Requiem

Originally intended to be a comic, Requiem has ended up staying a concept project. The original idea was heavily inspired by Tite Kubo's 'Bleach', 'Men in Black' (1997) and Katsura Hoshino's 'D.Gray Man' (with visual influences from Shinobu Ohtaka's 'Magi the Labyrinth of Magic') but with an urban fantasy setting.

The characters are generally around the age of sixth form students from around the world who had signed up for something they didn't truly understand the greater consequences of. All of them were prodigies in some way who dealt with their abilities in different ways (one character threw herself into her art form, another gave up pursuing their skill competitively due to a fear of failure, etc) as well as dealing with the fact that it was because of their skill that they were scouted by a paramilitary group.

While I'll likely never make the comic, I do enjoy going back to the project every few years and exercising my concepting and design principles using the world and themes.

While the majority of art is free-handed, to ensure consistency, I made the backgrounds and weapons as 3D models in Maya.

Plot Summary

As a second year Spectre Trainee, Zhaojun should be bonding with a spirit like everyone else. What should be a day of rejoice quickly turns into an onslaught of horrors when she bonds with a Demon. From here it doesn't take long for the Spectre Program to try and take advantage of her as she tries to figure out what her life will mean going forward.

The World

In a world like ours but a little bit to the left, humans and the Mortal Plane continue to progress at an exponential rate with the Spirit Realm forcefully dragged along despite not having the resources to cope. As the Spirit Realm collapses, the United World Council and the Warlords came together to make the Vasilita Treaty in hopes of controlling the migration of spirits between the two Planes of existence.

To police the system and laws in place, the Spectre Program was born. While some advocated for only human operatives, it was only Humans bound to Spirits with mirroring souls that could interact with spirits on the mortal plane.

Humans and Spirits (Whole and Shattered aka Demons) fall somewhere within the Soul Colour spectrum. Primary Colours are set, but those with soul colours that are secondary and tertiary colours can be evaluated using the original trio. Correlation doesn't mean causation but it is a good way to evaluate the personality of people who have a visible soul colour. Those with green souls are generally evaluated as strong willed and resolute. Proportion of primary colour can affect how a person is evaluated as well. Those with Indigo souls are calculated and emotionally aware but capable of silencing that to do what needs to be done, whereas those with red-violet souls are destructive and chaotic and will use their emotional intelligence to their advantage. Purple souls closer to the middle, such as Arty (seen below) are generally inquisitive to the point of self-destruction.

Spectre Program

With three major departments and a handful of minor ones, the Spectre Program is the main global task force designed to deal with demonic threats. Soul bound to Spirits, the eponymous Spectres are the only ones that can truly interact with Spirits on the Mortal Plane and are given the duty of dispatching Spirits who have collapsed in on themselves.

Unfortunately, there can be as many as twenty Spectres joined the force per year to as few as none; and given the dangers of the career, many die on the field. As such, it is the Program’s protocol to only send Spectres after Demons graded Upper Beta on the Lanvis Scale or higher.

Harmony

Deemed a terrorist organisation by the United World Council, Harmony is a cult that is for the integration of Spirits into the mortal realm. While this sounds good on paper, their methods are unconscionable as they force spirits to bond with humans that they do not Reflect. As such, the Spirits collapse and become Demons; in turn, the Soul Bond corrupts they human they are connected to and eventually kills them both.

For safety reasons, only Spectre Program operatives are allowed to engage directly with suspected or confirmed Harmony agents. History has proven that to do otherwise will result in large scale damage and death.

The Spectres:

The Characters following are generally the main cast. Each Spectre Trainee is placed in a team of three to balance each other's skills. The team to the left are the tritagonists, Team Surge. While Zhaojun is the 'main character' of the full cast, she's generally a passive character for the first act of the plot (which was an intentional choice so that the three acts could follow the seven stages of grief).

The Spirits

Spirits tend to fall into different categories but generally they all represent something. As the Spirit Plane and the Material Plane (ours) are fundamentally entwined, human perception and collective belief can affect the way the spirit forms and presents. Unfortunately, Spirits have to adhere to their presentation or structure they suffer from entropy.

When humans suffer from entropy, they age. When Spirits suffer from entropy, they Shatter and become what is colloquially referred to as 'Demons'. Upon Shattering they reconsolidate into another being that is missing a core part of themselves and then go on sorrow-induced rampages to gather spirit energy in a desperate attempt to return to what they once were which is unfortunately impossible.

Generally, Spirits cannot directly enter the material plane and can only interact with it by possessing an object and using spirit energy to create a tangible form around that object. The only ones who can physically enter the material plane are the Seven Warlords who have ambassadorial rights.

Spirits Bonded to Spectres directly bind their souls to humans which reflects their own. They are not mirror copies but more akin to jigsaw pieces coming together. Spirits can then use their bonded human's body like possessed objects as a temporary gateway so they can directly interact with the Material Plane. In cases of fighting 'Demons', a spirit will come through and create a weapon so they can directly attack the soul of the Demon through it's bond to the possessed object. This does however leave the human's soul open to attack for the same reason.

To the right: Zhaojun Ren summoning Mysthios (in the shape of a sword), using her body as a gateway. [This is an older draft design of Mysthios' blade form].

Above: Upper Midrank Spectre Taesoo Kwon and her reflected soul, the Alpha class spirit, Usa

Test Sketches / illustrations

Here's a collection of test sketches, ranging from character concepts, illustration thumbnails, to panel tests.

Above: panel test of Taesoo's latest design of her fighting the demon codenamed 'Nightmare'.

3D Models

I made a series of models using Maya to help with prototyping illustrations (the RSI got me good).

Return to Projects