I know some of you saw a copy of this at IlluXcon, so here's an update. Centaur and I are still having some issues, but I think she's worth continuing. I began it in watercolor-- well, actually, I began it as a sculpture a long while back, as you can see from the photo!-- then mucked around in Photoshop for a bit to experiment with colors and placement, and I think I will try to paint the final piece in oil.
Actually I think it is best suited for a digital piece, but I'm still way short of being able to do everything I'd like to do in Photoshop.
One of the things I learned from doing this was that having a maquette was JUST as important as I thought it would be-- but, sadly, did not solve every single one of my problems!
Some of the specific problems were:
1) The texture problem. While I did paint the maquette mostly as I wanted it in the picture, so that I had a good reference, I didn't want it to look like a flatly painted pattern in the picture-- I wanted the horse's flanks to look like a luminous Earth against the backdrop of space. For this reason I tried for a higher-contrast realism on the human torso, but wanted to keep the horse part a little foggy. Talk about a challenge; I'm still working on it, especially where the legs turn into a starry pattern.
2) Foreground vs. Background. Another problem is keeping something painted in cool colors from receding into the background. Since Earth is, let's face it, mostly blue, I knew I wouldn't get out of using it, but for this reason I chose primarily blends of ultramarine, since it is at least a "warm" blue, and made sure to include some areas that were slightly greener (I would still like to saturate these areas a bit more.) Also to this end, I painted the background Very Dark, in the hopes that this would make the figure come forward as much as possible; I also kept as much red OR blue out of the background as possible, with the exception of indigo blue mixed with black for the Very Dark areas, instead relying on mixes and shades of ochre and brown. When necessary, I used Alizarin Crimson, which is at least a cool red rather than a warm red.
3) Allegory. I really wanted the allegory to come through that this is a depiction of Earth. That has been a challenge which I feel I still have not quite succeeded at. I think that whitening the clouds, giving it a stronger "halo", and a soft shadow in the darkest part of the flank will help with the immediate realization that this is Earth, but I'm still not sure that I'll be 100 percent satisfied.
4) Anatomy. Incorrect anatomy is often the first thing people notice in a picture, and a centaur is difficult to make convincingly proportionate. I did sculpt a maquette, but I have noticed that my maquette ain't perfect, either, so in the future I will be more careful about lengths of legs, where they bend into segments, etc. To complicate matters, the human part of my maquette was pretty much a "fail", so, despite my best efforts, I still ended up in front of a mirror, holding a broomstick like a javelin. I also still had to approximate how far back I thought a human torso would be tilted were it biologically attached to a half-rearing horse body. Which is really, at best, an unscientific kind of guess.
5) Too subtle... another thing I learned by attempting this composition is that it is risky to have something in the background which is important but not obvious, even though it is fun to paint something like that. The reason it's a questionable idea is that you run the risk of someone not seeing it at all... so, I'm going to try to make the monstrous hand (which is an allegory for atmospheric pollution), which is kinda just hovering there in the background, stand out more in the final piece, perhaps by using a bit more reflected light to separate its form from the Very Dark background.
Next steps:
1) Finish the draft to a reasonable level of satisfaction and detail
2) Transfer to canvas
3) Start painting!
Well, that's all for now! Happy Thursday and thanks for reading!
-Abby
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