Steampunk Myths and Legends Entry: Britta Mertl

#1

Britta Mertl is entered in the “Steampunk Myths and Legends” update: View Challenge Page

Latest Update: Final Image: The four horsemen

#2

For this theme I asked my friends about myths and legends. Answers where often nordic myths, e.g. Valkyres, Thor, Odin. Through Odin I came to Sleipnir, his eightlegged horse. I love drawing animals and liked the idea, but the concept seemed weak to me. For years pictures of the four riders of apocalypse had been bouncing around my head, four horses, fantastic figures, threatening and final.

I began to look them up, and found out that they where not, as I thought, War, Hunger, Plague and Death, but Conquer, War, Vititation and Death. Their order of appearence and description inspired their formation.

Now still to do: Implementing lots of steam and omnious glowing!

#3

The beginning of the colored scetch

#4

continued painting…

I hope I´ll be able to finish this picture in time.

#5

… still painting. I´ve added the beginning of some details, to see how it works.

#6

…still painting. Just started to set some colour points.

#7

woah they’re even more terrifying when you start merging in creepy technological imagery. This is a great start. I’m curious to see how you make each horseman have more of a unique personality. They are all sort of blending together right now, most likely due to the fact they’re the same color scheme currently.

It will be interesting to see how this one grows:)

#8

I?ve added more colours, to define the horsemen a bit more. I wish I had more free-time to continue drawing.

#9

I?ve tried a differend angle, but i kept the old perspective, because here it?s not so good to keep all four in line and to draw more interesting details.

#10

some details… the head of Wars horse and one leg of Conquers horse.

#11

I?ve printed my picture and have drawn some details with a pencil. Now I?ve started painting this detais and defined more colours.

#12

I wasn?t really happy with the composition. It was not dramatically enough and Death had been too mutch in the backround.
While talking with my twinsister she came up with the idear to bring Death huge, but not detailed in the backround. I?ve thougth about it and the idear of a vertical fomat seemed to be good.

I have to play around with some more idears and to bring in more detais. I can?t wait to have more time than a hour a day to draw.

#13

It?s always good to have a friend who studies theology when you are painting a bible theme. Speaking with him brought out new questions and so I was inspired to do some more research. Doing so I found out why there is Conquer in one version of the story and Pestilence in the other.

When there was a War in the past, the Conquerer often brought illness when they came back home. So Conquer and Pestilence are the same here.

I?ll try to combine the two sides of this horsemen, the Pestilence and the Winner.

This is a Closeup of his face.

#14

As I?ve told in the post before, I?ve been a bit mistaken about pestilence. So I?m changing my idear of Vitiation too, because he is just Hunger, not a combination of Hunger and Pestilence.

here is a closeup of his face.

#15

The green eyes com from the first idear of vitiation, I?m shure I?ll change that. But I like the form of the horsehead.

#16

Up to now, the last closeup, the head of wars horse. I love the glowing…

#17

I began to draw hungers scale with a bit more details.

#18

More details… here is the horse of pestilence. Still unfinished. I?ll keep on painting and hope to finish the picture satisfactorily in time.

#19

The Book of Revelation

1
And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
2
And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
3
And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.
4
And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.
5
And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
6
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
7
And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

See althoug: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse

When I pondered traditional legends in the context of steampunk, I first happened upon Greek and Nordic mythology. Then however, a picture of the biblical Horsemen of the Apocalypse came to mind, which, combined with elements of steampunk, was to become the object of my work, finally.

In the course of my research I discovered many different interpretations of the horsemen. Especially the conqueror mounted on the white horse, traditionally thought to represent pestilence, was interpreted in diverse ways, depending on the source. I tried to weave in as many of these intimations as possible to get a well-rounded overall picture. In this vein, I kept the traditional colors of the horses, given as white, red and black, but made conscious choices as to the weaponry of the riders, i.e. equipping the Conqueror only with a sword and not a bow and such like.

Death occupied a special role in my mind. I didn’t like to put him in a line with the others, but I also wanted to prevent him from being relegated to the proverbial fringe, either. Thus I decided to put him in the background but to make him as large as possible, giving the impression of him leaping powerfully over the others. In order to soften the dominance that would be established by his sheer size, I decided to put him into backlight as a silhouette, thus establishing a reference to the pale horse. This way he is the one to come last chronologically, as well as being the most significant, as the Grim Reaper’s work is often thought to be the final judgment of man.

When conceptualizing the overall effect, I wanted to create the impression of the horsemen charging towards the spectator in a way that would make all the details apparent, without having the figures look piecemeal. Some elements of design reappear in several characters to create a sense of textual unity.

Being thus decided, I set to work, creating the outline of this picture using traditional pencil on paper, while completing it digitally, using the wide array of techniques available on Photoshop.

#20

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