The Dark Tower:
"There Are Other Worlds Than These."
This was a commission of sorts. A friend of mine is a HUGE "The Dark Tower" fan and wanted me to do a painting of the Tower. I've read "The Dark Tower" and was a fan of the series.
Being a sucker for alternate universe stories, I happened to mention the line "There are other worlds than these", one of the lines from "The Gunslinger" which always stuck with me (and, in the context of the story, was a bit of a cheat, IMHO). That turned out to be her favorite line in the whole series--so that nailed down the theme right away.
I went with a more graphical image for "The Dark Tower", rather than something more literal; she was super-please with it, while I'm slightly more ambivalent. I'm not sure if I will do more with this or not. I am half-tempted to go go further with it and do it up as a giant, digital print. Then again, maybe in an other world.
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STEP ONE: The pencils were done digitally in Clip Studio Paint EX using the Symmetry Tool. I found a reference to groups of roses and drew it freehand from there. And, I admit to cheating a little bit by typing out the lettering in non-photo blue and then inking over it. (Yeah, I still **HATE** lettering... :-)
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STEP TWO: I printed out the digital drawing in non-photo blue. I used painter's tape to keep the sharp edge for the banner across the upper-half of the drawing; it did a remarkable job of keeping a sharp edge when I inked/watercolored over top of it.
I did a layer of Cadmium Red for the roses, and a mixture of light-red near to the tower. I then used a mixture of the Cadmium Red, Ultramarine, and Burnt Umber to paint the lines for the roses, thinning it out with water to make it lighter. I painted the watercolor/gouache over the Dark Tower inks. And, decided to leave Roland in white silhouette, with a slight nod to the doorways in "The Drawing of the Three".
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Done with digital pencils and ink with watercolor/gouache on 8" x 10" Arches Hot-Press paper.
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Holy man those roses must have taken forever! Sure was worth it though as they turned out awesome! Really great layout too...i could easily picture that as a promo poster or graphic novel cover. Fantastic work!
ReplyDeleteYo yo yo Todd! :-)
DeleteThanks for the kind words as always! As it happens, drawing the roses was more difficult than painting them (although, the Symmetry Tool really helped out with that). Painting them was just a matter of sitting down and doing it.
As for the poster... I am of two minds. Part of me wants to go for it and do it up as a poster/digital print. But, there is already so much on my plate at the moment. Sigh...
Latah!