I Made a Fetus

SCAD had several magical snow days this past week, so I took some time to understand more about twitter and the illustration presence there. I made sure to follow some cool art directors, illustrators,  and illustration societies so I could stay in-the-know about competitions, annuals, gallery openings, and other such events. I happened upon a tweet by Jon Schindehette that led me to his post on the Art Order. Mr. Shindehette's plan is to have a booth displaying hundreds of 3x3 paintings at Spectrum Fantastic Art Live as an inexpensive way for artists to show their work without paying the hefty booth price. My reaction was "omygoodnessyes!". I had been crossing my fingers with the Rising Star Competition on Muddy Colors, but knew that it was a long shot. "Tiny Pleasures" on the other hand offers me a pretty good chance.

So I made a fetus:

I thought doing a gryphon fetus would make for an interesting painting. As it turns out, a gryphon fetus could arguably span both sci fi and fantasy genres, which is good for my audience in question.

I am using this little guy for lighting reference. In the last image, you will see I put a bright light behind him to get that translucent womb-y atmosphere.

This is the quick study based off of my photos as well as several photos of chicken and cat fetuses.

I don't know why I did such a dark first layer of acrylic paint. That pretty much disappears in the second layer. It took me a while to figure out how to mix the paint correctly. I was leaving red out of my palette for some reason early on, but quickly learned that I very much needed a high saturation of red in the translucent areas. Two steps forward, one step back.

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. I used my acrylic retardant in some areas like a glaze, which the bottle says I shouldn't do... I think I will go back to Dick Blick and buy some glazing medium. To be continued!