YOUNG JUSTICE: INVASION: APPELLAXIAN GOLEM

WB Animation Character Design, YOUNG JUSTICE: INVASION, Appellaxian Golem. Pencil, Digital Color.

In the Season Two episode entitled, "Salvage," the inert husks of the Appellaxians (The Gold Roc, The Wood King, The Stone God, and The Crystal Creature) on display in the Hall of Justice Trophy Room are suddenly animated by a sophisticated technology. A frequency emitted from a device operated by Bruno "Ugly" Mannheim causes the four alien husks to awaken from dormancy, and they use their extraterrestrial energy to join together, reshaping themselves into one gigantic and dangerous Golem.

Just as the individual Appellaxians presented an unusual challenge for me, designing the Golem form was every bit as tricky. Working from a rough concept provided by Emmy-Lad Bourassa, I sought to have each elemental being play a key role in the composite creature. Designing a structure so that wood, stone, and crystal could function as aggressive weapons was easy enough. For locomotion, it was again obvious to use the Entish tree legs previously conceived. Binding all the components together must be a function of the wood as well. That left gold, a highly conductive and malleable metal, as the semi-fluid system of energy circulating within the total creature. It was Phil's clever idea, that we use the gold as a sort of lifeblood.

To fulfill the script's demand that the Golem fly, it was decided that grotesque wings of sufficiently enormous size be able to sprout from the back of the creature. I used the wood as a framework for the dragon-like wings, with gold spanning the frame as a thin, incredibly strong and aerodynamic membrane.

As character designers, we are frequently assigned to create some pretty weird and crazy stuff. But-- ours is not to whine and smirk, ours is but to make it work! Hahaha!

*The Appellaxian Golem is the copyrighted property of WB TV Animation.

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