Cinabre
Photoshop
November 2008
Its name comes from the french name of the cinnabar stone, which is considered both as a poison and a symbol of eternal life (it has been used as a drug of longevity and resurrection).
Cinnabar is also used as a pigment.
All these images are meant to look very stiff, icon-like and full of symbols (bugs, colors, stones…) and will be printed full size (200cm x 60cm) as door ornaments.
Original size : 7087px x 23622px , 300dpi
Photoshop CS3
Wacom Intuos 3A4
No direct reference used (ie : I didn't copy a photo) though I used many references for the peacock mantis, a real pomegranate on my desk and a mirror for the hands.
40 hours approximately.
EDIT : thank you very much for the frontpage plug ! What a big surprise when waking up today !
Since many people asked me what are the symbols in there, here's a very quick explanation.
She's red, color of fire, life, passion and blood. Yet, she's very pale and has "dead" skin. White has different meanings in different cultures yet it's almost often associated with calm/peace. I added green too, to enhance this opposition. The colors symbolize life duality.
The pomegranate is based on the myth of Persephone : it's a symbol of death and life too. Persephone ate 6 pomegranate seeds which caused the world to suffer winter.
The dice are meant to represent chance/fortune which are to me very important in life (I mean life in general, with its beginning and ending). I added the cards symbols (spade and heart) to enhance this aspect (heart = love. Quite easy ^^ spade = life, both soft and spiky, skull = death. Easy too )
She's wearing a very bright red dress full of feathers and some "light bulbs thingies" (some kind of metaphorical fire) which symbolize the phœnix : also associated with life and rebirth.
The cinnabar stone, as mentionned previously is associated with eternal life and death too.
The horns/antennaes are associated to Nature and insects (these are very organic). Insects have been associated with eternal life and death in many many cultures (Egyptian one for instance). Mosquitos carry fatal diseases and steal blood, beetles/scarabs carry eternal life, worms/flies are symbols of death…
This painting is full of dual symbols and tries to depict Life in general in a very iconic way, such as the two other pictures of the series.
By the way, one of my friends told me that the narrow shoulders bothered her a bit, do you think I should fix it ? The proportions are ok (7,5 heads can enter the whole body, the forearms are as long as the head, same for the hands which cover the whole head, etc…) but I made the shoulders quite narrow (a bit less than 2 heads) because I thought it was elegant… Is it really too much ?
Thanks for your looking ! Critiques, comments, etc… are very welcome !
Fuente CGSociety
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