My Sinister Six and why narrative can help your art

Hey folks so here is my interpretation of some classic Spider-Man villains in my own sort of “Sinister Six” as it were. This was a really fun project to sort of get me back into drawing after a pretty rough bout of burnout I’ve dealt with over the past month or so. Anyways I thought I would take first, a little more time to talk about my thoughts on creating micro-narratives for your character art and why I think that’s a good practice to get into if you aren’t already.

So what do I mean when I say narrative or micro-narrative? Basically context. When you’re creating a character that is art first whether that be with intention to spin out into a bigger project or not it can be difficult to press on once you hit that first hurdle of the design process. I think this is so, because up to this point this art is like a rudderless ship right, just adrift in this ocean of sketching and just doing. There is no attachment really because there is no character yet. That’s not to say some things can’t be inferred about a character strictly on the art itself but as an illustrator I think it can be hard to hang on to a drawing if there’s no resonance. If something is done just to do and sort of go through the motions you can find yourself unenthused about it, or at least I can get like that. So what can you do to help prevent that? Well make some story up for this art, it doesn’t really matter how simple, surface level or silly it is either! The depth of this narrative isn’t as important as it existing alongside the art. That helps create a creative hook of sorts that can help you get through something and have a little more fun with it. And on top of that, at the end of it all you could have an awesome looking character that you can also have a cool story for. Heck that could even spin out into a comic or something, who knows!

This doesn’t only apply to your own original characters either. You can take these same ideas and notions into your fan art as well, like I did with these villains. So let’s get into the real stuff, the art haha and I’ll show you hopefully in practice how this works for me.

Starting with the first of all of these I did, Venom. Admittedly Venom is a character I really don’t care about at all. Outside of being able to just push and pull shapes to create his form I have no real interest so for me, this quickly becomes a slog after I figure out the shape of it so in order to sort of keep me engaged I attached a little narrative hook to it which would then expand out into the sort of “world logic” I’d explore the other characters with. So as we continue, please forgive my bad writing but hopefully it’s a little neat.

Venom - A man driven mad and out of control, more host than human at this point. The symbiotic was discovered during an arctic expedition into the source of a mysterious energy signal after a comet had crashed down near a remote outpost. Edward Brock was a military man who had no real purpose. He was a bit off as they’d say and bounced around from station to station until he was sent here. Set off alone in isolation as not to be a hindrance on anyone else. The comet was to be found, a sample grabbed and sent off to folks who knew better. He collected his samples, three for the lab back home and one, small vial he’d keep for himself, just as a fun little keepsake. Why not? Eventually the vial would go missing, the substance “escaped” and Brock taken over by what turned out to be a sentient sort of goop that just needed a physical host to latch onto. Now Venom is it’s name and it’s only real purpose survival.

So from this you can see how I just sort of dove in to the notion of trying to make Venom a little more interesting to myself while not deviating a ton from the actual ideas of the symbiote. Other characters stray a bit further but we’ll see those as we go. So that’s about it in terms of the “lessons” as to why I do this. From this point on it’s just gonna be the art and some ramblings. So if you’re curious about those ideas I had feel free to read and see the doodles, if not, well I hope this was insightful/helpful to you.

Mysterio - Not much is known about Mysterio. They appeared seemingly out of nowhere and have since claimed they only want to find a way back to the “great pyramid” from whence they came. Inter dimensional traveler or escapee suffering a severe psychotic break? No one knows for sure, but Mysterio does employ a great deal of power spinning illusions and traps that are quite formidable. Not knowing what is truth and what is a lie can prove deadly when dealing with this master of manipulation.

Doc Ock - Dr. Otto Octavius was a little known archaeologist and marine biologist who found himself on the brink of what he thought was a breakthrough discovery as he plunged deep into the waters to poke around an as of yet undiscovered set of ruins seemingly lost to time. Unfortunately what he found was a set of apparent relics and effigies to a deity of sorts. A figure of massive size and scope, covered in tentacles. At the foot of what appeared to be a central monument the creature could be seen towering over everything around it and gripping what appeared to be the world itself in it’s sharp, spindly, tendril like fingers. Almost as soon as he comes to comprehend what his eyes are seeing he feels something cold wrap around his neck followed by something engulfing his head and more. He loses his senses and is now a puppet for something he does not know. A man lost in his own body. Living atrocities carried out by a vessel for a malevolent entity. He is seemingly both asleep and awake.

Kraven the hunter - Kraven is the last of his bloodline. One that stretched back to Viking royalty. As his family and heritage died off he never did. He has fought for hundreds of years, sustained injuries that seemed fatal and yet his heart still beats. He now hunts as a means to bring his line back to it’s former greatness. And he has found no greater prey than Spider-Man.

Electro - Electro was first discovered inside the wreck of a coastal sanitarium. Seemingly experimented on in some form or fashion. All we know now is that he’s unhinged, has incredible power and doesn’t bat an eye at using that power to take lives.

Carnage - Carnage came about when doctors decided to try and splice the symbiote extract found from that comet in the arctic with harvested mutant DNA and inject it into human test subjects. All but one died, though not from the tests themselves. They were all killed by Carnage, Cletus Kasady in fact. Kasady was a convicted serial killer who had been serving the first of several life sentences when he was rounded up with a group of 12 other inmates and shipped off to an experimental facility. Not much is known after that as the whole place became home to the most gruesome mass killing in American history. Carnage as it is now known hates Venom. The altered symbiote thinking itself superior to the untested Venom.

Alright so that’s it. This was as I said a fun little project that I’d love to do more of at some point. I really liked merging superhero stuff with even just a hint of horror/weird stuff. Thank you all for the support!

 - Teeg