Yeeeeesh, I am going to do something with climate change. Which involves more research. Last one with no sketches, promise!

Climate change is an extremely complex topic, as there are so many factors related to each other, and we still do not know exactly how it all comes together.

An illustration of the complexity:

It is generally known that greenhouse gases as methane and carbon dioxide are responsible for a rise in temperature across earth. This basically results in the ice in Artica and Antartica to melt. On one hand does this mean there is less white snow and ice to reflect the sun’s light, which will only result in even higher temperatures, like a snowball effect. On the other hand, increase of melting water in the sea dilutes the salt percentage around the poles. This influences the course of ocean current such as the Gulf Stream (which is responsible for Norway having ice-free ports during winter, up to Murmansk in Russia) When the Gulf stream will change it’s course or stop completely (it has in the past), Western Europe might get a much colder climate instead (I mean, we’re on the same latitude as Canada) (1). And then there are other factors I haven’t mentioned yet, such as the jet stream air currents (yes) and the fact that current climate models aren’t able to calculate the effect of clouds yet (2).

The most ‘likely’ scenarios of climate change leave us with these consequences (3):

• sealevel will rise (more floods)
• droughts and wildfires will become more common in most warm places
• other areas will get more rainfall (including Northern Europe)
• more extreme weather overall

More water, more droughts, more extreme weather. Do you think what I think?

And similarities rise even more when you know that the lines on these guys are inspired by the Nazca lines (mythology)!

(this is actually not how the story works, Rayquaza stops Groudon and Kyogre fighting each other and represents clear skies rather than extreme weather (it’s Ability nullifies weather effects after all). Groudon and Kyogre created land and sea on the earth, respectively, although they are capable of creating droughts as well as floods. They are not associated with climate change, but I couldn’t help but make the connection! Know what’s out there already, so to say!)

Floods as well as heat or fires appear in several doomsday myths, so it’s only natural to create a creature representing floods and/or rainfall and a creature representing droughts and/or heat. Originally I also wanted to design a extreme weather creature too but I think that’s too much in the given time. I rather present two well-made creatures than three a-OK for the sake of having three.

Now let’s start designing! My wrist is already feeling much better, so I should be able to throw out some sketches this week.

Sources.

(1) Rahmstorf, Stefan et al. (2005), Exceptional twentieth-century slowdown in Atlantic Ocean over turning circulation, online published in Nature.

(2) Stocker et al., Chapter 7: Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks, Section 7.2.2: Cloud Processes and Feedbacks, in IPCC TAR WG1 2001.

(3) Global Warming Effects Map, National Geographic

Sorry, no sketches in this post. I just post it here to be sure I have posted them all on tumblr…

As mentioned before, the Norse Germanic tribes had also their view on how the world would end, named Ragnarök (loosely meaning ‘destiny of the ruling powers’ or ‘decline of the gods’).

For the sake of this research, I wrote a very brief summary, as I’m only interested in the large course of events:

• The first sign is fimbulwinter: three winters without summer, the sun provides no warmth in this period
• When Ragnarök starts, the sun and moon will be devoured by the wolves Sköll and Hati respectively, the stars fade and the Earth will be covered in darkness. The ground will shudder and mountains will crumble, freeing the wolf Fenrir from his chains.
• Jörmungandr, described as a sea serpent or dragon, will breach land as the sea violently swells onto it.
• the Gods fight Jörmungandr, Fenrir and each other to death and the earth is engulfed in flames.
• the Earth sinks into the sea and will resurface as a new world, with a new man and woman to inhabit it. (1)

The Maya have been associated a lot with a Apocalypse myth, as in 2012 rumours appeared that their calender would end and therefore the world with it. Though, these rumours have been largely been ungrounded. The Maya calender is based on baktuns, periods of 144,000 days. Around the 23th of December of 2012, the calendar shifted from the 12th baktun into the 13th baktun. There has been no evidence that this change of age would had apocalyptic effects. (2)

The Aztecs are also not known to have a true Doomsday myth. This is because the Aztec gods are not separated by being ‘good’ and ‘evil’, these concepts didn’t exist in Aztec myth. (3) The closest thing is the story of female skeleton demons called Tzitzimitl descending to earth during a solar eclipse to eat us poor humans.

According to Hindu, the world will end when the tenth avatar of Vishnu and Shiva will appear on earth, Kalki. He will appear on a white horse and with a blazing sword (does this sound familiar?).

Within a large system of ages and years, we live in Kali Yuga, the last of four ages that make up the current kalpa. Kali Yuga lasts for 432,000 years and is characterized by decay, deceit and violence. People will live in sin, following false religions and plagues, famines and natural calamities will appear. (4)

Sources

(1) Bellows, Henry Adams (2004). The Poetic Edda: The Mythological Poems. Dover Publications.

(2) Lopez, Luis Carlos (2012). Mayan Calendar And The End-Of-The-World Explained. Huffington Post.

(3) Brundage, Burr Cartwright (1979). The Fifth Sun: Aztec Gods, Aztec World. Texas University Press.

(4) The Vishnu Purana

This quarter at art school we can theoretically do whatever we want. Theoretically, because we still need to have some sort of concept and idea of what it has to represent of course. I’m immersing myself in the world of creature design, but I don’t have a ‘concept’ yet. -.- I just want to design creatures.

Anyway, as we need to post weekly blogposts on our school site about our research, I thought I could post them here as well. Seemed nice to share some progress of creatures and monsters, not? I started researching where all these creatures actually come from (or at least the most well known, the dragon).

Dragons appear in a lot of different myths all over the world. That is, these are all different beasts that we call a ‘dragon’, but when you delve deeper it appears that these creatures actually looked very different. There seems to be one thing they all have in common, though: they all have at least one snake-like feature.

This does make sense: venomous snakes live all across the world and were a pretty serious threat for people living in ancient times or the Middle Ages. Also think of Satan’s appearance of a snake in the Bible. Snakes are commonly associated with evil (at least in the western world).

One theory claims that our ancestors might have found dinosaur fossils and thought of the creature where those bones belong to. This is a rather tricky theory though, as there haven’t been found a lot dinosaur fossils around the Mediterranean Sea. Even more interesting, ancient bones were more attributed of heroes of the past rather than giant animals.

An other explanation says mystical creatures might came to existence through miscommunication and a different cultural reference. The myth of the unicorn could be very well a rinoceros described to a person who hasn’t seen any other large four-legged animals than horses and cattle.