"Sometimes I read about things around and wonder why I thought it was a good idea to start my art making Titanic gjinkas."
— NorthaDawn
NorthaDawn is a Filipino digital artist, specializing in Anthropomorphic Personification of various entities, mostly the RMS Titanic. His work is known for incorporating meaningful themes and symbolism behind seemingly-typical artworks.
Northa can mainly be found on his DeviantArt page here
, and his Twitter account here.
NorthaDawn and his works provide examples of:
- Alternate History: The Queen's Reign depicts a scenario where the Titanic does not sink after an iceberg collision, and instead goes on to serve in World War I as a troopship like her older sister Olympic. Almost doubles as an Alternate Self for Titanic.
- Amazonian Beauty: His modern depiction of RMS Olympic fits this trope perfectly.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Most likely the first artist that comes up when you look for RMS Titanic personifications.
- Art Evolution: His first-ever pieces were scanned drawings made from very low-quality colored pencils, with backgrounds digitally edited onto the piece from in-game screenshots of Virtual Sailor 7. Having switched to digital art in 2019, art quality has skyrocketed since, if you compare his older work to recent outputs like this one.
- Artifact Name: His username itself is one. It originally came from him misspelling Northlane, his then-favorite band, to a friend. These days, he no longer considers Northlane his favorite band but does come back to listen to them from time to time.
- Badass Longcoat: His RMS Olympic rocks one. Fitting for the ship that served in World War I, rescued the survivors of a sunken warship, and sunk an enemy submarine herself. Alternate History Titanic in the previously mentioned piece The Queen's Reign rocks one as well.
- Breakthrough Hit: The success of Queen of the Ocean 2020 and 2021 propelled Northa from being a Titanic gijinka artist to becoming the most prominent Titanic gijinka artist on the internet.
- CAPS LOCK: His username and branding is usually rendered this way.
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to most other Titanic gijinkas on the internet, which are more lighthearted in general, his work leans more towards a moody and grim tone.
- Gender-Blender Name: NorthaDawn doesn't sound like a typical username guys would have. Because of this, nany people who first discover Northa always assume that he's a female.Northa: If I had a nickel for every person who thought I was a woman until reading my bio, I'd have 38 nickels.
- It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: He has publicly wondered why starting his art career drawing Titanic personifications was a good idea on several occasions (see quote above).
- Meaningful Name:
- Queen of the Ocean, the default title given to his works of Titanic, refers to the numerous promotional posters of Titanic at the time nicknaming her "The Queen of the Ocean."
- Obsidian, the name given to his 2023 incarnation of RMS Olympic. Obsidian is usually depicted in video games as an extremely strong and tough element. In real life, however, obsidian is brittle. This can be seen as a metaphor for RMS Olympic's "Old Reliable" reputation, alongside being the only Olympic-class ocean liner to live a full career, outliving both of her younger sisters Titanic and Britannic.
- Named by the Adaptation: For a long time, RMS Titanic's unofficial human name has been Nicci Gindl. However, it is revealed in a biography for DROWNED that her official human name is Emily McLoughlin.
- Remaster: Queen of the Ocean 2021 and Hoping For Doves recently received remasters that improved their color grading and added in decorations and shading.
- Running Gag: His attitude and relationship with the SS United States.
- Shout-Out: Probably Northa's favorite trope. You can always count on him to name a piece after a song or a band.
- The title for Down With The Sun was excerpted from the lyrics to Nightwish's song Sleeping Sun, a song that is highly associated with the sinking of Britannic.
- Animate was named after a Northlane song of the same name. In addition, Obsidian is also named after Northlane's latest album.
- His fanart of OMORI, Gone With The Wind, was taken from an Architects song of the same name.
- Hoping For Doves was taken from a line in the lyrics to Thornhill's song Red Summer.
- Lily & The Moon is not only named after a Thornhill song with the same name but the hidden text around the drawing (visible when brightened) is filled with lyrics from the entire Thornhill album, The Dark Pool. The drawing's layout is even heavily inspired by the album art of The Dark Pool.
- For his non-music related Shout-Out, Titanic is shown wearing the "Heart of the Ocean" necklace, which originated from 1997 movie and is entirely fictional. This also can be seen as an acknowledgment of the role the movie played in shaping public perception of RMS Titanic, especially outside North America and Europe.
- Patroness of the Mediterranean was named after...well, Britannic: Patroness of the Mediterranean.
- Shown Their Work: Unlike most creators who personify the Titanic like Northa, he has gone the extra mile to make sure that his Titanic personification is as respectful and close to the original ship as it could be, from the descriptions giving a rundown of the ship, to their character design reference sheets explaining the thought process and real-life information about the ship behind every aspect of their personification.
- You Don't Look Like You: RMS Titanic has drastically changed from her original incarnation in 2018, from the appearance to the personality, despite retaining her blonde hair and blue eyes combination. In 2018, Titanic was a confident and loud girl with a dress to match, while her present-day incarnation is a Shrinking Violet with a more muted and era-accurate dress suit. One can even argue that she's changed so much to the point that she's an entirely new character.
