Son of None

Empathy incarnate.

“Son of None”.

18” x 24”. Digital print. 2023.

ABSTRACT

“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them..”
-Orson Scott Card, “Ender’s Game”

THE SHORT OF IT

The poster’s eponymous central figure, the “Son of None”, is a character I have thought about for a long time in a science fiction story that has gestated since I left high school years ago. In all time the nature and tone of the story and the characters that populate its cast have evolved and ebbed and flowed. Samson Qamar has remained at the center of this narrative, growing up as I have grown up and changing as my views on people, the world, life, love, loss, and acceptance of loss have changed.

This poster was designed in layers, painted by hand, then compiled in Photoshop to assemble a final digital painting. It was printed out at 18” x 24” and mounted on foam core. Its counterpart is the poster “Staring Into the Dark”, which depicts the female heroine of this science fiction story.

THE LONG OF IT

The guiding thesis behind Samson as a character is, “where do I end and others begin?” It’s a question about identity: all characters in this narrative struggle with their identity in some form or another. For Samson, it is his core traits of his innate urge towards compassion and a vast ability to empathize that produce his most profound gifts, and challenge him most deeply.

His current characterization really tries to explore what it means to feel love and to ‘feel what others feel’. Perhaps there is a limit to how much you can feel in others without beginning to lose your own sense of who you are. Water then becomes the perfect element to use as a metaphor for what he sees himself as: shapeless, formless, colorless without others to shape or color him. His boundaries are watery, his idea of who he is malleable and subject to change. In his adoleence, he is plagued by being tossed around in the tempest of wanting to belong and fit in with others, as we all feel the urge to. In order to belong and to fit in, he might have adopted the ‘colors’ of the people around him, forsaking what might have been authentic to himself. But in forsaking himself, he also cannot belong as he wants to.

Like a chameleon, he is skilled at seeing how to blend into the environment. He is sensitive to others and their needs, and can often tell what they’re thinking or feeling even before they might be able to put it into words. This uncanny gift isn’t supernatural or powers of any kind: he is simply highly sensitive and picks on minute details even if he might not realize he does.

His relationship to his own empathy is out of whack because he does not value himself as a person. His bisexuality has been a source of internal struggle for him since he first became aware of it as a young adolescent. He doesn’t want to be the way he is: many other LGBTQ characters in this narrative struggle to some extent with self-acceptance.

He is also an artificial person. In the far future when the narrative is set, some people are made rather than born. Think of Ryan Gosling’s character in “Blade Runner 2049”: completely human and biological in every respect, able to sleep and eat and get sick and die, but facing a culture and society in which they are the stigmatized minority and which does not value them with full personhood.

It is these themes of profound empathy, the complex joy and pain of love and its dark doppelgänger codependence, and wrestling with self-hatred that Samson and his counterpart Theo explore throughout their journey.

Research

The character of Samson acts as the main male protagonist of the narrative. His counterpart, Theo, is its main female protagonist.

Chiron from ‘Moonlight’ by Barry Jenkins was a great starting point in thinking about this character. The two struggle with their identity and sexuality, and attempt to cover up what they percieve as their weakenesses or defiencies with strong, powerful exteriors they’ve built through hard physical work. But the hard muscle on the outside cannot hide what both these characters are at their core: big-hearted, sensitive, gentle, very easy to hurt, and natural empathizers.

Symbols that I wanted to use with Samson came through in the historically feminine symbology of the Moon, water as a conduit for emotions and dreams, and the ocean, a metaphor for the psyche and the unconscious.

The moon also nodded at Samson’s Muslim faith. Faith was an important part of this story; each character is searching for purpose, meaning, and belonging, and our own feelings on faith are important as we explore our notions of meaning and ultimate purpose. I also found this interesting because Samson is an artificial human being, meaning he is produced rather being born. What could such a person feel about God and the world and other existential questions?

There was a very intentional subversion of gendered symbols and archetypes for both main characters of the narrative: seen traditionally as more feminine traits, Samson’s entire character arc would revolve around wrestling with his immense compassion, empathy, and sensitivity to the plight of others. Such a huge drive towards compassion can be a gift, but it can also be a curse.

PROCESS

1: Initial Portrait

Long ago, the initial portrait was only a bust. A few things were established about Samson: he was in his mid to late twenties, he had a thick beard and had pierced ears, he was short in stature and worked out alot to compensate for his feelings of inadequacy. He was also always going to be brown, of Middle Eastern descent.
2: Linework

Expanding upon the initial portrait, I wanted to illustrate an image of Samson that captured both hands and at least the entirety of his upper body. Linework was painted on 18” x 24” illustration board with black acrylic ink.
3: Background Texture 1

One layer of background texture.
4: Background Texture 2

An alternate layer of background texture.
5: Ocean Background

Ultimately, neither background texture was used! Instead, I chose to evoke ocean waves and sea foam with the texture I created next.
6: Background Fish

Next, fish were painted to compliment the fishermen’s overalls Samson wore.
7: Value Hierarchy

Now, I added a value hierarchy to the linework. This would dictate how much of the risograph blue and pink ink would saturate the image. Colors that blended at different opacities would create a range of tones.
8: Risography Color Comp

Here is the final color comp for the risograph print indicating what the tones should look like.