Grindhouse Crucifix
Grindhouse and Watercolors - The Revulsion and Terror of Aza Smith
is an website hosted by traditional artist Aza Smith. This website showcases his various drawings, paintings and sculptures. While some of the pieces showcase a description of how and why the work was made, most instead involve an expansive, fictional world that the characters present are a part of.
Tropes present on the website:
- Art Imitates Art: Nearly every drawing and painting are of the ragdolls, which also feature as artwork.
- Colour-Coded Emotions:
- "Suicide - Blue" shows depression, using blue as the color of tears.
- "Homicide - Red" shows rage, using the color of blood.
- "Genocide - Yellow" shows apathy, using the color of bile and poison.
- Depraved Bisexual: Prinna Domma, as it is implied that she was once in an abusive relationship with Ebony and is now with Psychopomp.
- Every Scar Has a Story: Lao's tattoos are marks placed on his body as reminders for every key he loses.
- Hollywood Voodoo: Voodoo Dolls Lao the Keymaster and Cho the Gatekeeper both work for the Loas, granting them various cosmic powers as a result.
- Meaningful Name:
- Checkerboard has a checkerboard pattern on his head.
- Temper has a temper.
- Ebony is black.
- Psychopomp is not an actual Psychopomp, but he is psycho.
- Prinna Domma is dressed as a stereotypical prima donna.
- Pumpkinhead has an orange body, which includes her head.
- Jesus Frankenstein is big, green, has a black cross on his back and has a square head just like Frankenstein's Monster. His name is also a reference to the Rob Zombie song of the same name.
- Cupcake is just so adorable!
- Yen Sid is blue with a crescent moon and star, a motif that pertains to the sorcerer of the same name from Disney/Fantasia.
- God while not God in the biblical sense, resembles old nature gods with his antlers and green color scheme, and is even implied to be a pagan god of some sort.
- Goddess can be seen as God's counterpart.
- Clown is a clown.
- Oz is green and gold, the color motif commonly associated with the fictional world of the same name.
- Mania is crazy.
- Shortcake looks somewhat similar to Cupcake.
- Tulip keeps a tulip on her head.
- Lao the Keymaster works for the Loa as their keymaster.
- Crossbones has a skull and crossbones pattern on his body.
- Bugeyes has big eyes.
- Clockwork has a clock for one of his eyes.
- Passionpomp and Psychepomp are both tied to Psychopomp in some manner.
- Peaches and Cobbler are both peach-colored.
- Krystoff sounds kind of like "Crystal."
- Cho the Gatekeeper [[spoiler:is the assigned gatekeeper by the loa
- Surgery Stan was made via Applied Phlebotinum surgery.
- Don K. Ristmas Parker is a reference to both Christmas (the day he - the doll - was made) and Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, whom he shares a color scheme with.
- Chamile is part chameleon.
- Crossbones II: Skull mildly resembles Crossbones and has a skull-motif instead.
- Pimp Daddy Africa has a black face and wears an extravagant pimp outfit made from leopard and giraffe pelts.
- Curcurbita is named after a genus of squash shared with pumpkins.
- Gila Monster is a reptilian monster.
- Each member of team Miasma is named after an illegal narcotic.
- Flake has a snowflake motif.
- The Spider and the Fly are references to the old poem The Spider and the Fly.
- Zipperback has a zipper on her back.
- Fool is named after the tarot card of the same name. His unpredictable nature and position as leader to the Major Arcana reflects this. Pilgrim, being being an alternate universe counterpart of Fool is also a reference to the Fool Tarot card, one of its alternate names being "The Pilgrim".
- Madagascar also goes by the titles "3rd of Cups" (a tarot card) and Agent "Beauty/Beast" (a reference to the french fairy tale Beauty and the Beast).
- Poppet is a reference to the poppet, a doll filled with ingredients in modern pagan witchcraft for protection, something that Poppet himself is made for.
- Bullfrog's name Jiraiya Gamma is a reference to the Japanese sorcerer of the same name.
- Ixquana is an exagerrated respelling of iguana.
- Lavender is completely purple.
- Teddie has a little bear on his chest.
- Basil Sage is names after herbs, his last name in-particular being a reference to both the herb and the title.
- Alpha Draconus is named after a star, a star that he actually is in-universe.
- Samhaina is named after the old harvest holdiay Samhain.
- Diesel works with Diesel Punk technology.
- Couverture is named after a type of chocolate.
- Eros is named after the Greek God of Love.
- Happy Easter! was
made on Easter sunday. - The Vampire Garlic™. It is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
- Beelzebaby is a giant fly in a pair of toddler short-tails.
- The Face of Revulsion and Terror is a call-back to the website's full-title "Grindhouse and Watercolors: The Revulsion and Terror of Aza Smith."
- Multiple-Choice Past: For the sake of humor and drama, Aza's backstory (as well as every character) presented on his website are mostly false, drawn out in the form of an expansive, fictional world.
- Raised Lighter Tribute: Word of God claims that the color palettes used in the paintings were inspired by a Rob Zombie concert.
- Tarot Motifs:
- His second 2D portfolio Fortune's Big Score: The Romantic Lifestyles of the Psychic and Psychotic features artwork inspired by Tarot cards.
- Fool and his organization "Major Arcana" also fit this description.
