Whew, it's been a while but I'm here to give an update on Power-Con and the importance of backgrounds.
I've always struggled when it comes to backgrounds. Matter of fact I'm struggling with that now when it comes to the prints for Power-Con.
It's very important to give your character a place to live or to establish a setting. Without doing so your character may as well just be floating in space. When doing multiple pieces you can establish that all your characters belong in the same universe by using similar colors. Backgrounds can also take your character out of the setting or even make your piece fall flat if they look like they do not belong there.
One of the goals when it comes to my Power-Con prints was to establish a rich looking world that all the characters exist and one that looks really lived in. It was hard for me to find inspiration even though I had an idea of what I was looking for. It's easy to make a picture and say "Oh, these characters are outside of Castle Grayskull / Snake Mountain" but it's harder to design a more lived in world outside of that area. Since I'm creating a world of Eternia what does that world look like?
So let me show you an example.
This is Tyrantisaurus Rex. The setting was Pre Eternia with Viper Tower in the background. It looks very flat. Granted it is still a work in progress but it looks like it isn't very well lived in. He is very centered and stands out but while still not rendered it's very empty. The idea was to have trees, vines, and give a prehistoric look to this piece, yet still look like he is guarding the ancient tower.
So I've taken this piece back to the drawing board to give him a new world to live in.
Now we are getting more into the world I imagined. Tyrantisaurus Rex isn't in the foreground anymore because he is behind a tree and a rock. Both are covered in moss which help show age of the tree and of course the overgrowth on the rock, trees that will be in the background.
So I thought I'd take a few minutes to talk about the importance of backgrounds and in the case also foregrounds.
Environment can be kind of hard to come up with and it's important to use refference for inspiration and visuals. For me I didn't know where to start to build the world. Pictures for reference weren't enough so I sought out speed painting videos.
I hope this has given you some insight on some of the progress and struggles to get this piece out there.
Thank you for your patience in this lengthy blog post.
Now, on to Power-Con. I have had high hopes for Power-Con in getting a variety of products out. Some were going to be very costly and a huge gamble for the convention. I am still committed to those items so when the store is up and full I will offer them here. The number one item was hard enamel pins. There was a variety of designs but most importantly they were all sigils for all the factions of Masters of the Universe. So I'm talking Castle Grayskull, Snake Mountain, the Horde symbol, Snakemen Symbol, the Crystal Castle, and one very special one, the
Ghost of Grayskull which I wanted to actually glow in the dark. Because there was to be a pin collection I was having "Illustrations By Pat" lanyards made up to proudly wear them on. Those lanyards will still be available. Something else I wanted to look into was making the black arm bands for the Horde available. (Yes, we will grow out own Horde army.) Just a lot of fun stuff and wearables for Power-Con.
If anyone here has been following my on Instagram then you might be familiar with the Mega-Beast project. I've slacked off on it for a few weeks but it's time to get back to work on it. I have more to add to it but it's time to start working on the large scale version.
I know this has been a long one. Thank you if you made it this far. Power-Con is coming up fast. We're 100 days away and it's going to go fast. Now, back to work.