So, that aside: Pictures! Shit-tons of Pictures! (I know rainbow text hits a nerve for some people, but it activates that ADD area in my brain. So,... uh,... shove it.)
I finished the livecast image with some creative fucking after the fact. I usually don't work with nearly as many floating layers as I did for this one, but it was helpful in that it made masking parts a lot easier to deal with. I think my biggest issue is that I'm always at a loss for what to put in backgrounds on images that are purely graphic instead of illustrative. Not to mention I think I overdid the dodge tool even though it was only set to like 4%. Her arm has a little bit of 'shiny plastic jaundice' magic going on that may end up being sad pandas if it were ever printed. Overall, pretty happy with how it turned out. in the words of Holly, she has on 'sexypants.'I've also been continuing with my long laundry list of sketches for EGD. My hope is to eventually put up a website that explains the 'universe' a little bit with some really simple pages for character bios and stuff. I don't ever plan on continuing to write it or illustrate it as some long-term thing because I don't have the time. I've always imagined it as a hand-painted comic like is common in Italian graphic novels. (Dresberg and Massimiliano Frezzato have planted the seed in my brain to do this. If you haven't read their comics, I strongly suggest trying to track down a copy, even if its not to buy it.)
There are some things that I am still trying to work out, although a lot of the 'exploring' part of probably wont end up being scanned. An old idea I was always gun-shy about since I had no actual means of developing it was Heiwa's magic specialty to using an elaborate nether-golem, called an ushabti. (Derived from Old + Middle kingdom ideals of shabti funerary figures. More on Wikipedia!) None of my ideas are totally finalized on this yet, but they are slowly taking form as I continue to plug through drafting them. The biggest problem I have is, without giving too much of the story away, is the idea for Heiwa's Ushabti's physical attributes. The original magician who gave him the ability/rights to summon this ushabti was Tarot, basically a blind hierophant from Heiwa's childhood. The only thing is that Tarot was this really exciteable, gangly, blind guy. So mix that with the introverted heavy-set character, and you basically have the paradox of having to represent something that is both dead/withered and living/oppulent. I think my biggest issue is the visor -- it was supposed to look like an eye guard on one of those old jousting masks, but it ends up looking like a pair of cheesy wrap-around Ray-Bans™. I have the feeling they will be scrapped in the final drafts.
I ended up doing like two pages of just couple-dynamics between Deshi & Heiwa, but I decided against putting up a mass scanning of them. And this is where I put on my angry cap even though no-one here is a culprit of why I am mad, so yeah. It really annoys me that I basically learned to stop putting Heiwa art on my DA page because nobody looks at it. And the people who do look at it are doing it from a very skewed sexual perspective. (IE: Gainer/Feeder fetishists.) and it drives me up the goddamn wall because as an OC, he means the most to me out of anyone i've ever created. Maybe even DH. He's that important to me. So to see this thing/idea/person that you have invested an immeasurable amount of love and emotional investment basically get the "where all the pretty white girlz at?" treatment makes me heart hurt on a level I can't even express. It would be like if Cameron's fanbase stopped at Titanic, and while Avatar was regarded with curiosity it was never approached with the same level of ambition -- sort of like "Avatar is interesting as a creative idea, but it sure aint' no Titanic! wasn't Leonardo absolutely dreamy?!" To watch something you've put a decade of work/love into developing and has become sort of this muse always in the background be ignored en masse gives light to a small fraction of why I have such low self esteem when it comes to making art.
anyhow, enough bitching. I love ya'll and I hope you have a great weekend!
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