. He poisoned his wife to get rid of her, resulting in her disfigured face. I drew Oiwa as a teenage school girl, impressionable and easily heartbroken.
P O N T I A N A K
Another ghost that is popular in Malay and Indonesian folklore is the pontianak. It is a female vampiric ghost who died due to childbirth. She is often depicted to have long black hair and pale skin. She is also associated with banana trees, where she resides in them during the day.
D I A O S I G U I
The Diao Si Gui comes from Chinese folklore, and is also known as the “hanged ghost”. He represents spirits of people who have committed suicide, hence the name. The Diao Si Gui has a long red tongue that hangs out of its mouth.
J I A N G S H I
A Jiangshi is a reanimated corpse in Chinese mythology. He is often dressed in official garments from the Qing Dynasty, and in popular culture, depicted to have a paper talisman stuck to his forehead.
Layout
I have a few ideas on how to portray the idea of soul-sucking, but I’m still working on them. Here are some preliminary layouts for visualisation purposes.
- Repetition: to show the idea of a factory line, pumping out soulless humans to keep society going.
- Soul sucker: showing how humans’ souls are being sucked away, leaving ghostly, empty bodies.
- Just experimenting with the motifs flowing in an upwards direction.
Will keep working on the layout for test print next week 🙂
