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Stepharuka β Live to Write a Symphony
Published: 2012-01-15 05:42:24 +0000 UTC; Views: 1670; Favourites: 91; Downloads: 0
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Description
Symphony is haunted by the shadow of Malady , a corruption of Melody and the patron saint of bad ideas. The eruption of bad ideas, artistic and musical, is unstoppable. Distraction seems inevitable. But the shame of having nothing to show for oneself is overwhelming.----
A few hours before midnight on December 31st, I began what was to be a piece of personal art that is something of a yearly tradition of mine. I decided to take greater care of detail in my creation of this piece: to set and manage a strictly limited color palette, to properly rule out perspective lines and keep the sense of space manageable, to make clear distinctions between lit and shadowed areas...
It took me longer than I expected (two extra weeks, with lots of procrastination between the hours spent working!) but I wanted to make sure that my first upload of the year was reasonably "epic". This is the largest and most effort-intensive artwork I've done; the original is at 6525x5175 but of course I'm not posting an image anywhere near that size.
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Comments: 19
i think it's really well done and the shading is pretty awesome!
i also dig the meaning and backstory behind it, as far as i can tell it!
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Love how you did the shading, the claws look great. Nice colors too
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I like the picture, right down to the details of the words on the floor. Very nice job.
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Both the concept and execution of this are excellant. The effort was well worth it!
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Glad you think so!
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I really like the concept and the atmosphere of this piece. I also for some reason love all the hands/paws/claws...they look very organic and real. I think it's the lighting and shadows that do the trick. Anyway, great job! It may have taken longer than you expected, but I think it was worth it.
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Whenever I see a comment from you, I always know I've done a good job
I actually expected to spend something in the ballpark of 8 hours total on a digital painting, but I kinda hoped they would be all at once (on New Year's Day!) instead of spread out over the course of two weeks. Oh well.
Man I'm glad you liked those particular details because they were a pain to get to show up at all. At least the hands and feet were all consistently facing in the same direction, so I could color them the same when I figured out one that looked goodβthose dorsal scales still look odd to me because I couldn't figure out a single way to shade all of them 
The day I figure out lighting to the point where I'm not constantly fixing my own noob mistakes will be a happy day indeed
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Heh, well, I think lighting is probably on every artist's bucket list of things to improve.
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Among everything else!
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This is MUCH more deserving of a daily deviation than most of the crap I've been seeing in the DDs lately... -.-
Very nice work! 
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Lolwut I've got a long way to go before I get to DD level
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No, no, no! This is awesome!
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This is beautifully done and the details and shadows are great work, love how you did this even if it took you a while to do so.
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I liked making something organized and detailed for once. Not making any promises yet, but I'm going to try to post at least one detailed painting a month. It should be much better for my gallery, and I should improve a lot as an artist.
...if art were my only hobby, I could do these more frequently, but at least I can sketch a lot...
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I'll be eager to see them, and you make them so very well and that's a joy seeing. Sketching is good thing to do, keeps your skill upcoming and honed, you might even do something new and look back and say 'Wow, I did something new.' and smile. ^^
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Yeah. If I can fit it in. However, visual art is not going to be my focus this year. Soon enough I'm going to have my hands full learning a new instrument and finishing up my concept album and symphony (the latter having been started two years ago 
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Whatever you do and have some spare time, have some fun doing some visual art when you can to keep your skill sharped.
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Did you actually look at the picture?
Like, actually consider that, as a "personal" piece, I'm trying to communicate something about my priorities with respect to different disciplines before trying to tell me what to do?
Because the textual part of it is my shouting at myself, "WTF, why are you calling your main dragon character 'Symphony' when you haven't even finished writing your fucking symphony yet? Why are you ruminating on ideas of comics and flash games and short electronic music pieces when your only 'symphonic' works are .mid scraps hiding in a folder you haven't touched since 2009? What is wrong with you, and why can't you finish anything?"
When I say I would like to focus on music for the time being, please take me seriously and don't tell me what to do with my "spare time".
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