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Oddworld: The Promised Neverland Homages (pt. 5)

Aka: my excuse to finally abuse the light pens in the name of art!!

I still can’t get over how well The Promised Neverland’s imagery lends itself to Oddworld…quite possibly because they’re pretty much the same concept, but still. I mean, fundamentally, Abe is absolutely a different character to Emma: he’s more reluctant in some respects and clearly doesn’t relish any of the danger he has to face…but he still loves his family. That moment where he hears gunshots and worriedly murmurs “The others…” is proof enough of that and it’s still as effective and powerful as Emma declaring that she never wants to lose another sibling to shipping.

That’s what I was hoping to convey most in this image—what the portal represents. Freedom, relief, safety; not necessarily for Abe, but for all the Mudokons we’ve helped him ferry to safety…or lost in one misstep.

Oddworld: The Promised Neverland Homages (Pt. 6)

I gotta be honest, this image had to be the one that I was most excited about since starting this series.

It’s based off barely a flash of a second in The Promised Neverland’s second opening, and it’s a much more ‘closed’ composition there, focussing mostly on Emma’s face and the braid that hides a significant injury. But for Abe I felt it was important to ‘zoom out,’ so to speak, to emphasise the action of him reaching up towards the moon—the moon with the face in the shape of Abe’s paw.

I just felt like it could represent so much all at once for him; wonder at its sight when he first escapes Rupture Farms, hope in darker moments, despair at all he’s learned since that first night of escape. Actually, it wasn’t very hard at all to adapt this image seeing as the bulk of it was just referencing *that* moment in Soulstorm—hands down one of my absolute favourite moments in a video game. The helplessness on Abe’s face as his body just loses all support, how he curls up and begins to quietly weep…the terror that flashes on his face when the keeper first approaches, and then how he calms a bit when he realises that she won’t hurt him. It’s just…it’s beautiful in how heartbreakingly poignant it is. And I really hoped to do it justice in this piece?