Death by Astonishment - Digital Painting Process

Greetings Steemians!

Today I want to share with all of you a little bit of my creative process.

From my inspirations, to the conjuring of the image.

First, I begin with a thumbnail. This is meant to sloppy, and get the idea across quickly to the viewer, so I focus on strong sihlouettes, and put some thought into how I want my composition to work. Composition is what guides the viewers eye across the image, and traps it there, a little visual thinking will take you a long way!

The concept for this piece began with a young initiate, being taught the ways of astral projection. This ancient stone statue, a standing stone of mind expansion, the viewer need only touch it to experience.

Now its quite common to begin a drawing with one idea, and for it to slowly warp and mold into something much more. Which is what happened here for me. I decided I would shift the focus of the piece, twisting the statue, into a primordial representative of the mycelial net that grew this planet.

I was listening to several Terrence McKenna talks at the time, and he has always been a huge inspiration for my art, and artistic process. McKenna was a prominent figure of the Psychedelic revolution of the 60's. His talks regarding the psychedelic experience, shamanism, and what it means to live on this planet, radically transformed the way I look at the world.

His talk on the most powerful psychedelic compound, DMT(Dimethlytriptamine), was the main inspiration for this piece.

Multiple nodes, across thousands of miles, spilled cakes and cakes of mushroom, which eventually turned to stone, effectively terraforming the planet. These nodes, still standing, can be accessed by an initiate of strong will. These nodes however, will test you. You will begin to experience strong hallucinations, reminiscent of a powerful mushroom trip, as you draw near the transcendental mass. The elders tell each initiate, "be wary, for the only death that beckons you on your journey, is death by astonishment."

So from here I have laid out a basic value map, as well as fleshed out the composition. Though at this point I still felt the composition was lacking somewhat. The image below, is when things begin to take major shape. I've found the mood I'm looking for, and found my limited value map to work somewhat. I use only three values for a lot of my images. As it allows me to think only about strong readable silhouettes and forms.

Heres a basic breakdown of the composition. The eye starts at the moon, is wrapped to the focal point, the initiate and myciel overlord, which acts as a stopper for the eye. From there the slope of the stone slab wraps us back to the stones, which brings us back again to the planets, which starts the process over again.

Now that I have the composition down, I can worry about stylistic choices, as well as developing the scene more. I flesh out the initiate, the mushroom, and the surrounding environment + planets. I also make it more clear to the viewer whats happening with the initiate. He is interfacing with the transcendental knowledge, and harnessing the power of this transcendental realm.

From here the process is mainly finished, and now alls that is left is deciding the palette, adding highlights, and effects to make the scene feel more alive. I use the color layer, as well as the overlay layers, to help choose a pallete. It allows you to freely play with different color schemes, and works very well if you have already taken the time to flesh out your values, like I have.

And thats it! We have our finished image. I found the mood I was looking for, something with an ancient, almost eldritch style feel, with the glistening green glow from the planets spilling into the scene. The fire of the initiate set alit, from the transcendental knowledge encountered with communion of this primordial being.

Thanks to everyone for reading this!
This is my second post here on steemit, and I've got a lot more to share.
If you're interested in my work, please feel free to follow me here on steemit, as well as twitter,tumblr, and instagram!