#gemleo

okay first i need to say that this took around 49 hours to finish which honestly is less time than i figured it would take! this drawing felt (and still does honestly) like it would be such a big undertaking and part of me was worried that i wouldn't be able to finish it in time or to my liking. BUT I DID!!! ^-^

the idea i went with for this drawing was a moon big apocalypse movie of sorts :D i did intend initially to draw a big moon but i ended up not laying out the drawing for that. but i did try to allude to it with the graffiti of the big red moon in each of the sections! and fun fact; i didn't plan on doing that, it was just an in the moment thing hehe.

and the order of the sections was intentional! martyn and ren out in the wilderness on top (this was the section i planned on having the moon visible), followed by false gem and cleo in the abandoned city (i had debated including the moon here too but concluded it wouldn't be very readable at the scale so no moon here), and then etho and xisuma in the tunnels of the subway! in my mind its like the journey to "safety" of sorts :)

and the backgrounds!! they were such a trust the process thing lmaoooo I spent a lot of time painting over the same things multiple times to help achieve the atmosphere and look i was hoping for. and i tried having no lineart for the backgrounds so that i wouldn't be as worried about having everything so perfect and i think that played out really well :D i especially love it for the subway part!!

and the graffiti!! i had a LOT of fun playing around with it a lot hehe especially with the subway. i love the lil drippy look i got so it looks a lot more like it was spray painted on! and i feel like i did an alright job at getting the graffiti to look like its actually on the buildings and the trains! and on the right building partially behind the overgrowth i snuck in Emporic Rain (Soulside Eclipse song)! that was more of a last minute easter egg but i thought it was fun and fitting ^-^

and the graffiti down in the subway i found both more tricky but also easier. tricky in that i didn't really have an ideas for creative graffiti, especially that i could do at the scale needed in the space i had. but easier in that i could just slap some colours together at the end and it would look good and make sense why you can't tell what it is. so i did a mix of the slapping colours on the trains and writing some more drippy words! and i snuck another Soulside Eclipse song that i have used in the previous art (Black Hordes Rising) which i was SO HAPPY i was able to fit!!

anyway i think that's it for my rambling hehe ^-^ here are the closeups!!