Swords and Bombs Are Smaller Than Me, Too

The Idea

It wasn't even 7:00am when a gnat distracted me to the point I could barely eat breakfast.

There was a spider in the bathroom upstairs when I went to brush my teeth not ten minutes later, and then a fly somehow got in my car before I drove to school. There were ants in the school bathroom, and a spider crawled across my keyboard in the middle of math class.

In literature class, I tried to calm down. Five incidents in one day was a bit much, but I figured it couldn't get much worse. Boy, was I wrong.

We held our Socratic Seminar outside because the weather was good, and about thirty minutes in, I turned to move the tag of my jacket from where it was scratching the inside of my arm. But it wasn't a tag.

It was a giant beetle, maybe a bit bigger than my thumb.

While trying to shake it off of me (and trying not to scream because GIANT BUG), it somehow got tangled in my hair. I was too focused on trying to get it off of me to notice how much of a commotion I was causing. The guy next to me saw the bug as I finally knocked it off my shirt/hair, shouted "THAT'S SO GROSS," and tried to smash it repeatedly with his shoe. After it finally was dead, we became aware that the entire class was staring at us.

"Are we okay?" the teacher asked, and we nodded, briefly explaining the bug situation.

Skip ahead to a few hours later when I was at the studio I do ballroom at; there was a fly in the studio, and I was fed up. Seven incidents in one day was too much, and I was beyond done with the day. It landed on the side of a costume box. I took my notebook and smashed it as hard as possible, scaring the leaving daylights out of the coach. It was the first time I'd ever seen blood from a smashed fly. Gross.

I don't have a phobia of bugs. It's, for whatever reason, a type of trigger.

I used to think it was a fear, but as I thought about it more, it became clear that I only start glancing around in paranoia when I'm stressed/anxious, because it's only when I'm distressed that it causes major problems. On a good day, I can smash bugs with my shoe by stepping on them. That was a bad day. I came home in tears, and started angrily sketching out the thumbnail for this piece. Bugs can't hurt me? They're smaller than me?

Well, swords and bombs are smaller than me, too. And they can hurt people pretty badly.

A cropped WIP of this piece! It's the classic eighteen by twenty-four inches (18''x24'') in size.

The thumbnail for this piece that I drew forever ago, back in October when I came up with this idea for this piece.

This piece was a result of seven different bugs assaulting me on the same day. It was not a good day.

My sketches of bugs! I was honestly on the verge of tears part of the day, having to face this head-on the way I was.

I'm just glad I got to look at pictures instead of being forced to draw live ones out in the park or something.

The Process

I sketched the thumbnail for this piece back in October, and I was champing at the bit to get going on it. But at the same time, I was terrified to begin. The thumbnail had so much energy to it, and so much that is hard to replicate with clean lines, especially on a bigger scale. My main fear was that I wouldn't be able to achieve the movement that the figure has, seeing as you can't see the face or any of the figure's frontside.

Somehow, it worked out. I finally got the nerve to just START, and it smoothly continued onward from there.

I started out fairly easily, which surprised me. The figure had been scaring me from the start, since the thumbnail held so much energy that I was afraid to completely mess up the attempt to capture that in the bigger/actual piece.

I started darkening the lines, adding more detail to the creepy-crawlies.

I added words at the top after discussing with my teacher, deciding the message would be better understood with some context.

I used a brush pen like I did with my 5th piece (the outer space one) and I like the effect it has, making the figure the boldest part of the piece.

I started adding color to the bugs, putting in shadows. Hopefully the dramatic lighting I plan to use will work well with the piece.

I started coloring a bit more, also adding cast shadows and working a bit more with defining the lines of each of the bugs and whatnot.

I kept working both with the colors and the shadows alternately to try and make sure I wasn't overdoing it. Everything was coming together, and I defined the background spider a bit more!

I layered the words under the marker for a cool effect that hopefully works the way I plan it to! It looks pretty neat the way it is, but it's difficult to see what the words even are, when it's like this.

AND HOORAY it worked!! It's a bit tricky to see here, but the reds and shades come through the white words just a bit to make them a bit more dimensional and layered!

Everything is finally coming together! I added the speech bubbles up at the top with the same technique of layering that I used for the bottom caption, and it has more interest! The word "proportion" was done the same way, but slightly choppier with the layers so that the red was more obvious. And the sheen on the floor is perfect in connection to my other pieces that have a certain sheen to them that you can only see in certain lighting/at certain angles! Notice I started adding to the spider, heheh...

WHOA you can see the spider!! I added the base layer for it, filling out the floor just a bit more and beginning to add more/heavier shadows on the ground.

It's getting really close, now! You can see a bit of the gray I started adding in the background (top center), and hey, is that my eraser piece in the corner of this photo? Weird.

I think it's worth mentioning that the background was done entirely with silver colored pencil, then layered with white colored pencil. Some sections have gray Sharpie marker layered over that, and I haven't even finished the shadows! I almost can't believe I did this whole thing on a white piece of paper.

Sketch WIP of the pencil parts earlier on in the process.

VID_326160511_120454_170.mp4

VID_326820814_081748_792.mp4

All three videos are from April 3, 2019.

VID_326960229_080157_245.mp4

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