Alright, so I was thinking the other day, you know how all these epic stories and movies are out there? Especially the ones based on old myths. Got me wondering about the Norse ones, specifically their creation story. Not the shiny movie versions, but the actual, kinda weird, old tales. So, I figured, why not try to piece together my own little take on it? Just for kicks, you know.
Diving In Headfirst
First off, I had to actually figure out what the story was. It’s not like they teach this stuff in detail unless you go looking. So, I started digging around. Read a bit here, watched a video there. It all starts with this giant nothingness, Ginnungagap. Then you got Niflheim, all ice and fog, and Muspelheim, like a crazy inferno. Classic elements, I guess, but way more intense.
Then, the first being, Ymir, a giant, just kinda… forms from melting ice where these two realms meet. And then, get this, a giant cow named Audhumla shows up. Yeah, a cow. She starts licking these salty ice blocks, and boom, out pops Buri, who’s basically the granddaddy of the main gods like Odin. You really can't make this stuff up, it's wild.
Trying to Make Something Visual
So, I had the basic story elements. But how do you even show that? I’m no artist, let me tell you. My drawing skills are pretty much stick figures and lopsided circles. But I thought, hey, I could try making a series of super simple digital drawings. Almost like a really basic storyboard. Nothing fancy, just to get the idea across.
I grabbed some free drawing software I had lying around. First attempt: drawing a 'void'. How do you draw nothing? It’s harder than it sounds. Ended up with a dark grey smudge. Then I tried to show the fire and ice meeting. A few red lines, a few blue lines. Looked a bit like a weather map drawn by a five-year-old, if I'm being honest.
- Sketching Ymir was a trip. How do you draw a giant made of frost and rime? Mine ended up looking like a very grumpy, lumpy snowman.
- Then Audhumla, the cosmic cow. I tried to make her look majestic. She mostly looked… confused. And drawing her licking ice blocks to reveal a god? Yeah, that was a moment.
- And then Odin and his brothers, Vili and Vé, eventually show up. They end up fighting Ymir. That part's pretty brutal.
The Struggle and the Weird Bits
Actually putting this sequence together was, well, a process. There were moments I just stared at the screen thinking, "What on earth am I trying to do here?" The names alone are a mouthful. Try saying "Niflheim" or "Muspelheim" repeatedly without tripping over your tongue.
And the details of creation! After Ymir is defeated, the gods use his body to make the world. This is where it gets really graphic and cool, in a morbid way. His skull becomes the sky, his blood the oceans and lakes, his flesh the land, and his bones the mountains. His eyebrows? They became the fortifications around Midgard, the realm of humans. Trying to sketch that out without it looking too messy or silly was the real challenge.
What I Ended Up With
So, after a good few evenings of fiddling around, clicking, and a lot of erasing, I had this little series of images. It’s rough. Like, really, really rough. If a proper historian or a mythology expert saw it, they’d probably have a good chuckle. But it tells the basic story, from the void to the cow to the making of the world from a giant's bits and pieces.
It's not gonna win any awards, that’s for sure. It’s not polished, it’s not professional. But you know what? I made it. I took this incredibly old, complex, and frankly bizarre story, and I put together my own little visual interpretation. It's my own clunky, homemade Norse creation sequence. And I’m kinda pleased with that. It was just a fun little project to see if I could do it, to get my head around those ancient tales. And I did. Sort of.
