Okay, we are back to kawaii-style artwork this week with the fourth of Loki’s children – Sleipnir. He is different from Loki’s other kids in a number of ways. First, although he does have eight legs, he is not a monster. Sleipnir, whose name means “slippery,” is a friend and servant of the gods and serves as the mount of Odin himself. Second, while Loki’s other kids were born to the giantess Angrboda, Sleipnir’s mother is… Loki. Yeah, confusing, I know. Loki is a shape-shifter. One time he needed to lure away a male stallion so Loki changed himself into a female mare. The plan worked and some time later Loki showed up with an eight-legged, grey foal. The sagas tell us “This is the horse Sleipnir, which excels all horses ever possessed by gods or men.” His most famous journey was when the god Hermod rode him to Hel while trying to free Baldur from the clutches of death.
Category: Artwork
The Heart is Bold that Looks on Gold
I’ve been posting kawaii artwork on Thursdays and I intend to keep on doing that. There is a problem with this week’s artwork – I don’t like it. I’m working on the kawaii version of Sleipnir but so far I haven’t been able to come up with anything I feel is good enough. (Those eight legs keep getting in the way of each other.) But I still wanted to post some kind of art so I did this piece.
I love the artistic style that Games Workshop uses for the Dwarves in their Warhammer game. It’s kind of weird because although I have read a lot of issues of White Dwarf magazine and pored over websites about the hobby I’ve never actually played the game.
The Dwarves in the game are very attached to their ancestors and frequently decorate weapons and armor with these little iconic representations of them. The GW artists have done a great job of invoking the look of the various carved images that we find on stones and wooden relics from the Norse countries. I did this piece to represent one of these icons before it is attached to a piece of armor.
I’m happy with the art although I do think the lines are too precise. This is a side effect of me creating the base in a vector drawing program. I’ve create my original lines and shapes in Adobe Illustrator and then bring it on over to Photoshop where I add textures and effects. I’ve been using both programs for over fifteen years so it is often easier for me to do something in the program than it is using paper and pencil. The knotwork is so much easier in the digital realm – you got to love that Undo button! If you’re interested in the process I use to create digital knotwork you can check out a tutorial I did. The tute is a few years old but all of the same principles still apply.
BTW, the line in the title comes from JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
Posted by Mark NeumayerWhen Fenrir Ate the Sun
Okay, I haven’t been in the habit of posting links, but this one is so cool that I wanted to share it. This isn’t a strict interpretation of anything from the sagas and I don’t know any of the story behind what is really going on. But this is a visually cool piece of animation depicting a monstrous dog eating the sun. Enjoy.
More Kawaii Artwork
This week’s kawaii offering features Jormungandr. He is the colossal sea serpent that encircles the globe in Norse mythology. That’s really big, but I figure the guy couldn’t have been born that large even if his mother was a giant and his father was Loki. So we have my version of him when he was a wee lad.
This is the third in my series on Loki’s kids. We’ve covered Hela and Fenrir already so the only one left is Sleipnir. He’ll be racing onto the scene next week.
Hela Goes Squee
Okay, the other week I mentioned thinking about the Norse goddess Hela lately. Then I shared some kawaii artwork which featured her brother Fenrir. I had a picture of Hela done, but I wasn’t happy with it. It was a more modern take, making her into something of a Goth girl. While I like the concept, the execution just wasn’t working. I started from scratch and so this week I have a picture of Hela to share with you all. What do you think?
She’s smiling but my concept for these is that the children of Loki are still young and haven’t yet arrived at the grim junctures of their fates. So we can have her a little bit happy for awhile.
Two of Loki’s li’l ones down, two to go. I’m thinking I’ll feature Jormungandr next, thinking of a way to chibi-fy an 8-legged horse is a tough one.
Fenrir Pup
I’ve been thinking about the Norse goddess Hela lately, mainly because she plays an important role in the book I am writing Valda Goes Through Hel. I finished the first draft and have moved on to edits before I send the book off to my awesome group of readers. That means I am in the part of the book process where I don’t have to be as creative. So my mind is whipping off onto different tangents as it tends to do.
So I was thinking about Hela, which got me to thinking about the other children of Loki. There was Jormungandr, the sea monster better known as the Midgard Serpent. He eventually grew big enough to encircle the entire globe. There was Fenrir the giant wolf who bit off the hand of the god Tyr and is fated to kill Odin at Ragnarok. We also have Sleipnir, Odin’s 8-legged horse. Loki was not the father of this “best of horses,” he was the mother. Go here to read more about that if you want.
Definitely a strange batch of children and the thought popped into my head “I wonder what it was like raising that group of kids?” (I know normal people don’t think of things like that. I crossed that bridge many years ago, folks.) Thinking about them as kids lead me to doodling on the computer which lead me to today’s pictures. One of Loki’s li’l ones down, three to go.
Feeling A Little Kawaii
I spend most of my time writing now, but I worked as a graphic designer for a long while. Plus, I’ve always been a doodling type of guy. So when I had the chance to buy Christopher Hart’s Manga for the Beginner: Kawaii I jumped at it. Very cool book with some great tips for the artist wanting to draw in the super-cute Japanese style. (Hey, I like Mixed Martial Arts and kawaii manga – I’m complex.)
Here’s the first piece I drew after getting fired up from reading the book. I worked up a kawaii version of the main character from my book Valda & the Valkyries. Sketched by hand, then scanned and built in Adobe Illustrator. I’m happy with it but I think we need a version with Valda having those Viking-style braids.
Mark Neumayer 