A Ghostly Mess!
Added 2022-05-03 08:40:19 +0000 UTCThe cheetah-man had no idea what was in store for him when he let me at his character and chose the "ink" style. Using unnatural and cold colours to contrast with the yellow fur, I integrated the ghost hands by means of an otherworldly fertility theme.
On to a few thoughts. I set out to not only use black as the "key", but also include colourful elements over the "key" layer to give the impression of a kind of glow. This caused a few problems. For one thing, how do you represent glow and soft lighting in a dark environment with nothing but hard shapes? And when it's really not working for the X-teenth time, how do you break your own rules so it looks better, and where, and in what way? Is it possible to have something look sufficiently "glowy" without it affecting the surrounding areas so heavily that the colouring job becomes borderline painterly? How do you do all that within a very constrained budget? And to round it off, imagine asking yourself these questions not *ahead* of time, but halfway through, three quarters through, realizing why you feel so strange about the composition, redrawing the face for the fourth time, studying more cheetahs, shifting finished parts around and deleting others that were usable but no longer fit. I felt a bit like I did a year ago! Haha. It didnt help that I began inking and planning this piece over a month before being able to pick it up to finish it.
However, I still enjoyed and enjoy it. I'd say I'm proud of it! The ideas and the discoveries I made were worth the sweat I put in, and any frustrations I made sure to immediately turn into a set of notes on how to progress *all* my styles. When I am done with it, I will post a small journal from my own private notes on that matter :) Thanks to Jasiri for his support, and letting me explore "Ghost Hands" as far as I wanted!
