The Long Journey Down the Yoohoo River.
It seems like I've been working on this piece for years because... well, I have.
It all started with a silly sketch done in brush-pen about a favorite beverage of mine. It was offbeat and surreal, the type of thing you can only come up with when you are extremely sleep deprived and your subconscious takes over. I don't remember ever sitting down and planning this, but I knew I loved it from the start.
Sadly, I moved to another state less than a month later and the sketch was shelved, and then lost. (at least for a while, anyway)
So, I inked it digitally, and was very pleased with the results I might add. Now, it was time to add color.
Which produced this version above that I've stayed with well over a year now. I was very happy with it and still am, but something about it didn't seem quite right. I never liked it as much as I did the very first sketch.
So this week I hit the old drawing board yet again to give it more character. I completely recolored it and revised the inking a bit. I like the worn look of it and the faded aspects, but still wasn't quite satisfied.
The character and the cat, seemed to get lost somehow and the sense of a long journey was not communicating clearly.
I made a difficult decision to start cutting out a majority of my hard work, erasing the background, including some terrifically stupid looking unicorns.
And it worked. That sense of the original brush-pen drawing returned with this version. All the negative white space really conveys a sense of isolation and distance, while the birds in the background and the wave swirls suggest surrounding.
Best of all, the guy and the companionship of his loyal friend Skelly read loud and clear. I may have taken almost five years, but I couldn't be happier with this version.
I hope you enjoyed this inside peek into my artistic process. Thanks for reading, Scofflaws!
-Dave
