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Family Tree Breakdown
🕑 Added 2023-04-14 00:05:00 +0000 UTC
First thing to note in the Coat of Arms, which also repeats in the sister line up, is Ellie is facing the wrong way. She feels she's constantly going in the wrong direction as opposed to her sisters who seemingly are making progress in their lives.
Lion Fatfat is also a personal favorite of mine.
The Coat of Arms also depicts all the sisters herbal or plant namesakes. The partial wreaths at top feature Juniper and Lavender, while the remaining sisters have one, or multiple plants adorning their silhouette frames.
The weaponry behind the Lion Fatfat shield symbolizes the family's constant infighting.
Tag's profile is depicted under Juniper since he's her biological child, later adopted by William and Ginger.
All the lower sisters received an item as well, or a 'weapon of choice.' Shotgun added, well.. since obviously. The pumpkin vines are wrapping around as it points towards the older sisters, as Pumpkin herself holds antagonistic views towards them. Cinnamon has an apothecary mortar and pestle since she prefers manipulative practices. Ginger differs from the rest as the eldest, and most mature. Ginger tea is easily associated with the ginger root plant, so a mug of tea was placed next to her as to associate her with a more calm and contented home life. She's moving away from the childish bickering of the others. While I do associate Ginger with the sin of wrath, she has the most steadyhanded demeanor. She's been defaulted to a 'third parent role' her entire life, and that tension is still there (as she expressed complaining to William about Pumpkin getting a car.)
Since Euphoria is a tour de force/comic retrospective featuring Juniper and Ellie as the main characters within it, they have crowns as queens of our current narrative. Juniper is a heart since I commonly attach her to the topic of passion and the sin of lust. Ellie, being crestfallen over her lack of personal drive and talent, has the heart inverted, creating a spade.
Axe, sword, guitar, and wing are all foreshadowing. The guitar is center set to symbolize the constant musical references in the comic even though it does belong to Anise. The axe is also a reference to Holly Machete, which in itself was foreshadowing. Tarragon has a sword. I consider Anise and Tarragon the brute force of the seven sisters. You will see both of these items later.
Our legendary one-eyed knight, atop our shield, will pay off later as actually happening historically within the family.
William was done in silhouette since he is married to Ginger and legitimately part of the main family. He is the eldest adopted child of seven sons. The Kensington Boys are the rowdy rough boys equivalent of the Buckingham sisters. Childhood adversaries to play foil to each of them. This is for backstory purposes to reflect upon, and affect current character conditions, versus something to be retold or shown as a full story. The only two who are biologically related are William and his younger brother, who is the brick of the group (or the anti-Tarragon muscle of the boys.)
My initial concept for these guys was 'a group of boys/men our lovelorn females could date if they weren't so stupid.' Ginger and William figured it out.
William's willingness to adopt Juniper's child as his own can be inferred by this entire section.
Through the family tree we can see twins run rampant on Rosemary's side of the family. She herself is, in fact, a twin. If you've noticed her fraternal foil looks suspiciously like Ellie, that's because she's the proto-Ellie. Therefore Rosemary is the proto-Cinnamon.
She also has an older brother.
"Next slide!"
Flowermound is based off a town I had to routinely drive by on my work communte. I liked the name and it worked well being incorporated into the comic. You can see Cami's no-nonsense metalhead father, well ready to protect his own Ellie, and Ellie-ish offspring.
The contrast of the stern and unapproachable father with his joyful wife and equally beaming children is one of my favorite aspects of the family tree. Since this family, and comic, deals heavily on derivatives, Cami is yet another derivative of Ellie.
As I've mentioned in developing the comic years ago, I initially viewed all the sisters as Ellie clones while the story would eventually created their own personalities naturally.
Pumpkin = Kid Ellie
Cinnamon = Evil Ellie
Juniper = Promiscuous Ellie
Anise = Fringe Ellie
Tarragon = Super Ellie
Ginger = Mom Ellie
This was also comingled with giving each of them one of the seven deadly sins.
Pumpkin = Pride
Cinnamon = Greed
Ellie = Sloth
Juniper = Lust
Anise = Gluttony
Tarragon = Envy
Ginger = Wrath
This allowed a foundation for each until they developed throughout the story. They also garnered their own interests, hobbies, friends, quirks, and even virtues. They do write themselves now.
So I treated Cami the same. She's the Cousin Oliver of the family. Viewing her coming from an Ellie-ish mother, she should be a more concentrated, sweeter version of Ellie's virtuous traits. Cami's an Ellie-spawn of proto-Ellie, while Ellie is an Ellie-spawn of a proto-Cinnamon. Therefore, if Ellie is associated with 'sloth', then Cami should inherently represent 'diligence.' She's the sappiest, goodest Ellie.
Confused yet? It's okay. It makes sense to my three brain cells talking to each other. So why no big boobs for super concentrated Ellie? you may ask.. (You're on the wrong side of the family.)
While Cami's older sister looks similar (based off Kelly Gaines from Cheers,) she is not a twin. While I do enjoy my derivatives and mirroring characters, I have to draw the line somewhere, lol.
Rosemary's side of the family is full of rebels, rabble rousers, con artists, and usurpers. While she wracks her brain and is going grey from stress, she's the one bringing this hostility into the bloodline.
If anyone keeps up with the lore of the comic, the last name Abaddon should sound familiar. This is an easter egg that Ashliii, Gigi, and Darby are very distant cousins to the Buckinghams. Someone who talks in spurts like he has a throat injury, and wears giant rings on his outfit should come to mind. The tree/vines become mangled behind these two.
You can probably find what writing an 'A' on your hand means if you dig hard enough.
Proto-Anise vampire also included. May explain her weird fixation.
Enceladus the giant was included to add some Greek/Sicilian mythology, with more Galactus inspired imagery as he quests to overthrow Jupiter. Just don't call him an 'Encel.'
His portion of vines include thorns.
Herb is the youngest of four siblings. He has two brothers and one sister. I dunno what's up with that one fellow on the far right, but I hope Anise isn't pining for her own uncle.
Herb's mother would be deceased at this point, but I knew I wanted to draw both grandmother's as domineering figures that would probably give their daughter-in-law and son-in-law equal hell.
Grandpa Buckingham didn't die before Christmas. Good job, everyone.
Scoville is the name of the heat index chart for peppers and hot sauce. What better thing to include in a family tree where plant references abound. Herb's sister has a local firefighter for a child, whom married another firefighter, then spawned a tiny pyromaniac.
One of Herb's older brothers is an Archie Bunker type with his own two sons.
The family birthmarks are seen sporadically on this side of the family.
Norman Rockwell does make an appearance. I guess he married Molly Ringwald at some point? Not sure how that happened but it's canon now.
Weird Al makes an appearance. Confirmation is his title, which is a reference to his album 'Straight Outta Lynwood.'
The early American settlers are seen as a more noble, rigid and virtuous creed than Rosemary's side of the family. Herb's half would probably attempt to exorcise the other.
Our little joke payoff with Ser Deadeye of the Perception Depths.
St. Jude is not in the family, he's just gazing upon his least favorite band of lost causes.
Neither of these two at the bottom are meant to specifically be God or an angel, but rather represent some kind of ancient beings of high influence and magesty. My thoughts were they then have some rebelious Proto-Tarragon as a daughter and make a society of 'tree people.' The woman inhabited early earth and mingled with 'cast out' or 'cast down' creations, living in the wilderness, while emulating the grandeur of her mother (crown of twigs.) As the tree went further and further back I wanted a bit more mysticism and ridiculousness.
There are certainly some wide generational gaps in parts, but I'm content with how it turned out, especially without having to give them all full names in this format. That's what I originally did and it was a strugglefest. Much easier to draw them first, move them around, and just have fun with it with very few hardline specifics to stick to.
So there you go. A little methodology behind the madness. Thanks for the patience on this one. It was a blast to finish.
Comments
Mr. Blue
It's one of the reasons I love his work.
Mr. Blue
WEIRD AL
JackFrost
The Depths you go into the lore always astounds me.
