Hand Painted Zine, Part 8 (dubious reflection)
Have you ever finished something and felt disappointed about it right away?
This happens to me so often I've come to expect it. It feels like part of the process by now. Every time I finish something i need to let it rest, let myself rest, so I can distance myself enough from it to be able to appreciate it.
Sometimes it happens overnight and sometimes it takes much longer. Though, I have to admit that with this month's drawing I'm still waiting. I mean, I'm ok with starting over and trying again, that's also part of the process.
I wanted to make another isometric castle, similar to the one on the February update but with it's image reflected on a body of water.
Something like this:
I used the same technique I explained here of using progressively smaller isometric grids to draw the shapes. (Pro tip: make the grids evenly divisible by 2, in this case i used grids that were 112, 56 and 28 pixels, that way lines will match as the grid get's smaller).
I wanted the reflection to be similar but not quite the same, and the the castle to continue unbroken past the water line to disrupt the sense of perspective and, you know, because reflections can be sneaky little liars:
I drew the castle and its distorted reflection, and I can see now, in retrospective, that I filled the page too much and didn't give it space to breathe.
For the water I sketched some stylized ripples that weave in and out of the castle columns:
And i Added some curvy blobs -smoke or ghosts or clouds- to break up all the straight lines:
Then the smoke blobs turned into characters with silly faces and I added some Lunar Blue on the horizontal surfaces to give it some texture:
It's ok...
I like the ideas but I think I got lost in the implementation. The ripples are fun but there is something a bit too flat about the water perspective, and the whole thing could be less crowded. Anyway, I think it would benefit from a remake.
Other Updates:
The health of one our cats has been declining over the last few months. At 14 years he's fairly old by cat standards, but it is still sad and difficult to see this dear animal friend go through that unavoidable process.
I've been trying to be present and experience it all, and perhaps, in some way, even honor his company. I guess that's why I started drawing these 4 panel journal/poem comics. They are kind of raw and unfiltered but some friends have found them touching so I'm also sharing them with you:
The cat in question:
Thank you.