Journey to Xibalba
Plates
Proof of Concept, Huntress
Since I was a child, I've been fascinated by the artwork and architecture of the Maya people. As an adult I read the epic poem Popul Vuh, a story about the Hero Twins and their descent into the underworld of Xibalba. I thought for a long time about this story and how it would be really fun to reimagine it as a sequential art piece. Eventually I couldn't help myself and just started drawing.
Before I began planning out the plates, I created this proof of concept to test color palettes and character design.
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Plate 1, Serpent and Jaguar
With this piece, I wanted to set the tone for the series as a whole. The jaguar-headed opening to the underworld swallows up a snaking river, emitting a ghostly mist which dissipates into the starry realm of the cosmic serpent.
I incorporated Maya glyphs representing "Way" (top), or the crossing from one world to another, and "Xibalba" (bottom), the Place of Fear or underworld realm of the jaguar demons.
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Plate 2, Cenote
Cenotes, or sinkholes, are potent symbols of the transition between worlds in Maya mythology, specifically to cross into the world of Xibalba.
In the Popul Vuh the Hero Twins are invited to the underworld by the jaguar demons there to play the Maya Ball Game against them. In my own telling of the story, I chose to leave the reasoning for their descent ambiguous, focusing more on the moment to moment journey from one world to the other.
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Plate 3, Underground
The Popul Vuh does not describe the crossing from the real world to Xibalba in great detail. I wanted to visualize the various ethereal realms that the Hero Twins travelled through on their way to face the jaguars.
The cenote leads the siblings underground, which I imagined as a world of luminescent mushrooms sprouting from a huge network of mycelium. A strange glow comes from the depths, luring our heroes onward.
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Plate 4, Cave Depths
At the bottom of the cenote is an underwater cave with an ethereal glow emanating from the base.
Scale is something I was always thinking about when making these plates. I meant for Xbalenque and Hunahpu to be tiny in comparison to the settings I put them in. In this cave even the stalactites and strands of seaweed clinging to the walls are huge compared to the tiny human figures floating nearby.
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Plate 5, Obsidian Mirror
A great obsidian mirror lies at the base of the cenote, reflecting reality in otherworldly violet tones. The Hero Twins reach out and touch it, becoming slowly enveloped by it surface...
Obsidian mirrors were believed to be windows into the realm of gods and ancestors. A fitting object for the final gateway between the material world and Xibalba, I thought.
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Plate 6, Darkness
One of my goals with this project, was to use minimal text and primarily tell the story through the images themselves. Where I do use text or numbers, I use the Maya glyphs rather than English words to strengthen the aesthetic.
In the complete darkness of this sequence, Xbalenque and Hunahpu call out to each other, visualized with glyphs of their heads. The glyphs for "sight" and "darkness" are uttered before Hunahpu eventually remembers his resplendent macaw feather, which lights up the space.
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Plate 7, Jaguars
When the room is illuminated, the Hero Twins suddenly realize they are surrounded by jaguars, the demons of Xibalba. Xbalenque and Hunahpu find themselves face to face with those who would test their mettle.
I sought to impart an otherworldly feeling to this entry point into Xibalba, bathing everything in the firey glow of Hunahpu's macaw feather. The jaguars inhabit a cave of smoke, swarming around the Heroes and dispelling any hope of escape.
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Going forward
Journey to Xibalba is an ongoing project which I work on illustrating between other projects and passions. It has been an escape for me into a world completely unique from the history and mythology of my own culture. I look forward to creating more plates and discovering what else Xibalba has in store for Xbalenque and Hunahpu in the future.
Thanks for reading!
