OILLIPHÉIST.

This was concept art made for a script I wrote for my college course.

It was a short story, surrounding the mythological sea serpent known as The Oilliphéist.

I find that Irish mythology is often very whitewashed.

Whether it be from wanting to play it safe with accurate depictions, despite the crazy gaps in knowledge that come from this mythology nearly being lost to time, primarily due to oral preservation within an eventually policed language.

Followed then by the alterations that came from Christianized textual preservation which are the biggest, though tainted reference points seen today.

Or even taking too much influence from western fantasy when you do want to make changes, when western fantasy has already been fairly inspired by Irish mythology, leading to this strange uroboros of inspiration that continuously chews itself up into bland mush.

I was frustrated at the simultaneous praise and ill treatment of this mythology as a point of inspiration.

So what could I do with my creature of choice? Feeling inspired by how the harder than the usual entry, sci-fi tone of Shin-Godzilla, would mix with this sort of strangely biblical sense of catastrophe.

I would dwell… dwell on why the tone of this film felt so strikingly real to me. Commentative references to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami and then Fukushima nuclear meltdown aside.

I had realized Shin-Godzilla’s tone to me (as well as its cast) is like that of seeing an EF5 tornado.

You just can’t process it fully.

Regardless of all the data.

Big, sometimes so big you can’t even tell how truly close it is, in rare cases looking like how the horizon touches the ground at a distance.

One of the only warning signs it’s close, being debris.

At a glance they’re slow in this broad, hulking sense, yet they outpace panicking cars.

Translucent enough to see a ghostly composition of spinning, just constant spinning.

Stacked wheels of windy death tearing up anything in its path like a bulldozer from the heavens.

Although you know that there’s a rational explanation for it.

Deep down, even if it’s just for a moment, you’d believe in God from simply seeing what you are seeing.

Superstition brought on from the fact that something so impossible is possible at all.

I was infatuated with this feeling.

So very hard I would think about how to capture it.

It starts with finding references of Irish fauna as well as animals outside of Ireland to combine and serve as a believable enough base for the fantastical creature.

The Viviparous Lizard would act as the base for its head, while its eyes would be referenced off of the somewhat intimidating stare of an Irish wolfhound.

Reaching outside of our native animals, I would use the Atheris Hispida (a viper native to the countries of central Africa) as a loose reference for its scales and body.

Once this scaled up and unearthly combination of earthly animals was made.

I then focused on what details could be used to strike more superstitious chords.

The jagged shapes of its teeth were referenced off of a mix of bronze and iron age Irish spears.

Giving a suggestion of influence from the creature’s tooth shape to ancient Irish people’s development of weaponry.

Creating a fictionalized historical note.

While not depicted in the art itself, the short story describes a detail about the monster that can be seen when too close for comfort.

The narration describes:

“near alien patterns formed by its scales that only give a sense of familiarity due to their vague resemblance to ancient Celtic symbols.”

Which gives a suggestion of ancient Irish art, deriving as much from close encounters with this mythical creature as it does from Neolithic carvings and or La Téne art.

Creating another fictionalized historical note, that ties itself to symbols associated in modern day with the occult when seen outside of historical contexts.