Mania, Mother of Ghosts

In mythology, Mania is the mother of ghosts and goddess of the dead. She’s known for making people go mad. I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 in 2011. Since then Mania has haunted me many times. She’s scary even if she makes you think she’s fun. I may not be a fan of her, but I am a survivor. This is my tribute to such a powerful force.

The only images I could find of Mania happen to be a Gorgon, image below.
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I tried to include this essence while making her my own kind of monster. I made her for a Horror/Dark Art show. She is one of my biggest fears.

8x8, watercolor and crayon. Oh I thought about doing the ghosts with it, but I changed my mind. Probably going to color it anyway because I’m bored.

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This is definitely your style, I recognized your work :hugs:
My favourite part is the watercolour hair :fire:

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The hair was fun. I have orange hair at the moment, so people asked if it was a self portrait, which it’s not.

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This is a fabulously personal piece. A tribute to what you fear - powerful!

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Indeed, this is powerful. Perhaps all the more so because of the cartoon-y style and and vibrant colors against the dark deeds of the subject. If you color the version with the ghost, I hope you’ll share it here. I’m very interested in how they would alter the feel of the piece.

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Very awesome! I love your style! Glad to see you back! Hopefully this piece was somewhat therapeutic for you.

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Hello fellow bipolar! I’m BP2. My mania isn’t as pronounced as BP1, but it’s always followed by that crash. My drawings of depression are always dark circular scribbles that usually end up eating through the paper from repetition. Your mania is great, it’s like… if Heat Miser and Party God had a baby… a chaotic force that’s like, hey let’s have fun, but it’s gonna be bad.

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Great image, and thanks for sharing the back story. I love the watercolor work; it gives the piece such vibrance! Good luck with the show (or, hope the show went well, if it already happened.)

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I will definitely post it when I paint it. I’m thinking the ghosts will be a shimmery white, as I’ve been using it a lot in my art lately. It doesn’t photograph well, but in person you can see the shiny!!

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Gorgeous work!

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You have such strong and clean lines. Your style is amazing and recognizable. The hair is my favorite part too.

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That’s incredible. You really captured the scary-clown essence of a thing that sometimes seems fun at first but has an underlying (and also, oddly, dominant) element of terror. Lots of bipolar in my family so I get the feels from this. A thrilling good time followed by ice down the spine.

Well done.

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You put that so perfectly, thank you.

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