Home Comics Style Saturday: The Morrígna
Style Saturday: The Morrígna

Style Saturday: The Morrígna

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I know, I’m super late to the party, but I only managed to pick up some copies of The Wicked + The Divine recently. Boy have I been missing out. If you like mythology, deities, and general bad-assery, you’ve got to get your hands on this comic. It manages to bring ancient mythology into modern day culture, naturally and with such ease, you can’t help but think (or better yet, hope) it could totally be possible.

“Every ninety years twelve gods return as young people. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are all dead. The year is 2014. It’s happening now. It’s happening again.” That is the premise of these books, and you can only imagine what may unfold. I’m not going to get into the story so as to not spoil anything in case you haven’t read it yet, but I will delve into some of the striking makeup looks Jamie McKelvie, the artist, has created in this universe. Today I will focus on one character, who is in fact three: The Morrigan.

The Morrigan is a celtic goddess of battle, strife and death. Her name probably means “Phantom Queen”. In The Wicked + The Divine #3, she appears in three different forms, each with its own personality.

The origin of this trinity of goddesses goes back to proto-celtic cultures and their megalithic cult of the Mothers. While The Morrigan is One, she can also appear as a Trinity of sisters. Those sisters are sometimes said to be Badb, Macha and Nemain; other times Badb, Macha and Anann — Anann being also an alternate name for The Morrigan. There are even more versions of the Trinity, as the texts contradict one another.

The plural for Morrígan is Morrígna, referring to the Trinity. I understand that, in WicDiv, when they say “The Morrigan”, they mean the whole Morrígna.

So which goddesses compose the Trinity in this comic version? There is space for ambiguity, certainly.

For these looks you will only need 2 products (besides foundation and concealer, if needed): black facepaint for the crow tattoo sleeve, and black eyeshadow for the designs on the face. You can apply the eyeshadow with a flat brush, which will give you precision when drawing the geometric shapes.

BADB

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Baphomet calls her “the bad one”. The fiercest and most violent one of the three. She definitely has a striking presence and makes herself heard. She will present herself in this form when angered and provoked. Her makeup is very rockstar-like, reminding us of the likes of KISS, minus the white face paint. Badb comes from the Old Irish word for “crow”.

GENTLE ANNIE

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Visually a mix of Tank Girl and Delirium, with a (so far) very similar personality to the latter. She seems like the gentler of the personalities, who appears to resolve conflicts and issues. Her makeup is very minimalistic and modern, which clashes a bit with the rest of her goth/ punk look. A single black vertical rectangle across her right eye. It is very non-intimidating though, so I’m guessing that’s what they were going for.

Gentle Annie is how some commoners used to refer to the goddess Anann. But, well… it says less of Anann’s gentleness and more of her fearfulness. It was a way to avoid giving offense to the goddess. A similar tactic was used with the faerie people (Aos Sí, Sidhe), who were not a threat as long as they were respected. They were called “The Good People”, to keep them satisfied and away.
Our Annie, though, is quite gentle in issue #3. She avoids a huge conflict and saves a life.

MORRIGAN (DEFAULT)

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We aren’t told the black haired personality’s name, which makes us think she can only be Macha, according to the mythology. For now, we’ll simply call her Morrigan. If she is Macha, she would be the oldest and wisest of the sisters, which makes perfect sense within the story. She is the “default” Morrigan personality, and is willing to help and do what’s right. Her makeup is very reminiscent of Pris’ from Blade Runner: a thick horizontal black stripe running across her eyes makes her look both mysterious and warrior-esque. An awesome little detail is that she also wears a historically accurate Celtic earring.

The incorporation of symbols in a modern way is what really spoke to me in this comic, like Morrigan having a full sleeve tattoo of crows. If you’re into that sort of thing, The Wicked + The Divine is (and, believe me, you can tell) a well researched and extremely well written story full of well placed details throughout.

Which is your favourite out of the three sisters? Let us know in the comments bellow!

Comment(1)

  1. I love your the Morrigan (default) look. She’s my favourite character cause she’s so Badass! Herself & Amaterasu just have aesthetics that are so cleverly fitting their characters. How on earth did you manage to get the sleeve tattoo design so perfect? You look Badass, Great job 🙂

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