First art of the new year is all about re-structuring your internal monologue.
In my early 20s I was working full time in London with many social commitments and a variety of hustles and side projects.
In my later mid 20s I cater to many sensory and social drain needs I have and indulge in special interests while respecting my lower energy reserves and celebrating my different way of processing the world.
Did I get more autistic? Nah. I got less fake.
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[Art description: Three panels showing figures on a black background. Long descriptions follow.
1. A drawing of OP as a person with hip-length hair and a dress standing sadly with her hands clapsed together in front of her. She is coloured a muted rainbow gradient. Behind her, two pairs of nondescript figures chat while smiling. White text says, ‘I’m getting more and more autistic the older I get.’ 2. OP’s colours are brighter, and her expression looks happier. Crayon-like scribbles have crossed out the text from the previous panel. 3. OP’s colours are vibrant, and she balances on one leg and throws her arms out as she dances. The text above has changed to say, ‘I’m becoming more and more myself the older I get.’ \End descriptions]
Here are some of process snapshots of this piece of Astarion in Baldur's Gate.
I am a messy painter and I often adjust and change the designs as I paint. (Mostly because I don't have the patience to do proper line art haha)
I start out with a rough sketch, I usually sketch ideas out on my ipad and move to my cintiq to work with colors.
Next I block in rough color thumbnail. I keep this part messy as I just want to figure out the value structure and the overall mood.
At this point, I have collected a myriad of screenshots and reference images from the game, pinterest, and also from artists work that inspires me.
With the references on one screen, I start to paint the details, I work from foreground to midground to background. (Sometimes I'll bounce between the depth when I get bored from painting one thing for too long)
Sometimes after I block in the colors I'll make adjustments. I didn't like how warped the perspective was getting on the building on the screen right side, so I adjusted the vanishing point and added more tiers to the design. I went back into the game and looked at more how the stairs were designed and figured it out more thoroughly with a sketch on on top.
I think sitting down and doing the details is the most time consuming part. I still want the focus to be on the character despite all the detail going on the background. At this point I'm toggling on black & white filters constantly to check the value, grouping everything in the background together, making sure the lighting frames the subject in focus. At this point I realized, I forgot to paint Astarion's hair LOL, and that the bg was getting a bit too detailed, so I used a more textured brush and painted away some of the edge details of bg buildings.
Last, I make final adjustments, and I make a overall lighting/fx adjustment folder. Adding in some noise, adjusting the contrast, color balance, and lighting over all and call it done!
Hey everyone! I'm alive (no foolin'!) -- I'm just super busy finishing up some big projects. Here's a little preview of one of them: a solo gallery show opening this summer at Nucleus Portland! More details to come soon, but I hope you've all been well (and apologizes to the people I owe replies to, I've been bad about checking messages 😅)