The image is a little spooky, isn???t it? For me, I???m so excited with how it turned out!??
There were many ways to go about this prompt, such as I could have gone the horror route, the evil route, the literal route of playing with lighting. As fun as those ideas can be on a good day they still felt a little too cliche for me, and I don???t think it would have done me any good mentally to make an emotionally dark illustration. One thing that piqued my interest while brainstorming was being in the dark in relation to not understanding or having a lack of knowledge. After reading that I jumped right on the creative train and started sketching because it was something that resonated so well to me, especially regarding my own family.??
I???m not sure what other family dynamics are like but for my own, I???m the youngest in my immediate family and in most situations and especially in the past my family took the phrase ???do not put stress on the baby??? quite seriously. Anytime something was going between relatives or there was planning for certain events I was either the last one to figure out or I would only discover everything years after the fact. It took me years of my own probing and listening in to know what was going on behind the scenes. It doesn???t help me one bit that there is also a language barrier to overcome.
Going off of that concept, while we were young we remain blissfully ignorant with everything going on around us. We don???t know until years later that there was beef between relatives, that there was a reason why your mom???s brother don???t talk, and that there are unspoken rules not to bring up certain subjects during thanksgiving dinner. In a way, we remain in the dark to the theoretical darkness around us until our older relatives deem us old enough to know the tea.??
Instead of depicting actual adults in the illustration, I drew monstrous blobs instead because I had to admit, drawing sad adults arguing around a young child was just a little too much for me. Besides as a child, all we can remember are these monstrous forms. They don???t start taking their true form until we???re much older and we can see things for what they truly are.??
This illustration was done all in those Faber-Castell pens, I wanted to try mimicking the hatching techniques I???ve seen in several mangas so far, and I got to pat myself on the back one more time, this came out exactly as I intended it too!??
Anyway, that???s all for now!??
Also, enjoy a short video of the process! It???s not the entire thing but it???s a type of content I???ve been wanting to try for a while now!
*I do not own the music, I got it from bensound.com! Bless royalty-free music!