"Heathen Sent - Sedna Character Design" by Jill Johansen

Character design for an independently published comic book I am doing with Christopher Stuck called Heathen Sent.

Sedna is the Inuit goddess of the dead and ocean life. She's pictured here with her companion, (sometimes husband) Dog (anyone happen to know the Inuit word for 'dog'?). The legend varies, but certain elements remain the same, most notably the very end of the story. As they escape a storm or alternately attacking birds, Sedna clings to the side of her father's boat, and Sedna's father cuts off her fingers to save his own life. The fingers then fall into the water and become the ocean mammals. Sedna drowns and is changed by the gods into a new form which will enable her to live under the icy waters, and she becomes the goddess of the dead/ocean life.

If Sedna becomes displeased she will make hunting bad. A shaman must enter a trance where he makes a journey to her realm to comb her hair, which she can not do for herself, lacking fingers. Combing of her hair is also symbolic of cleaning away the sins of the tribe, as they had become tangled in her hair.

She is almost always depicted as a mermaid-ish being, but the legends and art are usually not clear on what type of animal makes up her lower half. Since she is goddess of the ocean *mammals* pirmarily, I wanted to stay away from fish/sharks, but also wanted the animal to be native to Inuit lands (so no dolpins :-P) so I went for a narwhal for Sedna, a seal for Dog. I modified Sedna's fingerless hands into pseudo-flippers.