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jmsnooks ā Ramayana
Published: 2009-05-02 02:30:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 5423; Favourites: 32; Downloads: 384
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My attempt to depict some of the scenes from the famous Indian epic Ramayana. There are some rather shameful blunders, and I have to say, that it's kind of sloppy compared with what I am capable of because I rushed it. Because I rushed it and because the Ramayana is so full of great scenes that need to be drawn, I will probably draw more of it.At any rate, in case anyone can't tell what's going on, from left to right, top to bottom:
Rama strings the bow of Shiva
Rama marries Sita (hot stuff)
Lakshman, Rama, and Sita go into exile in the forest
Soorpanaka comes to tempt Rama (she didn't turn out so good so I'll have to try again later since she's supposed to be really attractive).
And finally, Soorpanaka is getting ready to attack Sita. Angry eyes.
Done with colored pencil
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Comments: 53
Love the artwork 
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Why are character portrayed as white? I mean to be no racist, but don't most Indians have dark skin?
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They do today, but not all of them did back then, and in any case this is how they portray these characters over there.
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Is there any reason for this? Is it because person with a white skin more purer?
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It's because the people who brought early Hinduism to that part of the world were white, so in the case of their early folk heroes the depictions of them are probably fairly accurate. They are called Indo-Aryans, and the language they spoke (Sanskrit), was related to Greek and Latin. You can still see people who look that way in India today: www.youtube.com/watch?v=URqN0Iā¦ It's still in their gene pool, and resurfaces from time to time. I saw a few individuals when I was over there who were physically indistinguishable from regular white people.
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Thanks. This explains a lot
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i love this one a lot , you have done a great job !! Sita looks beautiful and the colors are very vibrant , background very similar to the North-Indian climate.
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Glad you like it. I was pretty pleased with how Sita and Lakshman turned out, but I wasn't too sanguine about Ram and Soorpanaka. I'll probably try again later. I know, so many plans and ideas, but you know things are about to change for me, and then my level of productivity will go way up.
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I thought they were very light at first too but then I realized the further north you go, the lighter people get in India. They get really dark towards the south.
The colors and montaging of the scenes are beautiful! I miss my colour pencils now . . .
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Yep, and they get recruited for Bollywood. Usually their culture heroes are depicted this way, really white, and sometimes blue. They make way too big a deal out of color over there, in my opinion. I tend to think that Ram was a real person who did a lot to accelerate the Aryan conquest, and over time became a major culture hero and was eventually deified. I have a theory... I have also read Beowulf, and noted that Rama and Beowulf seem to have very similar physical attributes; super human strength & near impenetrable skin. My theory is that perhaps they did really have those attributes in real life, and that they may have been some of the angel/human hybrids that occurred in the days after the flood.
Thanks, although there are quite a few things I'm unhappy with on this one. I'm going to draw all these characters again later in a different way.
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Yes, I believe the term is colourism. It occurs within some black communities too.
You really think there were Nephelim (angel/humans) after the Flood? I recently found the Book of Enoch online and I am interested in reading it since the Book of Jude in the NT quotes from it. It supposedly talks a bit more in detail about the human/angel relations that occurred pre-Flood.
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I did not know there was a term for that. I just remember some of them telling me that the caste system is like their own kind of racism. I also once tried having a long distance relationship with someone from over there (gave up for a variety of reasons) and one of the things she told me was that she might feel somewhat embarrassed being next to me in person because I was so much lighter than she is. I told her that all the white women in the US are giving themselves skin cancer so that they could look like her. I suppose the grass is always greener... I have observed some of that in black communities, back when I used to work in an area that was predominantly black. The children can be especially nasty to each other over that. One time I had these 2 kids arguing about who was lighter and they asked me to settle the argument. I told them I couldn't tell, which was true enough because they really were the same tone. If they had not been I probably would have told them that it's irrelevant and that I don't want to be brought into the argument.
Well remember it says: "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."--Genesis 6:4. What I get from that is that "those days" refers to the period before the flood and "after days" refers to the period after the flood. And I tend to think that the giants (Anakim) that the Israelites had to fight were Nephelim. If it happened there then it could have happened elsewhere, I mean, there is no reason to assume that it should be localized. So probably guys like Beowulf, Rama, Achilles, Gilgamesh, etc. were Nephelim. Normal human beings would have been impressed by such characters, and they would have become objects for story and song. Mighty men of renown. And if you think about it, the Indians think that Rama is an incarnation of one of their gods. The king Dashrat (spelling?) was having difficulty producing heirs so he engaged in some arcane ritual. After the ritual he was able to begin producing heirs, but the firstborn Rama was supposedly a product of the gods rather than his loins. And I think there was something unusual about the parentage of Beowulf too, but I need to read it again before I talk about what it was. Can you link me to the book of Enoch? I had a friend that read it in college and Kent Hovind also mentioned it so it's probably something I should read.
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Book of Enoch online [link]
Jeez, they remind of Uruk Hai.
I wonder if that is where they get Hercules too. I can see how what you described makes sense. For nephelim, I wonder just what percentage of them is man. Do they still have human souls or just a new, freakishly large body with a demon inside? Probably won't find out on this side of heaven.
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Awesome. Although it's still uncertain whether the book of Enoch is legit.
Well, I think they would be better looking and more intelligent than that.
Probably so, and Hercules birth is also attributed to a god impregnating her mother, so it could very well be a distorted version of what really happened. It would make sense that pagan people would see angels or demons as gods. I have heard some really convoluted explanations that people came up with in order to dodge answering that question. Some people think that it involved the mixing of the descendants of Seth with Kain (which makes no sense whatsoever), and others think that the Demons used genetic engineering or possessed human men in order to impregnate them. All of those theories can only be arrived at through an eisegesis approach to scripture. Obviously they married with the human women because that is what the Bible says, and, they produced large, powerful, and unusual offspring. The implication is that Angels also have some sort of material essence, which makes sense because they are not all powerful or endowed with the power to create (like God) and yet they are able to affect objects in the material world. So what I would say is that the children would have at most half of their genetic material be human. As to the spirits, you need to keep in mind that only God can create a soul, demons cannot. I doubt that God would give them a soul that could not be redeemed, and it is not as though they could help being born or what they were born as. Also, not all of those mythological characters were jerks. Beowulf was a pretty nice guy, and didn't really seem to have any ego problems. I need to draw Beowulf...
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The more I think about it, the human/human interpretation doesn't make much sense as you say.
Why would human/human relations suddenly produce these large people? In light of that, I subscribe to the angel/human relations. So you think the Nephilim were pretty much redeemable human souls, just physically altered due to the species of their fathers?
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Right.
Exactly. Yes, I see no reason why they should not have been. God is the one who makes the soul, and I don't see why he would make a Soul that had no choice but to go to hell. Although I imagine that a lot of them were full of themselves, especially if they had humans worshiping them.
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"I imagine that a lot of them were full of themselves, especially if they had humans worshiping them."
I can totally see that happening.
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Yea, Hercules certainly was, and so was Achilles.
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This might be just me, but, aren't they a little too... white?
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Nope, that's the way the Indian upper classes are, because remember, they were descended from Iranian nomads. And Rama is almost always portrayed as either pasty white or light blue traditionally.
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History isn't my strong point.
A'ight.
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Ah OK, well if you watch a Bollywood movie you can also see people like that.
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I know, cleaner than Hollywood but also much cheezier (spelling?).
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I still find many of them entertaining though. Couple actually managed to make me cry.
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Hm.. I have only seen about 4 or 5, and I only thought 2 were any good. Of those, one was just a rip off of an American movie. I do like the music though, and the dance scenes can be pretty cool sometimes.
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But only if you have a LOT of freetime on your hands.
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I don't go to parties, don't go out during dark and spend most of my time on the computer. Yeah, I have free time.
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Yes, but there's one detail that seperates us. You're not a violent, buttoned up anti-social future maniac.
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Nice color work. The scenery looks really good.
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Thanks, it was fun, but if I had taken my time with it then it could have been even better.
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I really like the way you framed the different aspects of the picture, that was the kind of stuff I was trying to suggest to you earlier (though not very well). But there's a good flow and fit to the different elements which is more natural looking than in your older work. Nice job.
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Thanks, actually I have been trying to integrate your suggestion for a while. The last time I tried was with the Klingons Blood Will Tell. It was a good idea.
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Well, you really outdid yourself on this piece. The way the colors run together making the figures the focus of the frame was an excellent choice.
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One thing I have discovered is that ancient epics lend themselves to this sort of illustration because they are already full of dynamic scenes and events.
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Also thinking about doing one of these for the Martian Tales Trilogy.
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And there will be more now.
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Whoa, it all looks really nice. I like the shading on the clothes and the trees/foilage a lot.
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