gothinkdexign

A panoramic drawing I spent most of my free time in May on, to practice perspective, depth, drawing flora from reference, and some new brushes. This was a tough battle, but I am happy with the bright colors and how much comic-strip influence shows on the facial expressions.

Italy, 600 BCE. A placid day for the Etruscans is interrupted when a shepherd boy loses control of a large ram, who leads the flock in a stampede past the temple. The Etruscans only conducted animal sacrifices on sheep that didn’t resist when being led to the altar, so it’s safe to assume this one will be spared.

The man in the pointed hat is a haruspex (nethsvis in Etruscan), a priest who analyzed animal organs for signs from the gods. Here’s a bronze statuette of him from the Vatican Museum.

I drew @sketchsmack’s OC Elodie, using model Sibyl Buck and a random 90s binder design as references.

410 CE - The Goths besiege Rome.

As the Visigoths lurched down the Italian peninsula toward the ancient city, a Roman official named Pompeianus happened to meet with a group of haruspices. These pagan priests, who analyzed the organs of sacrificed animals to tell the future, were used extensively in the Etruscan civilization that had once existed to the north of Rome, and even ruled it for a time before being assimilated in the last couple centuries BCE.

The haruspices claimed to have saved a town called Neveia from the Goths by bringing down lightning on the invaders, and offered to do the same for Rome. Pompeianus went to ask Pope Innocent I for his input. Innocent decided that saving the city was more important than his own religious views, and said the haruspices could conduct whatever rituals they wanted, as long as they kept it private.

But, as per Etruscan tradition, the haruspices would only perform their animal sacrifices in full view of the sky, and insisted on doing it in the city’s market squares and the Capitoline Hill (equivalent to the US’ Capitol Building). Horrified at the idea of a major pagan demonstration, Innocent shooed the haruspices away.

On August 24, someone on the inside — a hungry commoner tired of the siege, or a Visigoth sympathizer, or one of the jilted haruspices — opened one of the gates to the city. The Goths poured into Rome and sacked it, while Innocent managed to flee to Ravenna.

Thousands of years ago, Cardassia was much warmer and wetter, and small petty kingdoms covered the landscape. But when an ice age caused much of the planet to become drier and colder, resources became scarce and some regions became unlivable, which let a few strategically located rulers become much more powerful. This set the stage for Cardassian culture to develop its focus on authority and control.

I made a Star Wars OC to force myself to practice drawing machines.

Muval is very loosely based on Mr. Mooble, an evil clown that tried to take over the universe in a Star Wars ripoff I made at 11 called Star Quest. Merfu was also there, dubbed Captain Mrfu, and they commanded a Temu Death Star called the Starmaster.

I saw that challenge going around where you draw Hatsune Miku in the style of different cultures. Here she is as an Etruscan, c. 600-400 BCE.

By this point in Etruscan history, ornate borders had replaced tartan as the preferred method of decorating clothes. Braids like this (seen here on Menrva (=Athena), the woman with the spear) were being eclipsed in popularity by looser, shorter Greek styles. Art depicting a woman wearing a cloak this way, with the "tails" in front, can be seen on a fresco in the Tomb of the Leopards, Tarchuna (modern Tarquinia). Her large, circular earrings and the chain across her chest are loosely based on this magnificent set in the Met Museum, with a large crystal added to evoke Miku's necktie.

Śuri is the best example of how the Etruscan gods’ fluid identities continue to baffle modern experts. We know that he was highly revered, and given many offerings, and from his artistic depictions and inscriptions devoted to him, we know what his domains were: the sun and the underworld.

But his connections to the other Etruscan deities of those domains is unclear. He could have been an aspect of the sun god Usil/Aplu (Apollo) in his role as an underworld deity — in other words, the god of the sun when it passed through the land of the dead. On the other hand, Śuri could be the name of a powerful god of both the sun and underworld, who was split into Calu/Aita (Hades) and Usil/Aplu over time, or if the situation called for it. To complicate matters, he had other names, such as Manth and Vetis.