TOTEM

My 2D design class had a homework project to sketch a bunch of ideas for personal logos. Most of mine became more detailed than I meant to, to the point where they became unusable for the assigned project, but I really enjoyed how they turned out regardless, and figured I'd share them. This one went all the way complicated, clearly.


I feel a strong affinity for the Greek Goddess of Chaos and Discord, Eris. I've felt this for a long time, for many reasons. I don't feel particularly chaotic myself, but chaos draws me in, and I feel compelled to write/draw stories that are heavily chaotic. My mind appreciates her brand of motion and emotion. That's her behind them.

They're all predators, which resonates with me--not that I feel like I am one, just that I identify with predator animals better than with prey animals. In this there is multiple types of flight, multiple types of swimming, skin, scales, feathers, and fur, and overall it makes a sort of many pointed star.

I've always felt an affinity for panthers, and I've always thought owls were one of the most beautiful animals. I love bat-style wings on just about every animal, but especially cats and dragons. I'm learning a bunch about Egyptian society in my art history class. I've researched Egyptian mythology before, but the professor who's teaching this class has a really interesting perspective, and got me thinking about crocodiles. And their place in mythology.

And of course, I couldn't really have a whole crocodile hanging from an owl's talons without it looking comical, so it's just his head. It's gruesome, but it doesn't make me think of death, exactly. I when I look at the eyes of the animals in this, the crocodile doesn't seem to be dead. It feels more like one of those gods with many faces, where one is a child, one an adult, and one is elderly, but they're all aspects of the same entity. At the same time, this makes me think about the oroborus, and Jörmungandr; the idea of an entity forever devouring itself, or at least (in the case of Jörmungandr) biting itself. This goes a step further than most. It's four entities that, at least in this picture, are also one entity, in a perpetual state of attacking each other/themselves--without it seeming violent. The goddess is rising through the shoulder blades of the panther, who is gripping the head of the owl, who is holding the severed head of the crocodile, and while there is blood, none of them seem to be in pain.