this must be the void

Day 3: Catholic Guilt // @spamano-week

This is just a little out of order but the idea came to me at night!

Painting used for this reference is "Three Musicians" by Diego Velazquez from 1618! Although my reference is just a bit cropped and the figures closer together so they could look at each other! And the instrument is sized wrong but I was working rather quickly and decided it was good enough lol

I’m in the @hetalia-20-anniversary-zine that was hosted by @lyresbird. Here’s my contribution:

I absolutely Had to draw Italy and Romano dancing. It was not a choice. I was originally thinking about trying to make their poses match a traditional Italian dance, like Tarantella, but I also wanted to invoke a sense of longing vs. determination. So, their poses don’t reflect any specific dance. I still realllly tried to convey movement in their poses.

You can see Longing vs Determination I mentioned in their faces. Italy looks somberly downward, thinking about the past and longing for people he’s known, Romano is looking up confidently. I also made where they’re facing reflect this. As Italy faces the darkening sky, Romano is facing the sun.

now the background. It took me YEARS to do the background. My hands withered into dust because I had to include actual buildings from Italy, and I couldn’t let myself trace the photos, that’d be too easy.

Behind Italy is St. Marks square in Venice

And behind Romano is Piazza Venezia in Rome

I was inspired by the older fanworks I’d seen of countries standing infront of national landmarks. I wish there were more of them, so I added one more.