Ok! To kick off my blog, I’m going to go into the process behind “The Night”, the 2nd piece in the Celestial Allegories series. When I saw these pieces, I knew I wanted to do a classic “night coming to block out the sun” motif but didn’t know how to go about it at first. Because, well… looking at these masterpieces can fuel inspiration, but it can also fuel self-doubt! I continued anyway though, because I’m stubborn like that.

A common theme among many of the examples above was the presence of the dark sheer gauzy fabric splattered with stars, which I gravitated towards. Y’all already know my love for dramatic flowing sheer fabric! I really loved the directional energy of August Raynaud’s piece, and the scene of Morpheus with her cloak of night enveloping the sky from Disney’s Fantasia. I was also really struck by Leon Frederic’s piece - just the simple draping of the fabric over the figure and the large stylized stars. Low drama, but I loved its subdued and modest nature which left room for the complex drapery to be the center of attention. 

When I begin a piece, I don’t do much preliminary work. I just have a general image that I sketch out, and just jump right in. I know I could benefit from proper preparation - multiple thumbnails, value studies, color palette, etc… and that’s something I’m working on. I struggle a lot with patience and either becoming too attached to preliminary work, or putting too much energy into the beginning processes that I lose interest/energy once it comes time to start the actual piece. I think the impermanence of digital art allows for that kind of spontaneity, whereas traditional art requires much more methodical preparation… and I abandoned traditional art almost 10 years ago. But, the fact that I thumbnailed the Celestial Allegories series at all is a huge step forward, as I never thumbnailed any of the Halo Series (or really any piece before). And I’ve got to say… seeing the thumbnails all together was really satisfying. I’m going to try to do multiple thumbnails for pieces in the future as another step forward in the path to better preparation skills. I’m also really interested in working on value studies as well, and seeing how that improves my pieces.

Anyway! I ended up with the initial sketch below. Scroll through to see how the sketch developed into the final art. Image descriptions are in the caption.

This is the initial concept sketch. Just shapes and colors, and general energetic flow of the floating fabric. I really wanted it to have a high contrast look; a dark, almost flat figure in front of a bright background. I also liked the juxtaposition of the vertical figure with the horizontal flow of the fabric.

When I was finalizing the details of the fabric, the juxtaposition of her body with the direction of the fabric didn’t appeal to me anymore so I changed her body so that it flowed with the fabric. Not only did it make the piece feel better, but it allowed me to show off some of the subtle fleshy curves of her stomach!

The final line art. I increased the size of the sun and moved it over slightly so that it took up more of the negative space.

The final art. I ended up using a cel-shading technique to map out highlights and shadows, then smudging the edges to get a more realistic rendering look. This really helped establish darker shadows and lighter highlights, as my pieces are typically all midtones.

I typically have a large reserve of reference photos to work from; either taken by myself or found on Pinterest or Google. But this piece in particular happened very organically and with hardly any reference outside of the original inspiration pieces. It was kind of refreshing in a way, to be free from directions or expectations put forth by reference images; much like how I grew up drawing art. The subject matter, being abstract and allegorical, also allowed for improvised rendering. The only time I used reference was to make sure the face/head proportions were realistic, and the head/body proportions were realistic - something I always panic about when I’m not working directly off a reference image. You’ll be able to see how I used it in the video below.

In any case… I really enjoyed working on this piece. I learned a lot and am excited to see how that new knowledge will inform the other pieces in the series! To thank you for visiting this post, enjoy the full length process video for “The Night”!