This Saturday!!!

FALLCON is a mere few days away and I couldn't be more excited. Though this year comes with a bit of sadness since the passing of Dominic Postiglione. The work he's done over the years and impact he's made on our comics community has been vast and so greatly appreciated. Conventions have never been my cup of tea, but I started attending Fallcon and Springcon back in 2006 and was amazed at how welcome, and valued I felt by Nick, and the experience provided by the efforts of the entire MCBA. I entered feeling like a nobody. Someone with no business taking up table space. I left, not just having enjoyed a convention for the first time, but with a deep sense of gratitude and loyalty towards Nick and the MCBA. With that in mind I can't wait to see everyone on Saturday. 

Third time's the charm

The background got rebuilt for a third time tonight and it seems we have our winner. Now the decision is between the originally colored illustration or a slightly desaturated version. It's times like this that being able to trust my eyes would come in handy.

Clean up / Background rebuild

The realization came to late that the dimensions of the original wouldn't fit on a number of different formats, and the background was at a place where it couldn't simply be stretched out and still look right. So a new background was built with a new approach, the previous having been forgotten, and based on the premise of including the cloud which didn't look right on the first run. Still tweaking the intensity/ brightness/ darkness of the new background.

In addition, there was still a lot of clean up to do. Specifically, a tiny white halo that runs tightly around all the black lines from the original scanned image.

As usual this was being done ever so carefully with the eraser tool. A Pain to be sure. Then inspiration, and the feeling of stupidity that sometimes accompanies it, that the lasso tool would allow a tighter selection while better preserving the original lines, as well as being faster and more efficient.

Last but not least, it seemed like it would be cool to include a shot of all the layers that are going in to making this what it is. Whatever it may be.

Still unsure on the background. And once that's all squared away the main part of the illustration needs to be centered, but confidence abounds that this is now a day, maybe two, from completion.  

Trying to add some clouds

Closer still

I am (not) Groot.

Mapped out and inked some roots to add on to the surrealism piece. 

Went ahead and added them onto the illustration as well as laid in the color flats. Slowly but surely it's coming together and, so far, I'm somewhat pleased.