A Picture of the Past (2014)

Entry for Rising-Artists's prompt challenge #8: "A Picture of the Past"
More info: rising-artists.deviantart.com/…


[edit] Won 2nd place: rising-artists.deviantart.com/… [/edit]

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The idea behind it:
This isn't one of the many ideas I had in mind when I first saw the theme. Been listening to Breaking Benjamin...a certain song (well, a certain word in a certain song) made me think of diaries. That lead me to recall novels using diaries to tell the story of a deceased character. And I thought, Perfect! A diary painting a picture of someone's life, their inner thoughts, the troubles of their time... So I decided a chest holding the belongings and diaries of someone would be a rich and personal picture of the past.

The drawing/editing:
My monitor decided to go bonkers by blinking between blank/grey/white/RGB-gradient and refuse to obey my will to fix it...so I'm not used to the current monitor I'm using ATM. Decided to go with ballpoint pen and cross-hatching instead of digital. Unfortunately, the ctrl+z habit made me mess up shading early on. Ahahahah... *sweatdrop* Anyway, didn't use any rulers/perspective cause I'm lazy. So if perspective's off, that's why. I cleaned up the scan a little cause the mystery blue smear was an unexpected surprise, but left mistakes alone. Did typical adjusting (gamma, sharpen.) Added aging color for better(?) atmosphere. Think that looks better than white. *nods head* The chest is suppose to have carving decals, but laziness prevailed. >_<

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Tumblr Link: meekochan-art.tumblr.com/post/…

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Date: January 2014
Drawn with black ballpoint pen on 60 lb. sketchbook paper.
Edited in Paint Shop Pro 8.
Reference used: None.
Time taken: About an hour for the drawing. Maybe 15 minutes editing.

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