Less room you give me the more space I got!

the scene™

[Do you believe in God?] Let's not get into that. I hear enough of that kinda talk on Eden.

behind of sm-13 manual

I was exporting variations on my propaganda poster and wanted to see what a black and white version would look like. So I went ahead and made one, and I thought it was pretty neat. I decided to make ones of the other two Simon images I have.

And THEN I remembered that I saw a social media post from the head of the makeup department on Iron Lung, Anna Fugate. The makeup team had these Markiplier face charts that they used to design the makeup for the film. They ended up letting the whole crew have access to them and people could "Make Their Mark" by coloring in the sheet. They hung them all up on a wall of the makeup department. It's such a cute, fun, creative thing they did on set, and it's so awesome that she shared the story and even some of the creative work the team made.

With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to make blank versions of these sketches available to anybody who wanted to make their own versions of my weird drawings! If you end up coloring one, I would love to see it! Would anybody like to make an Iron Lung coloring book? Is that even a thing?

In a related note, seeing these three side by side like this has been odd. I have never had a consistent style and it has never been more obvious to me. I was talking to a young man I know the other day about this, and he said that he thought he would be able to identify my art without trouble. I told him he was just being nice, and now I am REALLY sure that he was just being nice.

The three drawings are named:

The Hanged Man

Unseen, Unheard, Uncontrolled

My (current!) favorite thing about Simon is that, this is a man who was timid about ramming the SM-13 into the skeleton to take a sample. He had to ask several times about what speed he was meant to use to get the job done, and balks at the idea that it was "full speed." His cute little, "I rammed it," got a sincere laugh out of me, and my whole theater, the first time I saw the film (I knew the joke was coming in subsequent viewings so I didn't laugh out loud, but I still find it a funny line delivered well).

All of this paints a picture of someone who would rather not take a risk like this. He's not out there trying to move fast and break things. He's not trying to put his life on the line because of bad information or lack of planning. He's cautious.

Cut to the end of the film, and he is so pissed off that he full speed slams--and without any hesitation--the salvage hook directly into the Blood Eel. There is absolute rage in that man when he shouts, "You wanna eat me? Come and try!" He made a split second decision to do as much damage as possible, and then get the hell out of there.

Simon switches on under pressure, makes decisions that aren't always pretty, but that are necessary in the moment. When he's pushed, he gets shit done. It's not who he wants to be, but it's who he has had to be because of the cruel and incomprehensible world he lives in. All of humanity can be wiped out in an instant. The last tree anywhere can die and take hope with it. You can become a prisoner because of one bad day.