Bonnie's Rough End

Another few weeks pass and some more practice pieces are attempted. I'm starting to teach myself to be more strict with my own impressions rather than commit to loose drawings that take too much inspiration from other artists. I never really put much thought into the method of my own work, which tends to slow the creation process and muddle the overall imagery. So with this next piece, the goal was to put down more focus into what I like to see instead of falling back on old stylistic choices.

Story wise, it's important for me to convey a sense of threat whenever I draw tentacles or monsters that take advantage of a damsel. I took inspiration from one of my all time favorite anime 'Wicked City'. Always felt that tentacles having a hidden mouth would be a neat way to add that element of horror.

I did think about making additional parts to this little CG set, where a silhouette would show the tentacles chomping down on Bonnie. I'm not big on guro, so cutting the gore and just going with black/reds to give an idea would have been enough. Although scrapped and will attempt with another piece later on, when I'm feeling more confident.

I like having darker tones to pop the design, so that was something I pushed for a little more this time around, with thicker line weight in shadowy spots as well as larger dark areas. Incidentally I think this helped create a better tonal spectrum, which is something I've needed to improve.

A secondary light source, coming from the side rather than the default shadowed area, was a fun little experiment. I think it helped pop the intensity of the action as well as give some more atmosphere. Granted, regardless of the source, having that extra light will pop the image anyways. I suppose the angle from the top/side, coming down, felt more intrusive.