the all-seeing - design concept // september MOTM // sfw (Patreon)

my first ideas for this design were rather arcane and mystic. "the all-seeing" could easily describe a diviner or oracle who reads tarot, throws the bones, and deciphers the stars. it could also evoke an eldritch concept (like an eerie entity covered in eyes) or some kind of sentinel (ever watchful).

but what might a more modern and unusual take on such a prompt look like? i love drawing inspiration from nature and history, so many of my designs incorporate plant elements, natural colour schemes, folklore, and myth. every now and then, though, i feel like drawing more urban and in-vogue monsters. what if this "all-seeing" character embodied a more contemporary aesthetic, rather than ancient legend?

and so i started thinking about cameras, mirrors, and social media. then i doodled the silhouette of a classic demon twink. in fact, his horns evoke the old superstition that cameras can steal your soul by taking your picture — quite a devilish trick, no? cameras record life almost as we see it, but can distort it too. photos and video only record snapshots of a much larger world, and never reveal the full picture. but what if a camera could remember everything it's "seen"? 

i thought of polaroids from the 70s, camcorders from the 80s, disposable cameras from the 90s, and the rise of digital photography in the early 2000s. commercial cameras became more widely available in the 80s and 90s, so i decided to go with a retro aesthetic that mainly draws on those decades. also, the cute 90s pastels clash so beautifully with the sinister undertones of an all-seeing demon who is always watching and always wanting to be seen. 

his clothes are a mishmash of retro fashion, from the sporty short shorts and 90s patterns to the roller skates and chunky accessories. but other elements directly reference photography, like the hair bow and thigh garter made of negative film, the polaroids sticking to his legs, and the small blue film canisters that decorate his tail.

un-blinking eyes are present in the psychadelic halo and some clothing details, but his face is a blank mirror. he sees all but you can’t see him, just like mirrors “see” everything they reflect and reveal nothing else (and they are also used inside cameras!). however, his face is mostly covered on both the painting and sketch. this is a reference to “the son of man” by rene magritte. according to wikipedia, magritte has said the following about this work: “at least it hides the face partly well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. it’s something that happens constantly. everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. there is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. this interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.” similar thoughts were at the back of my mind while working on this design.

my painting also features cameras, a cracked mirror, old TVs, tapes, milkshakes, and various types of photographs, all mixing into a retro pastel flurry. kubi said that this character looks like a personification of instagram, and what is social media if not an opportunity to curate and present the picture-perfect image of ourselves…?

finally, a fun fact — most of the “photos” in the painting are from previous pieces of art i’ve made! OvO

// art + character © me.