sleep's sleepiest soldier

[obligatory “when talking about the vessels, i’m talking about characters” disclaimer]

if you're unfamiliar with the main idea, please check out the TMBTE post.

Sleep/"Vessel"/Vessel mimic (sort of?)

the thing with this design is that, as previously mentioned, this isn't exactly an intentional mimic of Vessel. rather than that, it's almost Sleep's "default" state during Sundowning, stemming from him and Vessel having their identities heavily blurred prior. in this form, Sleep tends to mirror Vessel's movements almost perfectly or have them complete a certain pattern (see: Decimation and Higher artworks). most of the silhouette is very blurred; the parts that usually appear the clearest are the ones closest to Vessel himself, but the feet tend to always be blurred and give the appearance of floating. the face is nonexistent under the hood, replaced by protruding beams (?) that are supposed to resemble the Sundowning logo. generally, they face wherever Sleep does without following any three-dimensional rules, but for front views like this they just face up. its design is way better understood if you look at those to artworks, again.

“ii”/ii mimic

[obligatory “when talking about the vessels, i’m talking about characters” disclaimer]

if you’re unfamiliar with the main idea, please check out the TMBTE post & the Sleep lore post.

TPWBYT, to me, is a period of uncertainty. a fresh suicide attempt, surgery, Sleep trying to break Vessel and then mold him in His image. confusing. dissociating. there's a reason why no form Sleep takes has a solid body (except for "ii") - everything is hazy, everything floats and dissipates and comes back wrong, unfamiliar. Sleep, during that time, is mostly an ocean, either spread out thin to appear terrifying or, later on, a deep dark menace.

"Vessel"/Vessel mimic

a watery death. while the Sundowning version of Sleep turns upwards towards Heaven, TPWBYT's "Vessel" drips down heavy, trying to drag Vessel deeper and deeper. it moves by floating, flowing from one space to another, but there's a visible heaviness to it still. everything bleeds into each other, everything is indistinguishable in origin; the only parts that have some semblance of definition are the hood and the hands. it's a constant reminder to Vessel: how much of his own blood he has spilled, how many regrets he drags alongside himself.

"ii"/ii mimic

trapped in a bubble, wrapped up in himself. "ii", while the only one possessing a relatively solid body (that of a spotted moray), still floats in the same realm of haziness as the rest. as the real ii is pulled deeper and deeper into trusting Sleep with whatever he's doing with Vessel, fearing potential consequences, "ii" morphs into a timid creature. his head is a bubble, although opaque and impenetrable, and his arms, while elongated and noodly, are wrapped entirely around his body. this, too, is a mockery.

"iii"/iii mimic

[obligatory "when talking about the vessels, i'm talking about characters" disclaimer]

background info on the whole idea:

Sleep as a being is shapeless in my mind; more of a concept than a creature. it can manifest as sort of an absence of light in any shape to others, usually to appeal to feeling/emotion. the only "rule" for that is that whatever Sleep tries to appear as cannot look more or less innocent/powerful than Sleep actually is, which usually manifests in two things: the size being different from the thing/person it's imitating, scaled according to power, and/or added features, usually in some way threatening or regal.

one of Sleep's more consistent forms it takes throughout interacting with Vessel is mimicking him, partially to create an illusion of the two being more similar than they actually are and partially because Sleep used to exist as Vessel's shadow when they'd just met. the visual itself has changed through time (you can see what it was like during Sundowning in my Higher artwork), and during TMBTE that visual is pretty much the titular song's character with the most minor tweaks (which is why i didn't draw it separately).

all that made me think about the idea of Sleep mimicking the other vessels just to fuck with Vessel further (to be clear, i am a strong believer that Sleep only interacts with Vessel in any way). so now here are the designs of those mimics during the events of TMBTE, utilizing the album's song characters much like the Vessel mimic. because again, i have to start a series from the end, i guess.

"ii"/ii mimic (song character used: AYROK)

the main idea driving the design of "ii" is the real ii's goal to keep Vessel more or less safe by being by his side in worshipping Sleep, which is the reason he'd decided to become the second vessel in the first place. the choice of AYROK as the character to use in this design is obvious. one of the ideas that stem from that is ii's duty/desire to keep his face hidden for Vessel's sake; only his hands are visible & detailed because that's the only part of him Vessel remembers before either of them became vessels of Sleep and the only part ii has really shown after that. another is ii's timidity in telling Vessel to go against Sleep's will because he fears that no matter how bad it may be, it'll be much worse if Vessel doesn't follow it. that part comes through in the pose - shyly holding his hands together as if they're tied.

"iii"/iii mimic (song character used: Aqua Regia)

the song character inspo being Aqua Regia is mostly because of the calmer nature of the song and the dynamic duo it makes with Vore, less so the themes of the lyrics. also its visual design. iii mimic's design themes are iii's adoration/borderline obsession with Vessel (wearing Vessel's jewelry and having elements of his robe in his shirt + his own face/mask slowly melting off) and his enagement with worship as an act/aesthetic rather than something more serious (the overabundance of jewelry and accessories; the extra arms; the body language; the cuffs around his arms and legs being decorative and not actually restricting). also the rings on his fingers make a checkered pattern.

"iv"/iv mimic (song character used: Vore)

the use of Vore for "iv" is obvious too. song wouldn't be the same without his real life self. the design really just aims to combine iv with the Vore character, but there are two big things here. the simplest one is anger issues, which is why he's So Goddamn Spiky and why his jacket looks like scarred skin rather than painted & customized. the anger mostly shows up in the body language: most of the time "iv" just stares unblinkingly with pure palpable ire in the two glowing dots for eyes, and when he does move it's very stiff and snappy and barely controlled. the other thing is that, simply speaking, the real iv got into this whole mess without knowing the full extent of it and now he's in too deep and kinda losing himself. in the design it's expressed through the human features gradually turning into bug-like, such as the hoodie fading into a segmented millipede-like body and the fucked up mantis hands, and the gold of the original iv's mask melting over the face with the horns being part of it. the spikes protrude from him in a way that makes it difficult to distinguish between jacket decorations and actual parts of his body, but the spines are definitely from his body & allow me to live the dream of iv with a mohawk LMAO