Transplanted Identity

Original deviation: Transplant
Submitted: March 27, 2008
Two hours



New version on right: Creation
Time... gods, hours? I've been working on it on and off for weeks. Since the contest began, I think.


My Kick Your Own @$$ entries

Entering:
1. All Digital Paintings, Drawings, Pixel Art, 3-Dimensional, Vectors, and Vexel images

Tools: ArtRage 2.5, tablet, SAME crappy computer

Concept: Both entries for a local annual contest, with a very similar theme each year (society/identity/etc) ... just worded differently. So I'm reworking the previous, and trying keep common starting points (the girl, hair colour, sunrise behind...)

To compare: the comments on the old version theme is 're:define' ie, yourself, youth, in society. If you think that's a pain to work from... it is.

Meh, this was... full of ideas, which often get in the way of the actual drawing - themes interfere with execution, with me.
Define... you define someone, and then you have to redefine them when you see how they look at a tiny flower.
People are defined by their surroundings, society, situation... their self definition alters when the environment changes... but often, they find a way to bring a protective microhabitat with them, buffering them.
Some of this is thinking of some wonderful people I know, and how their lives and world would change, and how fragile the new life is, and yet it grows until the shelter of the old soil is not needed (hopefully)...

While the new version:
Identity... well, you create yourself, but society creates the colours, but you can choose how to mix and apply them. She is still a work in progress and changing and adjusting and repainting. And what society gives you colours how you see the world around you, hence the background.
The canvases against the wall are all old pictures, most unfinished - some are seen here in my scraps
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and the blue one on the end is obviously part of Winter


Changes and Improvements:

Weeeelll.... did I mention they were both for the same yearly contest? The old version took 3rd place in 2008.
The NEW version took 1st! That is an improvement, to me

- again, much tidier, neater, finished looking (...the sketchy parts are meant to be that way)

- more interesting composition and themes, not just bog standard mythology life-nature-growth

- more ambitious

- much wider variety of tools and textures, from pencilling on the face, to thick metallic paint for the paint splatters. Also, different palette knives (hair!)

- a light palette, not my usual, but better able to work with it

- shadows and lighting. Ugh, the new version has a nearly dead on bright light from behind the viewer, and I discovered that this made it quite hard to indicate dimensions through shadows. The lighting is at least consistent, though.

- less confusion, mentally. The problem with themes like identity are that they are so FLIPPING BROAD and I try and include 'everything'.
Doesn't work.

- EYES, and no references on anything but the hands. She's painting herself, she's bound to get it a bit wrong but, now, the other one was very heavily referenced and I didn't dare try and paint eyes.

- nonorganic objects, not something I usually attempt (paintbrushes, jar, canvases, wall...)

an update
- and finallly... both were entered in the same annual NZ-wide contest, which was half the size last year as it was this year, with some absolutely incredible entries this year. Old? 3rd place. New? 1st!! Now THAT's an improvement

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