Images May Morph
In keeping with the festive occasion,
I started this Halloween piece with an initial idea, but ended up with a more involved iteration. Thus this shows how a image can morph (when working on a personal piece).
Initially, it started as a strange sacrificial altar, however with further firmamation of various objects, ghouls, figures, lecterns, this has suggestion more of Charon's junkyard crossing the proverbial River of Styx.
Image Challenges
I liken each illustration as a new bespoke challenge, complete with seemingly straightforward challenges (that may turn out to be disastrous); appear ambitous but with lucky accidents, turn out rather well.
In this particular piece, the challenges I surmise would be:
- Low monochromic key - moonlit landscape tends to have a silvered diffuse lighting. Any coloured glow eg. lava can easily distract/draw attention for the viewer.
- Details - It is far easier to add key details to areas in shadow/relief. The drawback may result in overrendering of various areas.
- Heirachy of Values - large shapes in the composition work best when grouped. At best grouped no more than 3 in recession as a general rule.
- HOWEVER - far objects tend to get desaturated and lighter in atmosphere (daytime), but underwater/nighttime - far objects tend to get desaturated and meld into grey (nothing)
Extra Info: Book of the Dead
Its origins are perhaps quite interesting in that much of current day mythology and religion has strong Egyptian origins which centre on the Egyptian funery text: rw nw prt m hrw (popularised as the Book of the Dead)
The Egyptian afterlife was a dangerous place, whereby the soul in its afterlife had to endure, dodge, survive and fight to survive nefarious demons, monsters, gods and challenges.
If successful, you managed to survive to challenge the Halls of the Gods/Dead whereby a Book of the dead would be commissioned (Chapters 130–189) per family to allow you to have a Guidebook that coudl help you survive the Land of the dead so your soul may be judged by Osiris, and be weighed - hence the term light hearted/Heavy hearted.
