Thursday, May 19, 2011

Egyptian Thursday! (Hetek)

Here's a piece that I've finally finished inking! (It wasn't that long ago that I penciled it, but it slipped down the list of priorities a bit when it came time to finish the damn thing!)

The lady's name is Heket (Ms. She Who Hastens The Birth if you're nasty) and she was the head midwife of Ancient Egypt. Interestingly, one of her titles was 'I Am The Resurrection' and this led to her being at least respected by early Christians; they often used amulets depicting that phrase and her image.

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This piece started off pretty clear in my mind. I did a little, and very rough, thumbnail in my sketchbook but I more or less knew exactly how it was going to look. I don't know if any of it's clear but heres it is.

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At this point there's kind of two options I give myself in dealing with photo reference for something like this. I can either find something close and adjust the picture and composition accordingly, or I can allow for a greater amount of time looking for a photo that looks 'just right'. I decided to go with the second option here. I'll lean towards the former in cases where I feel like my idea isn't all the way there; the improvisation of a change in my layout can be exciting. This time though the image was so solid in my mind that I decided to stick with it.

First I found a couple images and cobbled them together to get the body. The lighting in the photo on the left particularly appealed to me.



Next I needed a frog model. Haha. It did feel a bit like casting. Normal when you're using people, but a little...weird... when you're dealing with a frog.



And then of course, frogs. Lots. Of. Frogs.

Then some more.

(I'll leave those off, there's too damn many of 'em)

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I penciled, and then inked the piece. Here's what she looks like.

I'm officially over frogs! lol No, I'll end up using them (and her) again.

I'll need to to justify all the reference I dug up!


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