brightly_lit (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
brightly_lit) wrote2018-11-28 03:28 pm
brightly_lit) wrote2018-11-28 03:28 pm
Lighthouse art, RBB 2018
Now for my second RBB art post!
I had a little more time to do my second painting. Trying to think from the perspective of an author, I realized authors like to have a story suggested in the image, which I ... kinda didn't do with my first one. The idea of Sam lighting a lighthouse flame grabbed me and wouldn't let me go.
The most difficult part of this whole process was trying to find reference pictures. Fortunately, I was able to find a view-from-inside-a-lighthouse picture that worked. There was also one (just one! At least, that I was able to find) picture of an old-timey fire-based lighthouse reflector (they are very cool! Kind of like an inside-out disco ball).
When I was trying to come up with a good reference photo for Sam, I knew it had to come from "Born-Again Identity"--not only one of my favorite eps ever, but also perfect for the vision I had for Sam for the painting: thin, tragic, helpless, lonely. Going through page after page of stills on Home of the Nutty, I finally found this one, that was ideal for my purposes--he was even raising his arm toward the camera, so I could use that for him lighting the flame!
I'd like to be able to claim that the color palette was my plan from the beginning. I've never actually worked in a limited palette before, but I learned a lot about paint in this process, including that apparently large tubes of acrylic paint burst over time! BOTH my large black and white tubes had busted their plastic caps off, and the black had dried under the opening! I did manage to get to some usable paint eventually, with the help of a screw, but not in time to make this painting, so I used the darkest colors I had that weren't dried--blue and purple--and tried to make them as dark as possible, mixed together.
I ended up loving the effect! I've seen fans using limited palettes as a personal challenge, and I've seen various anime that, for instance, never use black, using some other color for shadows and eyelashes and such, and I always thought it looked cool, but I've always tended toward realism in my pictures, which I'm realizing has really limited me, and so painting this like this freed me in some way. I'd like to play a lot more with limited palettes.
The boat was the hardest part! I painted it last. I looked at countless pictures of boats, trying to find one at the angle I needed it to be (from somewhat above, and heading toward the camera). I learned more about what different kinds of boats are called than I ever really wanted to, and I had to paint the damn thing several times, but I finally got it tolerably clear what I was trying to paint, I hope.
Both my claims were a bit emotionally fraught--in this case, though there was no claim in the comments of the claim post, the info with my picture was struck through, indicating it had been claimed. I wrote to the mods to discover someone had claimed it by e-mail!
My author immediately had the idea of crossing over SPN with an Ursula Le Guin story called "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." She asked if it would be cool if that was the direction she took, I went and read and story, and said by all means, go for it. Le Guin has been a major influence on me as a writer from the time I read the Earthsea Trilogy in high school--I cannot more highly recommend it if you haven't read it. It's like a series of novels written as poetry, particularly the first one.
"Omelas" is free to read online, and though it's certainly an intriguing concept, the best part of it to me is that it's yet another class from that gift to the world that was Le Guin in how to write, a demonstration of her unparalleled skill. She breaks every rule of "good writing" in that story, yet somehow every time she does, it works perfectly. Some parts of the fic are direct quotes from the short story.
My author sent me the first few sections of the story, and as I tried to come up with an idea for another piece, soon another idea gripped me that I couldn't shake: tall Sam, a taller lighthouse stretching up before him both forbidding and maybe, just maybe, emancipatory, surrounded by grassy sand that's at once beautiful and serene and also like the endless desert he seems to be trying to cross in the story before he finds it, bleaching sunlight to contrast with the creepy but to-him-probably comforting darkness of the first piece.
Again, the hardest part (especially for this one, since I didn't have to paint any faces) was finding reference pictures. It's ridiculously hard to find a picture of Sam from the back! Or any guy from the back! Except a few bodybuilders flexing, and I was looking for a skinny young Sam. So I finally made do with a picture of him from the front so I could try to get his proportions and the slope of his shoulders right, and my knowledge of anatomy. (His waist sits lower on his body than one might think!)
I love the way the second picture uses the same palette as the first, but hopefully gives off exactly the opposite vibe (except maybe also creepy): bright day as opposed to dark night, pastels as opposed to deep dark blues and purples, light in excess rather than this one flame Sam nurtures into being, everything else light while Sam is dark.
For me, the art was all about the lighthouse. I loved envisioning Sam in there, lonely but safe. My original prompt was "Dressed in rags and all alone, Sam lights a lighthouse flame. He may have always been here, doing this. Behind him on the sea, a small boat approaches." My author took it quite a different direction, but in my mind, the story my art tells is of Sam tending a lighthouse alone for a very long time, and finally someone coming to find him and bring him comfort and solace. Maybe they all even go on living there together! Lighthouses are so cool.
So that's that! Thanks to my author for turning me on to a new Le Guin piece I'd never heard of before! You were nice to work with, and a very talented writer. You can check out her fic here.
It was really cool to finally participate in fandom as an artist! I always admired the artists from afar. They seemed almost untouchable. Now I see we're all the same, writers, artists, everyone.
I hope you liked the art!
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Anyhow, I'm glad you had so much fun with this one - we certainly got rewarded for your efforts with all this bonus art. Your author must have been delighted!
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Ah, you're so sweet! Glad you enjoyed the extra art. <3 It was good to have an excuse to paint! I always get nervous because faces are so hard, that I don't end up painting as much as I'd like to.
Thanks for commenting, and being such a great mod.
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I learned more about what different kinds of boats are called than I ever really wanted to
omw artist/writer life, amiright??
Amazing work on these!!
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Lol, YES, artist/writer life!
Thanks for your kind words and nice comment. <3
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I love all the purple, it really was an excellent happy accident that you had to improvise with colours :-p I can't stop staring at that loooong neckline, nom. Good job on the background with the lighthouse windows truely surrounding Sam and offering a very cool view; the boat turned out great! (did you first tape the shapes of the windows to keep them white? Either way, I really like the bits of paint bleeding on the edges, it makes it more dynamic) I also like how you visualized the light on Sam's face.
The second piece does definitely feel connected to the first, the opposite bits make it an interesting set (outside vs inside / dark vs light). I love lighthouses too! (I played with one in an SPN BigBang once)
Last but not least kudos for adding an insight in your proces, including how you connected to your author. It was very nice to read about all the things you learned along the way:)
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I'd love to see the lighthouse you painted (if it'd be handy for you to get a link)!
You're so sweet. Thanks for another great comment. I'm glad we've become acquainted through this exchange! I just added you as a friend here; hope that's cool.
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Well, you've already found some of my art so it will not come as a surprise that I didn't paint a lighthouse; I made it out of paper! It's quite a massive artpost with a Making Of: you can find it on both my LiveJournal and Dreamwidth.
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Thanks, bb!