“The gaurdian, the keeper, the sentry of the other world.” ~ Carlos Castaneda
This painting is a character piece which I based off the Guardian from Carlos Castaneda’s “A Separate Reality.” The Guardian is a monstrous beast which transforms from a tiny gnat. When I was making this piece, I was thinking about the old Hulk comics where the puny Bruce Banner would transform into the Hulk. I like the idea of the graphic transformation effect they use in those comics.
I began the piece as a very graphic and shape-driven painting. I drew several iterations of these Hulk-like transformations before I bought a canvas which I felt suited my purposes. It was very important for me to find a canvas that was tall in order to showcase the transformation. In the painting, I used acrylics and tried to keep things as simple as possible.
When I was finished, I scanned the painting into the computer and began some digital retouching. Obviously, the final product featured as the sketch of the day is quite a different piece and you can see many of the digital effects taking form in my intial stages of the digital retouching.
I used a Photoshop filter to blur the image and then began painting over it. This is not a method which I typically employ, but it seemed to work well on this piece. More recently, I have come to conclusion that I prefer letting some of the original textures in painting come through while avoiding a distinctly Photoshopped look in my digital revisions. Still, I am happy with the end product in this case.