October Illustration - Process Blog

The 1st and 2nd place winners from the Fall Illustration Poll were extremely close, so I decided to run with them both! The "scarecrow" in the witch's patch seemed perfect for the fall, so I'm starting with that one first, and will save the bondage puppies for December.

As you can see above, I played a little with the pose of the scarecrow. My first concern was, how do I avoid drawing scarecrow Jesus? That informed the shape of the frame, a circular wooden structure on top of an A-frame. Then I posed my first 3D asset in my drawing program, which made it easy to experiment with different angles. I like the angle on the bottom right a lot, but there was something very appealing for me in the centered, top-down position on the left...it felt more objectifying, which is the central theme as I see it 😈

I wanted to try a new approach to my illustration work and was intrigued by the process blog Calm wrote up here about locking in the black and white values before moving to colors. But then I re-read the part about the coloring process being time-consuming, and got worried this wouldn't let me easily do layered variations the way I wanted to.

So, what exactly is going on in this picture?

I have a couple theories in mind, and you can pick the one you like most. The first is that all the witches in the area shop at a special meat market to get their premium scarecrows. The second is that whenever the witch who owns this pumpkin patch catches a trespassing crow, she turns him into a lesson for the others...so he is both "scarecrow" and maybe "scared crow..."

As a final pun, I made a variation with makeup inspired by "The Crow" movies.

Illustration goes up Thursday night. Illustration pack will be available on Itch.io at a discount to patrons.

Thanks for your support and making these experimentations possible!