Body, Mind & Soul

Fanart of Alphonse, made for the E.E. Anthology – @equivalentexchangeanthology ⚕️
▪︎ Image description (audio available)

Image Description

A digital illustration of a bust of Al in his human body. The highly symbolic illustration style is reminiscent of Art Nouveau from the Belle Epoque. It uses flat colors and bold, round lines.

In the center of the image, Al is shown in profile, completely facing the left side of the image. The bust cuts off at Al’s neck. Al’s long hair, in various shades of gold, falls in front of his face on the side not facing the viewer and falls in whirling curls down towards the bottom left corner of the image. On the visible side of Al’s face, his hair is tucked behind his left ear, extending in a swoop behind him and out of the frame of the image. Two strands fall loosely over his left cheek. Looking vaguely melancholic and pensive, Al’s visible golden eye is wide open, with stylistically thick eyelashes. His mouth is slightly parted and his eyebrows barely raised.

Behind Al’s neck, a deep red arc highlights the edge of his bust, reminiscent of blood. Its bottom edge is broken up, like it is fraying or dripping. Delicate wrought iron fences run across the middle of the illustration behind Al, starting at neck level on the left and stepping up to eye level on the right. On the left, there are purple flowers and bright green leaves behind the fence, but on the right, the same flowers in a paler purple reach through the fence to curl around the back of Al’s head.

Slightly above Al on the left border of the image is a stylized sun in dark gold. Text underneath it reads “Anima” - the Latin for ‘soul’ - in all caps. A matching moon is on the right, with text that reads “Spiritus” - Latin for ‘spirit’ - in all caps beneath it.

Between them at the very top of the image, a combined sun and moon is drawn in dark gold and black. It is bordered by two curving black arms extending toward it from either side, like the arms that reach out from The Gate of Truth. Behind the arms and combined sun and moon, a horizontal rectangle of orange sunset, surrounded by a gold border.

The bottom of the combined sun and moon is dark with blood, blood dripping off of its rays. Between the bottom of the sun-moon symbol and the top of Al’s head sits a small philosopher’s stone. The top of Al’s head is cast in a reddish light, either from the sunset or the stone.

Small shards of philosopher’s stone are strewn across the top half of the image. The sun and moon combination has dripped blood across flowers behind the fence near Al and the flowers around his head.

At the very bottom of the image on the right, there is text that reads “Fullmetal Alchemist” in a curvy Art Nouveau font. The “T” in Fullmetal is replaced by a Flamel symbol, like Ed wears on the back of his red coat. The text is underlined with a thick, curving black border, a dark green vine, and an array of golden gears in the right hand corner.