ok this is a lil thing compiling details that are interesting to me
so the mailman fan animation in general is meant to be a recap alluding to previous animation/songs. as such, certain sections will be referred to by what song they're covering
for starters, here are all of the rendered backgrounds (w/o the filters)!
the first drawing and the thumbnail are meant to be a little trick as all of my previous thumbnails were shots taken from the animation and edited. TECHNICALLY, this one also followed that pattern, in a way :)
the hockey outfit used for this was directly pulled from aurora tigers, one of the main hockey teams that evan was in :)
poster for UPenn propped up alongside economic books to show the business course he was taking while in UPenn
for the rynx segment, the three colors that flashes over him are pink, purple, and blue, as those are the primary three colors used in his music videos
do not ask me why i thought it was a good idea to partially render out this bottle of whisky.
the drawing that evan is looking at are a pair of wings as an allusion towards the transition from the owl theming being his signature to when the angel becomes his muse.
(partially reference to the mural that is depicted in both the fan animation for miss melancholy and pesos)
azad makes a brief appearance (represented via the oranges) as he was mentioned to be the inspiration behind evan deciding to sing in his songs
in miss melancholy's segment, the scene is heavily desaturated as a nod towards, well, the feeling of melancholy
deblurred, the poster in the background is gibberish as i knew that nobody would see it, but it was formatted in the style of "Pluto Nash" bc it was funny to me
when evan is lying down, his hair slots between his fingers in a ring-like fashion, calling back to the heteronormativity expected in "mailman" (explained here) and the eye in the TV being a facade of what he wants.
the heart necklace is wrapped around his neck as a way to symbolize how this love is literally choking him out for as long as he keeps avoiding it
for the interlude, there are three colors used again: red, purple, and blue. it was important to me to keep the color palette very simple as the symbolism mattered more than the details.
red is his upbringing, the subject of his first identities. a quiet child then growing up as an avid hockey player, the start of it all. within his helmet, he is caged, almost hidden away entirely within its hypermasculine culture.
then comes purple: performative behavior with him starting out as a content creator, new and anxious to the scene as nobody had done this before him, but a little excited too. then him transforming into rynx, pouring his heart out through his music, anguish spilling out of him like the hair through his fingers.
finally, there's blue, depression and the fear of stagnation, the moment when he finally slows down (speed!) and when he's able to start filling in for the devil, but not yet. not fully.
misc photos such as him w/o the static overlay in that one scene, the angel w/o the lights
in the drowning sequence, there are four colored variations of Evan
Eddie Long (because, even as a gag, Eddie Long is an exploration into himself)
In one frame, we get both "miss melancholy" and "Spawn!" surfacing as a way to represent the debuting songs with TOFM being underneath them)
and lastly, here's little fong w/o the white overlay
