The Celestial Castle is a short digitally illustrated comic and animation piece. In my work I often focus on themes such as escapism, mental health, and inner conflict. In The Celestial Castle I display this through a collection of short scenes in a narrative sequence. The aesthetic of the setting is meant to embrace dreamy qualities, emphasizing cool colors and fantasy, spacious skies and a castle larger than life with mysteries untold.
As the character walks through this castle it is my hope that the viewer gets the sense of unreality, emptiness, and the undertones of something darker beneath. The character is meant to represent someone with their head in the clouds, someone who can’t or won’t face reality.
Escapism is a double edged sword. We use it to get away from our problems in the real world, to go somewhere better and find a spot of happiness in our lives. But when it gets carried away, it has potential to make living in the present that much harder.
At what point have you gone too far? Where in the mind does reality separate from fantasy? My goal in this narration is to convey these types of emotions to the viewer, in the hope that they can somehow relate, or derive inspiration from it.
