#melati

I thought I was cooked drawing this because I only gave myself 4 days to do so (including today), but surprisingly it took a day less than that. So this is probably my earliest birthday art LOL

AJ (guy in green) is Fish's player character for a Delta Green game I ran some years ago. When his band's concert blows up (literally), it kills 2 of his friends and puts a third, Dani, in a coma. He spends the next 10 years obsessing over the event, stuck in his grief, while working shady jobs to keep Dani on life support.

I've had the idea for this painting for nearly as long as this song/album has been out but just like my previous post, I've only had the time to draw it now. The song fits AJ, and I've always had the vision of golden-lit cracks tracing his scars (he eventually learns to live with his grief = mend his scars with something beautiful = kintsugi WHOAA no way). Also the cracks go through his friends' eyes because they're dead/comatose.

This painting is also meant to his reflection looking at one of those glass/window adverts you can still see through. I have no idea how glass reflectors work and this is my first time drawing them, so hopefully the idea's clear enough! I'm not too happy with the cracked glass part, but close enough. Here's what it looks like without it!

I also made the actual painting on one layer with one brush (the default pen brush) 🗿 idk how I was going to manage layers with the reflections, so I didn't lol. I'm kinda surprised I was able to pull that off. Here's what that looks like, ala 1 screenshot for almost every hour of work!