Art · In Progress · Sketches

Throwback Thursday: Beetles and Lilies

Hello Dear Readers,

For this week’s entry I thought I’d post a few pages from one of my sketchbooks. It’s actually been sitting in my drafts for quite awhile now. I was working on the next part of Let’s Go! Mage Punk and the Final Flame when I came across the need to do some studies of, get this, beetles and lilies!

Check it out~

Some lilies and lilies of the valley flowers with Jake donning a nephilim death mask.
A few stag beetles (including a Beetleborg and Heracross!). Guest starring Chloe and a friend on the opposite page.
A few lilies and a lone beetle.
Some lettering practice and a lil chibi Chandra with some lilies on one page.
Chandra Moon and Bobby Beetle greet each other in this chapter of Mage Punk and the Final Flame. Beetles and lilies abound.

A quick Google search tells me that in the language of flowers, lilies are often interpreted as being symbolic of purity and devotion. For this page, I was going for an effect reminiscent of the symbolism you see in a lot of yuri manga. Unfortunately, since drawing these I’ve learned that lilies (and tulips and other flowers in that family) are POISONOUS to cats! Sheesh! Chandra there being a cat person herself kind of changes the meaning of these flowers to something a lot less positive.

This goes to show how important the context of symbol’s use is. Whenever I revisit this comic, I’ll most likely go back and replace this flora with something more appropriate (and significantly less lethal); but for now I’ll leave this here as a lesson in being thorough with your research, lest you poison the symbolism of your work.

Thank you for reading,

~Tables

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