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Commissioned art!
I celebrated completing the draft of Deadwater back in January by commissioning art from Adam Barker (![[twitter.com profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
Satans_Masque; Adam Barker on Artstation; ![[instagram.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/profile_icons/instagram.png)
adambarkerart)
Click here for a larger version
If it's too dark to see much, your monitor isn't calibrated correctly. :) I do empathize: my work monitors are cheap and cannot be calibrated properly so it's a bit muddy, but the image is GLORIOUS on my home monitor which is very much not cheap because I do art there. If you're stuck with a terrible monitor, I used Photoshop to crank the brightness up so you can see the details, at the expense of pretty much everything else in the image. XD
Anyway! If you care about the process of commissioning and what I asked for, and what he suggested, read on!
With a bit of discussion between us, we settled on illustrating a scene from Deadfall, where Calli and Burn sit in an inn. The actual scene is the final paragraph, but the rest sets it up.
I blathered at him about Caravaggio, chiarascuro, and my favorite genre of "Dramatically Lit People Sitting Around Tables in Early Modern Europe," and dumped a giant list of reference links on him, which he took in stride. I'd mentioned drawing the viewer into the picture by setting it up as if you were the one talking to them, and he took that idea and, inspired by the first-person drawings of Kim Jung Gi (kimjunggius), took it a step farther and incorporated the hands of the local that Calli and Burn are talking to.
He kept me appraised of the various steps, and would show me concept sketches, character designs and color studies, having me pick from various options, and we ended up with what you see. :)
I am thrilled with the end result, and would recommend Adam Barker for any commission work you want done. :)
adambarkerart)Click here for a larger version
If it's too dark to see much, your monitor isn't calibrated correctly. :) I do empathize: my work monitors are cheap and cannot be calibrated properly so it's a bit muddy, but the image is GLORIOUS on my home monitor which is very much not cheap because I do art there. If you're stuck with a terrible monitor, I used Photoshop to crank the brightness up so you can see the details, at the expense of pretty much everything else in the image. XD
Anyway! If you care about the process of commissioning and what I asked for, and what he suggested, read on!
With a bit of discussion between us, we settled on illustrating a scene from Deadfall, where Calli and Burn sit in an inn. The actual scene is the final paragraph, but the rest sets it up.
The room [in the village inn] was tiny. One small bed, a rickety chair, and a small table with a wash basin filled it. Burn stacked her bag and letter-box in the free corner.
“Let’s confer with Davanage on our next steps.” Calli retrieved the map case from her bag.
Davanage opened his door at Burn’s knock, clearly irritated that it had taken so long to get his bags, but his vexed expression turned to a smile as he greeted Calli.
“I take it you have a plan, Calli?”
His room was, if not spacious, larger than hers with a bed large enough for two and a table with two chairs. Calli unrolled the map on the large table in Davanage’s room. He sat down and examined it while Burn stood to the side, looking on.
“Lord Balessa gifted me with this map of his estate. A number of ruins are marked on it, although I suspect it may not be complete. I intend to visit each ruin and survey it with an artifact I have that detects concentrations of esoteric energies.”
“Where are we starting?”
“I don’t know yet. I had planned to ask the locals about stories associated with ruins, since I have seen that accounts of hauntings and other uncanny experiences correspond with locations where the ancients stored or manipulated esoteric energies. I shall rank them by how strong the experiences seem to be, and we can visit them in that order. If none of them work out, at that time we can worry about which order to visit the others.”
“An interesting idea, my dear.”
Villagers trickled into the inn after their evening meals, curious about the newcomers. The innkeeper’s wife, Zolette, produced a quite acceptable egg and cheese pie, along with bread, sausage, and sour wine flavored with herbs. Citing fatigue from travel, Davanage ate quickly and retired to his room.
Calli sat on the inn’s one non-wobbly chair at a rough table, notebook and map spread out in front of her, asking each person who looked her way for local stories. She collected a number of accounts of apparitions, animals behaving strangely, and other phenomena. Sometimes she found understanding the local peasant dialect difficult, but Burn eventually moved to her table and translated as she asked questions about each story and the landscape and pinpointed where she thought the location was on the map.
I blathered at him about Caravaggio, chiarascuro, and my favorite genre of "Dramatically Lit People Sitting Around Tables in Early Modern Europe," and dumped a giant list of reference links on him, which he took in stride. I'd mentioned drawing the viewer into the picture by setting it up as if you were the one talking to them, and he took that idea and, inspired by the first-person drawings of Kim Jung Gi (
kimjunggius), took it a step farther and incorporated the hands of the local that Calli and Burn are talking to.He kept me appraised of the various steps, and would show me concept sketches, character designs and color studies, having me pick from various options, and we ended up with what you see. :)
I am thrilled with the end result, and would recommend Adam Barker for any commission work you want done. :)
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