305: Black Sun, Blood Moon

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Dear Patrons,

I'm afraid I'm having to do the same scheduling as last month with one more update following this and hopefully another, time willing. If I am to have 2 updates, rest assured that these will be packed with more art than usual but I will try to avoid that as much as I can to keep things balanced.

As the title suggests, those familiar with my site will know that I like to stay in touch with occasional celestial events and dates and part of my wish was to release this update during the Blood Moon Full Moon Eclipse event last week. However, due to some unforeseen circumstances, I've had to push things ahead. But since we're not going to see another eclipse for another decade or so, I'd might as well release it anyway. And as for the term, "blood moon" can also serve as a double entendre and those who have access to the newsletter mailing list could probably reason out why *wink wink*.

Here, we feature heavily the ongoing project called DOOMED RAIDER as we return to the story following our intrepid adventuress as we fill in more gaps in this story and have completed more works in its final form. We also have more of a look of our villains of the tale, remnants of the cultists who worship the old religion of the Aztecs.

And with that, on to the show! Bon appétit.

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. 

I. DOOMED RAIDER: BLACK SUN, BLOOD MOON

A new sacrifice arrives during the black sun event for Huītzilōpōchtli at the heart of darkness, in the lands of the Aztecs. And the Old Gods live again.

Image 1: (1 complete colored artwork)

The "Blood Moon" event that I was alluding to... the final piece of the mockery of the sacrifice that the ancient Aztecs were known to perform on their victims as an act of absolute terror and control over their subjugates.

Image 2: (1 finished colored artwork)

Here's a bit of an art lesson that I sometimes have to teach myself and allow me to open a window to the back-stage, the working process. I think it might be educational for those who are interested in being artists themselves. When more and more content have been using AI, I hope to fly the lone flame and try to inculcate the long lost skill of traditionally done drawings by hand.

First off, as I was working on the shading, I was a little none too happy with the outcome. It did feel "overcooked". I should have saved those versions but in my frustration, I had thrown them into the bin. This was the only version I had saved during the process, but safe to say, I had zoomed in a little too much as I worked on the smaller areas and ignoring the composition as a whole. That's one lesson, other than lighting, is to step back and look at the piece as an entire composition if they are harmonious. Foreground to the background, with consistent lighting throughout.

So here I went back to the drawing board and started the shading from scratch while also attempting to keep things simpler. I had lightened the shading, not put too much contrast to them at first to give it a gentler look.

Then once I like what I see in monotone, I begin to fill in the colors.

This piece is somewhat almost complete. I just had to add a little more contrast to the final piece of which the end results is the one you saw at the beginning. In the end, I could probably do more to the lighting, perhaps even add more elements to the background, like the feasting diners picking apart other parts of the body. But I have lingered on enough on just this one piece. I have other pieces to do!

Image 3-6 (4 works in progress of a similar scene)

These are the feasting diners I had mentioned earlier and had thought of inserting into the piece before I decided to turn them into separate elements. I may still yet find a way to combine them later, perhaps as a montage when the full project is complete as a graphic novel. Here you can see some of my working progress.

Image 7+8: (2 colored works in progress of a similar scene)

Image 9+10: (2 works in progress of a similar scene)

Image 11-13: (3 black & white sketched works in progress of a similar scene)

II. LAST DAYS OF WINTER

We return to more scenes, filling the gaps again from one of my favorite stories, the one I would say I had put the most process hours into, THE LAST DAYS OF WINTER. The first is of a scene where the quarry is hoisted up before the slaughter. And the second is a more complete version of a previous rough sketch of the carcass post-disembowelment and opened up to reveal the hollow carcass, the offal, and the recognizable extremities that of the hands and feet in a container.

Image 14+15: (2 works in progress of 2 scenes)