Just another nerd

So the initial image of this is loosely inspired by Milady (Haru’s persona) in P5, since Miyako gives a bit of rich young lady vibes. Hence the big dress. But to play into the death arcana and Miyako’s general dark ish design, I’ve decided to give it a gothic twist.

You may have also noticed that I took death quite literally and took her entire head off. But it’s much more than that. The flowers growing out of her neck instead are spider lilies. Spider lilies, in Japanese culture, is a very popular symbolism for “the other side” and by extension, death. The spider lilies growing out instead of the head is a symbol of how death has taken over her mind to the point of depression and suicidal thoughts.

However, while I usually don’t colour my art I want to stress that instead of the more common red spider lilies, these are supposed to be white. White version of flowers general give a more positive meaning like reconciliation and rebirth. Hence its use here. The deaths that happened to Miyako will not define her, but they are also not ntg to her. They are significant parts of her that, through overcoming them, leads to rebirth.

Although, instead of just not having a head, I’ve decided to have Airmid just softly hold it in its arm. Firstly bc that’s fucking metal. But more importantly as a symbol of how in order to overcome her disorder, she has to learn to coexist with her grief and depression, without beating herself up for it.

Now, the cradled head has both its eyes closed, chains holding teardrop shaped gems hanging from them. These are a reference to how Airmid the goddess cried for her brother and herbs grew from where her tears dropped. Those tears were valuable. They resulted in great things. So again, this is all about accepting grief and sadness, allowing them to become new strengths, instead of pushing them away.

The third eye on the cradled head is open, as this signifies Miyako’s desires to look past the depression and see reality/the future as it is. Not through a rosy lens, but also without unwarranted despair. Miyako is a very realistic person in my mind. So she’s not trying to get to a point where everything is rainbows and sunshine, she just knows her depression is skewing her thoughts and perspectives, and wishes for “a third eye” to help see through that.

I also gave the head a princessy hairstyle (a bit like Princess Leia?) and wings for ears to add to the ethereal look. I wanted Airmid to overall give a very elegant, classy feel, while also being quite dark. I think I did a pretty good job achieving that :3

Finally, as a small bit of accent, there are some black teardrop things surrounding Airmid. These are what I imagine she would attack with. In my mind Airmid doesn’t move too much when attacking. She would very elegantly point at an enemy and the black teardrops would shoot out to deal curse damage.

This was one of my favourite persona to work on so far, cuz I rly enjoyed drawing the dress hehe. I’ll be working on Stein next, but that would probs take some time cuz I just realised I’m slightly lacking in the technical skills of drawing gemstones, which I wanna incorporate quite a lot in his persona :( Will do some practice and more conceptualising other personas in the meantime.

So Saint Hildegard, the namesake of this persona is known to be very multitalented, and that’s where I got the initial idea of multiple arms doing lots of different things. Afterwards it also occurred to me that with her imposter syndrome, Sayaka probably feels like she has to juggle so many things at once just to be even a fraction of how amazing ppl around her are, and that’s what cemented the idea.

Now onto each of the things held by the arms: firstly we have the violin, to play into her musical side, and also takes inspiration from Shade’s original doodle this is based on, which involves a guitar and speaker. I wanted to make this a lot more than just about her being a musician tho, so I chose the violin which is smaller but still very distinct and somewhat dramatic.

Then there’s the book she’s holding on to. It’s mostly a reference to Saint Hildegard’s medical writing. But also school being one of the things she has to “juggle”.

After that we have the raised arm holding a sword and another holding some snowflakes, obviously signalling to the persona’s ice and physical moveset. At the same time this is about her will to fight and the “coldness” she has learned to handle from constantly drifting from one place to another.

Lastly, there’s the butterfly. This is a reference to the fun fact that Sayaka has a butterfly tattoo on her back. I see this as a part of her trying to find an identity for herself when she scarcely has a place to truly “belong”. I think it’s an important piece of her. Sth she yearns for. And it’s one of the things she’s trying to “juggle” in a sense.

Now that all that’s nice and done with, I’d like to mention the lotus she’s sitting on. Sitting cross legged on a lotus is very much Buddhist imagery. And I did contemplate whether that might be inappropriate for a persona named after a Christian figure. But in the end I went with it as I found it to be the most fitting flower imagery for Sayaka.

I think the idea came from the fact that I think Sayaka rly yearns for peace and stability. And the meditation upon a lotus is a strong symbol of inner peace. That you know who you are. That you are at peace with that. That you no longer let the hurt of the mundane world dictate ur inner self. And I think that’s fitting of Sayaka’s journey. She’s been through a lot, but she’s working hard at not letting that define her. There’s a Chinese saying that roughly translates to “a lotus untainted by the mud it grew from” - that describes ppl who remain untainted by bad environments. I think it’s sth that fits Sayaka and is probably what she wants to be.

Other than that there are also minor elements like

1. lack of face reflecting imposter syndrome, but in the absence of that there is instead a starry night sky, to signifying that she’s way greater than she gives herself credit for

2. Crown and stripy coil like clothing taken from Shade’s doodle as a nod to Hilde’s original creator

3. Headress mildly resembling nun’s veil thing to again reference her namesake, but shortened bc I feel like Sayaka is the kind of person who would find a long drapey headress annoying and impractical