I don't draw often. I really don't. There's very little that motivates me to take pencil to paper. Even fewer motivate me to turn on a tablet. Still, somehow late at night on the 27th of November in the year 2017, I sat beside my wife who was working on this masterpiece following our viewing of the Teen Titans Vs. Justice League, and I couldn't help but join her.

This guy is a reimagining of a character that I used to draw on church bulletins as a small child back when I was a Christian. I want to say he first appeared in my art at age 6, and he really wasn't anything more than a mouth, some eyes, the head-dress, and some horns. Not terribly original.

I like to imagine that the whole of his being is contained within the gem in the head-dress, and that if the gem were placed on any corpse, it would obtain this form. I also like to imagine that all four of the eyes move independently, allowing for the four beings which make up his existence to each examine the area from within. The nature of the gem allows for them to be extremely coordinated in executing magic or direct physical combat with the mutated husk they inhabit, so the fact that there are four beings is extremely rarely exploitable.

I might classify him as a lich of sorts. That'd make the gem his phylactery, but that's not entirely accurate. It can be imagined that he's the fore-runner for Shenzao chronologically from the perspective of ideological progression. However, Shenzao was not ever this creature in concept despite at one of his early stages being similar.

I thought I might share him regardless.

For the curious, the Japanese lines are すくなくないよ！ and ひるま, and their meanings are "There's enough, you know!" and "afternoon" respectively. I recognize that ひるま can be written as 「昼間」which is more accurately "daytime." However, I was working with Duolingo, so I wasn't then aware of the kanji at the time.

Art © Shenzao