Every once in a while i have the urge to talk about the process of my artpieces. In this blog post i will talk about my newest image called Into Valac's Realm. My goal is to teach, inspire and simply guide those interested into my process as an artist.
The image is made as a part of a series, with an emphasis on the Indo Scythians/Biblical Lost Tribes, which delves into their tales of war, heroism and falling from grace through occultism.
Into Valac's Realm
The Goetic Memoires describe lands parallel to ours in ancient Arabia
that is home to Valac, the Marquis of Snakes. Those daring to travel the
lands bringing offerings and sacrifices can expect to be thaught the
powers to find treasures and transmute simple minerals to the purest of
gold, creating a pilgrimage for alchemists, magi and adventurers alike.
1. Oxen, by Sebastiao Salgado.
When i saw Sebastiao's photography at his exhibition ''Genesis'', i liked everything about it. The atmosphere, nature and the in depth traversing into the lives of various african Tribes. Various of his imagery have been a major inspiration to my latest art pieces, and also this one below.
Inspiration:
1. Oxen, by Sebastiao Salgado.
When i saw Sebastiao's photography at his exhibition ''Genesis'', i liked everything about it. The atmosphere, nature and the in depth traversing into the lives of various african Tribes. Various of his imagery have been a major inspiration to my latest art pieces, and also this one below.
2. The Hamaxobii Scythians
I always like to do my research on the history of various outlandish tribes around the world. Thats where i stumbled upon the Hamaxobii Scythians. Descendant of the Persian Medes who, instead of other Scythians being horselords, they traveled and lived in their tents, pulled by Oxen. This proved to be a major selling point of the painting.
3. Medes and Scythians
After doing a bit more research on the Hamaxobii, i learned they were descendants of the Medes, who were a persian people, and Scythians (who were a mix of various people in the middle east, caucasus and levant). So i did some research on key elements of fashion from that time, and i found various elements that triggered my interest. One is the Mede gown, which had an interesting fold pattern, and the other being the Archetypical Scythian hat, staff and boots, which i applied to the painting later on.
Process
Stage 1: Block-in and finding a narrative
This is the stage where i attempted to blockin the comp and narrative. I still wasn't sure what the story would be about and i let myself be carried away by the placement of the objects.
Stage 2: The Magus and the Worm
This is the stage where the image would have been leaning towards a magus with his entourage delving into a Lovecraftian Landscape after hearing a calling (hence the magus influencing the tentacles/worms), something i ditched for the most part due to conflicting narrative elements.
Stage 3: Reference for character + Polish
This is the stage where i applied reference shot for the character (Cheers Jesse!) I attempted to replicate the foldings of the Mede Robe shown earlier with clippers. Furthermore i recommend using the Auto Tone function once in a while to get some color contrast fixing in your image. (The image was mostly brown first, but right now it has blue on the light parts and red on the shadows.)
Stage 4: Almost finished the image. Not!
As i almost finished the image and showed it around, most people told me the same thing: The aesthetics work, but the narrative doesn't resonate. Mostly due to the following reasons;
The man, the cart and the oxen don't interact with their surroundings. They just walk like nothing happens and the tent on the cart doesn't tell a specific story. I had to push deeper. The tentacles don't seem to be adding movement or narrative to the image.
It seemed like i still had alot of work to do after all!
Stage 5: Lambs to the Slaughter
I
decided that the image is about a Magus bringing human sacrifices to a
Lovecraftian Entity. I changed the tent/cart to hold human prisoners and
the oxen to be more afraid of the tentacles.