The Brothers As Kings

Having established the visual language for the brothers at the stage where they have no yet acquired their power, my next brief was to establish their look once they have each established their own, separate kingdoms. In the period between, they built a permanent, protected settlement for their caravan, bringing their own community prosperity. However, their conflicting views on how to best use their power going forward is what has led to them parting ways. One believed they should go out into the world and welcome all into a prosperous civilisation of their making. The other despised the idea that they should now provide for those whom had previously preyed upon caravan communities such as their own, and believed that they should instead keep their newfound prosperity for the good of their own people. As a result they separated, with the former creating a sprawling, oasis-like city with open gates, while the latter cocoons himself and his people off from the world outside, maintaining their prosperity inside a closed off city.

Dress

I began the process by sketching some rough dress ideas, aiming to incorporate some of the traditional clothing aesthetics of Ancient Near Eastern nobility. As I mentioned in another post, the brothers' previous way of life didn't mesh too well with the long flowing robes we typically see in the historical material, but now, living in the comfort of their cities, these styles make a lot more sense.

Murals and Illustrations depicting nobility dress styles

At the top of the spread, there are a few sketches that I brought forward from my previous dress exploration, as these felt like they fit nicely into the new context. From there I made quite a few more sketches, and I also started playing around with headpieces, potentially gifts from the citizens of their kingdoms. Towards the end you can see that I also included some rough ideas for more private wear, as as opposed to the dress they would use when presenting publicly. From this I decided to refine some ideas for both public and private wear going forward:

I ended up expanding on two designs for each of the brothers in both public and private wear, with the main goal being to establish a difference in visual language between the two at this stage, to reflect their respective kingdoms. The first is overall more flowing and loose, whereas the second is more concealed and his clothing involves multiple layers wrapping around him, reflecting his more closed-off kingdom. I also decided that one of the brothers would retain the scarf's motif from the first stage, whereas one would move away from it entirely. 

As you can see from the ceremonial dress designs, both brothers wear  headpieces that bear a wing-like resemblance. The idea for these winged headpiece designs was derived from the winged-disk motif that appears extremely frequently in Ancient Near Eastern murals such as these: 

Winged disk figures in NE murals 

The winged disk figure is commonly understood to be representative of a supreme god, the identity of which depends on the time period and culture the mural belongs to. It most frequently appears in conjunction with depictions of kings (in any of their capacities, for instance as gardeners or lion hunters, as seen in the examples above).  In an Assyrian context for instance, the winged disk represents Assur, the head of the Assyrian pantheon. In Zoroastrianism - the religion of the Achaemenid Empire - the winged disk represents the supreme creator god Ahura Mazda. Written inscriptions prescribed by Achaemenid Kings (most famous of which is Darius I's Behistun Inscription) also consistently credit Ahura Mazda with having granted them their Empire and kingship, such that the figure becomes somewhat of a patron that constantly watches over them as it does in murals. By incorporating the visual motif of the winged disk into the brothers' designs as kings, the aim was to infuse them with some of the godlike status they now hold.  

Power

In a studio session with Josh where we went over the dress designs above, we discussed the importance of using loose and rough sketching to convey ideas quickly and clearly. Even though the session was short, I found it very useful to see his process. It helped me to pick up on some of the things I don't usually think about in my own drawing, such as the benefit of using your whole arm to draw large curves and shapes, rather than just your wrist. The main outcome of this session was that he recommended I try incorporating some stances into character design work to better convey characteristics and status, sketching rough examples as we went to explain what he meant: 

Particularly useful for me was the example of ribcage orientation as a baseline for dictating general stance (top right and bottom left), which serves as a basis for character sketches that assert characteristics like power/dominance. Josh pointed out that while my dress concepts are useful for showing the differences in styles of clothing, they alone do not sell the grandeur of the two characters, so I decided to do some more work on that front. After this session I went on to produce some sketch work that was focused on visualising the stances and movements of the brothers as they use their power of creation, as well as the some of the things that they could do with this power.

Above, one of the brothers is raising rock pillars from the ground and flooding his surroundings with water. The pillars rise out of the ground as he raises his hands out in a wide, powerful stance. The scarves also raise up like secondary limbs, accentuating his gestures to give him a 'larger than life' quality. As this concept shows, the brothers' vital markings now glow a pure white, as do their eyes, meaning that they would never be able to fit in as a normal person in a crowd. This white glow would be completely unheard of, considering it has been thousands of years since the last power holders lived, and knowledge of them was lost during that time. I wanted the brother to appear as godlike as possible here, and hopefully it appears as though he has ascended beyond human mortality.

Above is a spread of sketches showcasing various uses of the brothers' power, including traversal, terraforming and water sources creation. The brothers are able to pull their creations from out of the ground in a manner that has no rational explanation, or similarly create limitless supplies of pristine water that can be suspended in the air or flow upwards. Their creations can defy natural limitations, able to remain impossibly balanced or for instance adopt a top-heavy form that would usually crumble instantly under its own weight.

The concept above is of the moments after the brothers first acquire their power. The two are playfully exploring their new abilities, 'flying' and surfing across the dunes back to their caravan by creating snaking pillars of rock that extend beneath their feet and propel them along. This would be a fast and liberating method of traversal.

The main focus of this last concept, in which we see one of the brothers creating a large water source/fountain, was to pinpoint the look of their water. In a word, I was aiming for an 'ethereal' aesthetic. It hence has a constant glowing aura, and its surface sparkles, with bubbles fizzing at the edges. The turquoise colour also serves to further differentiate it from regular water, and its opacity makes it appear more viscous, like some sort of dew. I hope that the water looks as though it is brimming with some sort of restorative energy, given both the symbolic and lifesaving importance of water in the context of an arid environment such as this one.

Thanks for reading!