This is the piece I did for last month’s challenge. For some reason I got the most votes, so I’m supposed to post it in here to be featured!
As usual I left it too late, rushed it and then ended up with a rough approximation of what I had in mind. So, I was keen to work on it a bit more before reposting it here.
I’ve tried to resist overworking it and losing what people might have liked about it. I seem to have done more than I’d intended though - so I’ll leave it you to decide if it’s better or worse?!
I wrote a bit already about the process in the challenge thread:
It would have probably looked quite different if time hadn’t been an issue - I had more radical ideas about what I might do stylistically. This feels a bit like an ideation piece taken too far - a stepping stone between my usual style and where I really wanted to go. It still has some qualities I like though.
I loved that piece! It made me think of a picture book illustration where each page is a poem of its own.
You improved it a lot compared to the first version. It’s just a bit sad that you changed the flying “insect”'s head, it kind of looked like a barn owl.
@Sineater Thanks! It’s good to see you posting new pieces again.
@urquizar Cheers! I had to look it up as her name wasn’t familiar, but I recognise her Giantess piece at least. I can kind of see why you thought of her. I hadn’t aimed for surrealism, but it kind of went that way with the evolution of the creature.
For inspiration, I was looking through my book of Kay Nielsen’s work to help get into a more decorative mindset, and also had Kinuko Craft in mind for the luminous aesthetic.
@Katamaheen I’m glad you liked it! Yours was really nice too (actually - I voted for it, but shhhh! Don’t tell the others!)
The creature’s head was actually one of the last things I tweaked. I just felt it was too ambiguous and couldn’t decide what to do with it. I was aware it looked a bit owl like but it wasn’t intentional. I also didn’t feel eyes were right for it. I see it as kind of a tangible spirit creature. In the early stages I was aiming at giant moths, but that wasn’t going very well, so I improvised and ended up with this.
I’ve just updated the image again because I made a few small adjustments.
The main problem was I noticed the reaching arm seemed to have an odd bend in the middle of the forearm. I was a bit shocked because somehow I’d managed to overlook it even though it was like that most of the time I was painting it. That’s one problem with rushing things - I often find it helps to spend time away from a piece so I can come back to it with fresh eyes.
Of course - once I started fiddling with it I couldn’t resist tweaking other parts! Mostly minor differences, but I did have another go at the creature’s head. I think the result is somewhere between the original and the updated version. I forced myself to continue using the same brush though, so making fine adjustments was quite frustrating!
@sooz I hope I haven’t messed anything up by updating the image. I think I remember you mentioning something about that before - is it just changing the thread title that messes up the link to the thread?
