Nachthunger | Verse 19 | Background (Patreon)

Since the Voting is now free for all I want to give you guys here on patreon a bit more background information about the piece and some deeper thoughts about the painting.

This painting is about the duality of two characters, the ferryman and the knight. The ferryman is a creepy creature which demands to be payed but the knight does know about the danger looming over him. He knows that he is putting his life and fate into the hand of the ferryman. Therefore the demanding hand of the ferryman and the giving pose of the knight is a symbol for that.

But the knight does nit want to pay the ferryman easily and does not want to place himself beneath the ferryman as a defenceless sheep willing to be sacrificed. He wants to be equal. Business partners. It is a deal after all. And so he is looking up but the composition is divided into two equal halfs. The knight is also showing in his pose that he is not afraid. Those elements make it clear that the knight is strong even if he is visually weaker, since he is below and the ferryman is looming over him in all his shrouded size and power. He is also demanding. Demanding to be served by the ferryman. A service for his fair pay.

For the lore background I thought the knight has some glowing floating moths flying around him. As a symbol for the Nachthunger curse. Living inside of him in the shape of the moth princess. Those moths can be transformed, can be the currency for the knight in this world.

The idea is that he has now seen the value of those moths and can use them in the future. BUT he possesses just a limited amount of them. From now on he needs to be careful how to spend them. I think it could be a cool idea to track now many he has already spent and how many he still has left. Like an inventory in a RPG game.