Giftart for Rasetsunyo!

[yuletart-mods.livejournal.com]

Title: Weighing of the Heart
Gift for: rasetsunyo
Artist: ratcreature
Rating:: G
Fandom: Sandman
Characters: Morpheus, Matthew
Warnings: none
Artist notes: Besides Morpheus and Matthew, rasetsunyo mentioned
in the requests (for another, non-Sandman fandom) the Egyptian
pantheon, and also liking crossovers. This isn't really a crossover
with the other fandom, but I thought you might still enjoy Morpheus
mixed into in one of the classic scenes of the Egyptian afterlife,
i.e. the Weighing of the Heart. So there's Anubis weighing the heart
against the feather of truth, Thoth keeping the records, and Ammit
(the crocodile/lion/hippo miy demon) waiting to eat the unworthy
hearts. I decided to show the waiting soul as Ba with a bird body and
human head. I'm not sure why Morpheus is there, but I figured that the
Egyptians connected their afterlife underworld to the night and to the
journey of the sun might be good enough for this Endless to show up
there. This was done as inked pencils, colored with acrylic paint.
Summary: Somehow Morpheus and Matthew ended up in the Egyptian afterlife.

Comments

[pippins-nose.livejournal.com]

the useful-comment portion of my brain has perished due to too many christmas cookies but... this is awesome :D

[ratcreature]

Thank you!

[venturous1.livejournal.com]

that's haunting, dreamlike and beautiful.

[ratcreature]

Thanks, I'm glad you think the scene fit for Dream.

[tylercat.livejournal.com]

Interesting scene. The little soul bird is very cute.

[ratcreature]

Thanks! The Egyptians had such great ideas about their souls.

[karasu-hime.livejournal.com]

Very nice! I love the swirls on Dreams robes and the rest is very dreamlike!

[ratcreature]

Thanks, I'm glad to hear that. This was the first time I've drawn Dream.

[florence-craye.livejournal.com]

Fantastic. I love the coloring and shading, and the way you've integrated Egyptian mythology into everything. wonderful work!

[ratcreature]

Thank you. I'm still relatively new to using acrylic paint, but I really like them, even though coloring this way takes quite a while. I'm glad to hear my efforts worked for others.

[coell.livejournal.com]

That's gorgeous and well thought out! Great job making a complete composition, with lots of lovely details.

[ratcreature]

Thank you! Backgrounds are always hard for me, but I also like images a lot better when the characters have some context, so I'm currently trying to be better about including more than just a character in my stuff.

[froggie.livejournal.com]

This is gorgeous; it reminds me of something that would actually be in the books/comics.

[ratcreature]

Thanks, that is great praise.

[22by7.livejournal.com]

amazing work. i applaud your imagination. and yes, it does look like something out of an actual comic.

[ratcreature]

Well, most of the cool fantastical ideas belong to the Egyptians, who had a great imagination when it cames to their afterlife, and the rest to DC. But I'm glad you like my combination. Thanks.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Oh how beautiful!! Thank you so very, very much, Secret Artist, this is gorgeous and intriguing and dreamlike and more perfect than I could have imagined. I love the wonderful details, the rendering, the striking composition, everything. Thanks again, I'm so excited!!

[ratcreature]

Yay, I'm glad you liked it. BTW, if you are interested, I could give you a 300dpi high resolution scan of your gift image, so that you could see the detail better and/or print a paper copy for yourself rather than just have this small screen resolution image.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that would be lovely! Via e-mail? My address is detritus AT gmail DOT com. Thank you again!

[darthneko.livejournal.com]

So beautiful! I love the details. It's gorgeous!

[ratcreature]

Thank you.

[scribbleomania.livejournal.com]

Wow, the complexity of this is outstanding. It's so imaginative and dreamlike (almost Salvador Dali sort of surrealistic).

[ratcreature]

Thanks. It was a lot of fun to draw something Egyptian themed.

[bossymarmalade.livejournal.com]

This looks *so much* like actual illustration from the comics that I half-expect it to be from a graphic novel I haven't read! The absolute bizarreness of Egyptian mythology really comes through here (ALLIGATOR LION THING WHAT) and the drape and play of light on Dream's robes is fabulous. What a wonderful addition to the universal Endless canon!!

[ratcreature]

Thank you. I'm glad to hear you think the parts fit. I browsed some Sandman comics before starting to remind myself of their mood and such.

And yeah, the Egyptians had a great imagination when it came to the afterlife. I suppose when you want a scary soul-eating demon picking the scariest animals around you that can also eat humans makes sense, so I can understand the lion and crocodile parts, but I'm a bit stumped why they mixed in hippo. Maybe they are more vicious than one thinks?

[bossymarmalade.livejournal.com]

According to a friend who lived in Tanzania for six months, hippos can be terrifyingly vicious if you get too close to them! Plus they SWEAT BLOOD. *shudder*

[ratcreature]

What? Eeep. Okay, then they make perfect sense as part of soul eating demons. Clearly my mental hippo image was distorted by having never seen one outside of a zoo and by Disney-fied Fantasia versions or something.

[unithien-rerith.livejournal.com]

This is beautiful. And I agree with bossymarmalade, my first thought was that this could easily have been a scene out of one of hte graphic novels.

[ratcreature]

Thanks, that's a great compliment. I'm glad you like it.

[kaiserkuchen.livejournal.com]

Delicate and gorgeous and like all the other commenters have already mentioned, it really does look like something that could've been out of the original graphic novels! Niiice.

[ratcreature]

Thank you!

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

Ooo, this feels like canon. Gorgeous.

[ratcreature]

Thanks. I browsed some Sandman comics before starting this, because I haven't read them in a long time, so I'm glad to hear I got the mood right.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

oh, man, this is gorgeous. i love the composition, the coloring, the shading, the detail - everything.

[ratcreature]

Thank you. It took a while, especially to color this, so I'm glad to hear the effort paid off.

[aybara-max.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, this does feel like canon, Morpheus is unutterably gorgeous. The only thing missing is lady Bast, though I suspect she is playing coy as usual ;-) and matthew looks so solemn, I love his inclusion. I love the details of the stone arch and the way the land dissipates in the background. WELL DONE!!

[ratcreature]

Thank you, I'm glad you like it. Rasetsunyo asked for Morpheus and Matthew, so he had to be there. I have to admit that I got the idea of the land dissipating from Sandman comics when I browsed through them before starting to get some inspiration and the right mood, so I didn't actually come up with that. I just mixed and matched stuff, like fanart does. :)

[glockgal.livejournal.com]

This is so gorgeously coloured. I really love that smoothness over the textures and shades and detailing of colours, it makes me wanna run my hand along my monitor, eheheh! The Egyptian stuff is WAY cool and so fascinating and freaky, which is so very appropriate for the world of Morpheus. This is such a fascinating artwork to stare and admire!

[ratcreature]

Thank you. I'm glad you like it. The Egyptians had great ideas when it came to their afterlife mythology.

I'm still quite new to using acrylic paint, but I really like the medium. Though getting my scanner to get the colors even halfway right is a hassle, somehow they are always duller than they were on paper.

[bitbitbot.livejournal.com]

what a beautifully composed image! i love the (this is going to sound silly) sense of both great gravity and weightlessness- the rocks and solid ground, then revealed to be floating in the distance, and Ammit heaving himself up and morpheus's curly robe hems-- it all goes so well with the theme of the weighing of the heart. really beautiful.

[ratcreature]

Thank you, I'm glad you like it. The connection between the floating and the weighing hadn't occurred to me, but it's great when viewers make connections I didn't make consciously. :D

[elynross.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful! I love the detail and the coloring!

[ratcreature]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful! There's so much fantastic detail, and I love the story behind it. :)

[ratcreature]

Thank you, I'm glad you like it and that the scene works for you. I've been trying to draw characters in situations more often, because when looking at art I find that more interesting than just portraits, but it's not always easy for me to come up with stuff.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, this is awesome. I especially love the coloring and the spooky-yet-peaceful atmosphere, and Morpheus' Morticia Addams-like dress.

[ratcreature]

Thank you! I'm glad you like it.