Author notes

Death and the Maiden

Ozoneocean

on Jan. 16, 2006

Important news!
-I have my first appearance in AACMAW : http://www.drunkduck.com/AACMAW/index.php ^_^

Page description:
Pinky is led inside a grim passageway by the anonymous sailor, on an alternative route to the rear deck to check on the S.S.V.5. There’re obvious smoke stains, some minor signs of fire, a bit of blood… but no real damage here. They’re just leaving poor sods like dead Boris in here while they make repairs. Boris seems to have lost most of his skin somehow? Some kind of instant flaying accident I suppose… >_<
It’s possible… explosions aren’t kind to living creatures. All icky and meaty!

Commentary:
Gold toothed dead Boris there would be looking up her skirt!
…If she had one! O_o
After doing the thumbnail sketch for this, I liked the image so much I turned it into a full pencil drawing. Later I did a coloured version in watercolour pencil. A version I made that was basically a digital amalgam of the watercolour and a background of a felid of skulls from an earlier work was used in a heavy metal music magazine. By the time it came to do the comic I redrew the image yet again, as it appears here.
The background was a bit tricky to formulate, but consisted of a lot of straight ruled lines and resized copy and pasted shapes I’d made for the middle of the passage. The colour was very simple; I just used a couple of gradients and then added only the most minimal colour over the top for the details and figures. The black smoke damage took a long time though –lots of simple repetitive scribbling. Finally I selected the arch at the end of the passage, feathered it a bit (for the blur) and made it pure white. The bits of Pinky most blocking the light were made darkest to highlight the contrast.
I’m very happy with the composition and the whole image, I even made a Café press T-shirt pic of it. ^_^

A note:
Click the “Main site” link for the latest work. I’m uploading one page a day with commentary and explanations here.