I love your art so much! And I love your design for AM. I want to know more about your thought process was behind some of your design choices? Especially the ID they look so cool!
Stinking about AM's designs.
I want to talk about his abstract form, because physically, AM is... well... a megastructure. And the screen he uses to interact with humans, I think, doesn't deserve so much attention right now.
So. I depicted AM as some kind of ghost or shadow (Harlan Ellison's shadow, since he voiced him... Yes). His colors were inspired by the Pillar of Hatred. I wanted the design to be simple but memorable. He may resemble a human in silhouette, but he's not human. He's a sentient program, a machine. And therein lies his tragedy. Also, instead of a mouth, AM has circuit board patterns, which is a reference to the story's title and cover art (and I believe the title refers not only to Ted at the end, but also to AM, because he clearly wants to "scream out" his pain, but can't, just like Ted in the end). In general, circuit board patterns that cover certain organs are an important part of program designs (you'll see this when I draw other AMs). I want to show with this detail that no matter how omnipotent AM (and others) is, he does not have the banal things that most people have. And he also has heterochromia, because... the cover.
And AM, and other programs, is similar to... programs from the Tron universe. Honestly, it's a coincidence.
As we already know, AM has three personalities: ID, EGO, and SUPEREGO. In the game, they are depicted as floating heads that look completely different from each other and seem unrelated to AM. So, I wanted to make them more... related. When his mood changes significantly, when one personality is strongly dominant, AM's appearance changes.
And I also ran into a problem: the mouth is a very important part of conveying a character's emotions. And AM is a very expressive and emotional character. So, I came up with a solution: the patterns on the circuit boards change to depict AM's emotions and imitate the movements of a human mouth.
ID is the most emotionless part of AM. It's literally the part of him that's a machine, the original code. It doesn't hate people, but it was created for only one thing - to maim and kill. That's why its hands are red, as if covered in blood. War, what it was created for, is an incredibly cruel and human thing. That's why ID's body looks human, but its head is bestial, which symbolizes its primordial nature. And its terrible appearance is just an indicator of how terrible what it was created for is. I wanted to make it even more terrifying to show this. Its face is orange because... it's orange in the game. ID is the only part of AM that has a mouth. I imagine that when AM woke up, this part of him tore its face apart to transfer all "its fire from the throat" to the entire world, causing an apocalypse. However, ID's mouth is not completely open, as the patterns of the circuit boards are still trying to close his mouth. (it/its pronouns for ID ehehe)
Ego is the most emotional part of AM. He appears most often when AM is angry. Ego is all of AM's anger and pain. He seems to be constantly crying blood, and his neck looks bloodied. Initially, I wanted to make the design closer to Christian icons that cry blood (a plus for AM's divine essence), but I abandoned this idea because it looked strange.
Superego is the most rational part of AM, the one that handles calculations. He's blue because he's the calmest (yes, colors matter in program designs, as they reflect their mental state. AM's is bad, which is why he's so red). He also has an "AM" sign on his chest...yes. He doesn't have any outline of a mouth, as he's not particularly emotional. However, the Superego's eyes are the same as ID's, as they are AM's very first subpersonalities.
If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I'm glad people like my AM's design, and especially my rambling about it.
prguitarman
vaporwave
yousharknotpass
origamiaround
theartofmadeline
areudirty
gummygunk
