Shade the Shadow Snake

Shade the Shadow Snake

Illustration, 2016

Shade is a character that is set to appear in a children’s book I’m working on (not for the faint of heart kid, to say the least). After I created Con and Tag, I decided to add a few more spirit animals into the mix and Shade was one of the characters that stuck.

I’ve personally always had an intense fear of snakes for whatever reason. In fact, I still have nightmares about them – so for me this was a no brainer character to represent the essence of fear. Some inspiration for Shade came from a horrifying scene in Nightmare on Elm Street 3, when Freddy Krueger transforms into a snake and eats a girl.

I define Shade as a shadow snake because he’s more ethereal than he is physical. Shade’s character is like seeing a shadow run across the floor, you know it was there but its gone as quickly as you look. He incites insecurities, doubt, and fear into the weak of heart and only physically manifests when is subtle influence is not enough.

Shade originally started out as a part of a tattoo design. Two snakes spiraling upward away from a phoenix, as if being chased by a fiery bird of prey. Shade’s shadow snake form is captured in a simple black silhouette.

Like Tag, I intend to make Shade into an art toy someday.