Sunday, June 7, 2009

SKETCH-OF-THE-DAY 073


N is for Na Kika

The Octopus God of Micronesian mythology (specifically the Gilbert Islands) was the son of the primeval creator gods Na Atibu and Nei Teukez - and his many arms proved indispensable in pulling together all the billions of tons of sand and rock to build the archipelagos of the South Pacific.  That is a lot of work, man.

Between my three books and the internet, I couldn't find much more about this octo-guy than what I just wrote - and certainly no visual reference.  I couldn't figure out if Na Kika was an Octopus or a humanoid - or a crazy combination of both.  When in doubt though, always go with the crazy combination of both.

4 comments:

  1. Very cool, awesome designs you've been coming up with! Did you mention you'd be compiling these together in a book or something?

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  2. If I went so far as to make an alphabet book of mythology, I'd probably like to do full figures and do it in color. As it is, maybe I'll hand make an extremely limited run of books with this alphabet of sketched weirdos. Maybe.

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  3. Sweet drawing...totally sweet. Yeah man -make a book!

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  4. It's an appropriate and perfect combination. The visual in my head of him 'moving' - which implies a combination of humanoid and cepholopedic (innovative new word) movements - is really fun to formulate in my imagination.

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