i feel like i should preface this by saying these designs are moreso inspired by the general sadness enemies/bosses than mal du pays (kind of obvious). i love mdp its such a good encounter. atmosphere is impeccable. however i wanted my sadness designs to be goopy and weird and follow the one-word-name trend. so no inverted party members for you! like i said in tags this is like character analysis in the form of creature design

ok on to specifics

ENVIE (siffrin) you may be thinking 'damn you named it envy? thats a bit harsh' and Yeah its a cognate but i chose it for other meanings!! such as: longing, yearning, craving, desire, wish, and hangnail design wise i heavily referenced the nostalgie sadness in the game for its relation to wish craft, hence all the sharp straight edges. however that also means no hair sorry sif (though the darker outline around the brim of the hat is meant to seem a bit like his dyed ends). its claw shape is based on the shape of siffrins dagger. the closed eye is that of a tragedy theatre mask (matching epuisements comedy), and its tears are black because i noticed all the boss sadnesses had black tears and thought it was fitting to include for sifs (and loops) sadness. powerful and all that. also just a good contrast cause its almost all white. its pose is supposed to be somewhat dramatic, and it nearly forms a circle. one hand is against its neck because well you know how it is with daggers

ÉCHEC (mirabelle) name wise i likely wouldve chosen anxiety, but that was already taken so i chose failure instead! based on how worried mira can get about failing this design probably fought me the most of any of them... it bears the most resemblance to that of the tristesse sadnesses which i think is appropriate. i also snuck some of anxietes spikes onto its back. its eyes are pretty unsettling and contrast miras lovely dark ones pretty well! rings for the change belief of course. the bow made of tears was something i came up with randomly and i didnt hate it so i kept it... theres probably some symbolism to it that i cant put into words right now. its hands are in different signs to represent miras cool dual typing of course (scissors on top cause that represents her resistances/weaknesses), and are in front of where her mouth would be to mirror that portrait of her with her hands over her mouth in shock

COUARDISE (isabeau) name choice is pretty obvious... cowardice is a big part of isabeaus story! huge fists come together to block its face as a way to visually represent how isabeau hides himself behind this big strong personality. if i were to draw a hurt sprite of it, i would probably make just one terrified eye visible. a kneeling pose just feels appropriate. making it look like the king wasnt intentional but theres something there! honestly most of this design speaks for itself i feel

ALIÉNATION (odile) lack of belonging you know how it is. i think the fact that the word is nearly the same in both english and french fits quite well too; it stands out from the other french words itd be weird to draw it not standing odile is such a stander. it needs a very dignified and neat pose. the chunks missing reference how odile feels like some parts of her are missing. its hands are positioned as if to hold a book, but are distinctly empty. its supposed to be ambiguous to whether its a closed eye or glasses frames; either way, a pupil is not visible to suggest a lack of perception

INUTILITÉ (bonnie) name translates to 'uselessness'! i know bonnie tries to be useful so badly. 'helplessness' is also a good one but uselessness translated better this design is pretty simple and small but i think it works very well. bonnie tries very hard to be big and brave and loud and helpful, and hates being helpless. this sadness looks like a small, scared child. the hat is meant to look like a sort of shell in this case, something to hide under. having the left eye hidden wasnt an originally intended detail but it works nonetheless

ÉPUISEMENT (loop) exhaustion! i dont think i need to say more similarly to envie, this design is very sharp and pointed. the tears are black for the same reason envies are, and one eye is the eye of a comedy theatre mask to correspond with envies tragedy. its open eye's shaky pupil has a vague star shape in it. its arms twist into an infinity sign, hands in scissors signs meeting over the eye to form a diamond-or star-shape (i dont think loop technically has a craft type when you fight them but they have slicey attacks and make the scissors sign in their just attack portrait so their sadness is scissors now). the negative space between its crossed legs make a similar shape. some of the stars bleed because im sure you know why. the pose is exaggerated and nearly manic to contrast with envies calm somberness. i nearly made its bottom half like tree roots but decided against it. anyways isnt it so cool that loops sadness looks remarkably like normal loop? isnt it so cool guys? im sure loop can be very healthy about this

bonus: the pattern i DID make the bg pattern myself by hand. it took me way longer than it needed to. but i wanted to include all the partys Signature Shapes so we have circles (within circles), squares, rhombuses, and four-pointed stars! shoutout to the clever one for helping me get a baseline idea