Maria Eom Portfolio 2023 - The Rookie Awards 2023 Entry
Hello! this is my first time trying out for The Rookie Awards! Here I share some personal projects that I created. I love world building and diving into different worlds, and I hope my portfolio reflects that! Thank you for viewing!
Maria Eom Portfolio 2023 - The Rookie Awards 2023 Entry
The Glass Hunters
A group of people who use mirrors to hunt.
This idea came to me because I've broken a couple of mirrors unintentionally, and I was told there are some superstitions with breaking mirrors! Apparently, 7 years of bad luck. That made me realise that since mirrors came to be a part of human society, it was a curious thing that held some sort of mystery. Vampires or mystical creatures couldn't be seen in it, Alice in Wonderland uses it to enter a irregular world, and game franchises like Kirby had mirror realms that held a darker and different world than their own. This made me also want to create a setting where mirrors hold a level of danger and mystery.
Some concepts of what non-hunters in this society do. They collect materials such as smoking plants for the hunters to use to attract prey, cloud flowers for making armour, and glass berries which contain the mysterious key ingredient in creating the mirrors.
A mechanical machine that is wind powered to extract the juice from the glass berries.
This idea was inspired by honey extractors I stumbled on in YouTube, where basically files of honey comb rectangles are placed within a column-shaped machine and spun very fast for the honey to steadily fly off into the walls and fall to the bottom. This is the same principle except it is wind powered through the fans in the high mountain tops, and the fans are stopped through a cone cover, weighed down by two weights on the sides.
The berry juice is then extracted, and through multiple steps, created into a small mirror with its own case that comes with a protective cover, so that the glass creatures cannot enter the outside world from the mirror realm because the cover has geometric shapes that are repulsive to them. The drying of the completed mirrors are essential, since if they are not dried properly, they can crack or warp, which creates a useless mirror for hunting.
The mirrors are given to the hunters, who use them in their arrows to use like rear-view mirrors. Because they can only see the back reflection and shoot from behind, the skill of aiming is hard to master. Bigger mirrors are laid out to catch the prey when it is caught, as the mirror realm does not allow death and decay in its realm and will spit out anything that is wounded or destroyed.
Munmu of Silla
Munmu of Silla was a king of the Korean kingdom of Silla (57 BC – 935 AD). I was first interested in the Silla Kingdom when I got to see an exhibition of the Silla era's earrings, which were huge clumps of gold. Then I learned that he asked for his son to use the bamboo flute he gave his son and play it in times of trouble, when he would become a dragon to help win battles, cure illnesses, and bring rain in drought.
His ashes were scattered on Daewangam (Rock of the Great King), and which has a unique jagged look, so I added it into the tail portion of the scales.
The Chess Set
A re-imagining of the chess set as characters.
Unfortunately I've never been very good at chess. My brother would beat me every time, so chess was distant from me. However, what struct me as an artist was how timeless the modern chess sets designs are. While original chess sets from history varied vastly from country to culture, and artisan to artisan, the modern chess set that we all think of instantly are truly an icon to be admired from their simplistic yet effective design. I wanted to re-imagine them as characters as a fun exercise to see what I could come up with while still retaining their position and level of power they held in the board game.
The Traveling Healer
She travels, collects herbs, and heals those in need.
This idea came from my childhood where I would visit the traditional medicine store and see all kinds of various dried fruits, herbs, and products. It was a fond memory of mine because often, the shops would have these huge wooden shelves to store things and there is a distinct bitter smell, for every single one of those shops. I wanted to create something that would recall those times, but with a character.
Thank you for your time and patience reading and viewing my work!
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