NO TYRANTS, NO KINGS

I sign my art as KASTILLO • late 20s • he/him • filipino • not a historian, none of this is an academic reconstruction of anything • the experiences are nothing • the rome stuff is probably about samurai warlords and dynasty politics. or maybe it's a james bond thing. could be a cinematic setting to discuss other topics, or even some kind of framework • watch starz spartacus

I DO NOT TAKE ART REQUESTS

⛔🔞 mature/adult themes 🔞🚫

GIVE SICK. I INFREQUENTLY PERISH. OMNIA VINCIT AMOR.

⭐ MAIN TAGS: eughh under construction, rearranging everything

❌do not reupload my art❌

lucan's pharsalia, trans. jane wilson joyce &

appian civil wars 1.120, trans john carter

a million (several) years ago I said that in my ideal world, spartacus would have gotten the chance to gut crassus like a fish and read the fate of rome in his entrails. I also said something about spartacus' sacrifice at crixus' funeral games is like a foundational sacrifice/curse on rome. continuing that thought, there's something about how there's a narrative echo of crassus' fate in the fate that falls on spartacus (bodies unburied) and how crassus' death was a sort of death knell for that iteration of rome which was already something of a bloated corpse.

it's good to be back and thinking about spartacus, I took a brief detour a year and a half ago to get through an absolute brick of a book on sparta/lakonia and then picked up the broad topic of athens to pin down some thoughts on thrace, especially around how greece/rome perceived thracians and it's been. well. hm. so! speaking of thracians, pentheus!

The Allure and Repulsion of Thracians, Despoina Tsaifakis

which of course can bring us back to crassus

Dionysiac Tragedy in Plutarch, Crassus, David Braund

I had to spend some time thinking about this one because I don't really spend a lot of time thinking about my own process anymore-- I change stuff up pretty often because I'm always looking to try out new things (really into Austin Briggs TV Guide illustrations rn, would love to just. eat one)

for compositions, a lot of it is just visual communication stuff. comics, animation, posters, advertising, film. when I have the time, I like reading interviews from artists I admire to see how they go about conveying thoughts and themes, esp. since genres & art movements all have a language. I'll be in (redacted city) and stop and look at theater posters on (redacted street) and 'read' the visuals and think about what the designer was communicating with it & guess their influences. (personally, I tend to lean towards negative space heavy compositions because I like the weight of it, but everything else is in service to whatever thought I have when I start figuring out layouts.)

and anatomy is.....uhhhh. well. I like doing pen only anatomy studies while watching sports or martial arts or athletic stunts. which a lot of people don't like because if you fuck up, you've fucked up in pen, but I find it relaxing! if it sucks real bad, slap a sticky note over it and do it again! (you can see what some of my sketchbook looks like here, these are in pencil because my usual pen was not watercolor friendly)

just a short scene playing around a bit with family drama

Again, one of the sons of Crassus who was thought to resemble a certain Axius, and on this account had brought his mother's name into scandalous connection with that of Axius, once made a success­ful speech in the senate, and when Cicero was asked what he thought of him, he answered with the Greek words "Axios Krassou."

an idea of a scene that takes place after this scene and before this one, but lucullus is taking the lead in this public praise-humiliation ritual. or maybe it's his idea of being nice about it, knowing that sulla is seething.

A Year of One’s Own: Dating the Praetorship of Marcus Crassus, M. Stone

antony baiting trebonius with increasingly dubious defenses of caesar because it's funny + messalla being brutus' #1 hater

Alternative Memoirs: Tales from the ‘Other Side’ of the Civil War, Kathryn Welch

sketching! just sketching away.....anyway, he's talking about publius taking the bait