Post #407690 by KreepyTiki on Sat, Sep 13, 2008 11:35 AM

First of all, thanks for YOUR reply, Trav.

Glad we were each able to get something really beneficial from our exchange. It's amazing, sometimes, the needless flaming that can go on in internet forums simply because of egos getting in the way of actual communication!

And now, folks, here's my newest piece -- "Mystic River" or "The Moai The Merrier"!

By the way, the original file-size on this is SO huge that I could generate a SIX FOOT TALL print and it would STILL not be pixelly! So it's always a bit galling to me that I can't display some of my images a bit larger on the art forums.

Anyway, this newest piece is a departure into new territory, for me, in a number of ways. To begin with, as you'll readily notice, there is no erotic element -- no bare-breasted wahines in sight! Just lots-o-tikis!

This was done entirely on black and is my first attempt at an amalgamation of a black velvet painting and one of those 60's black-light posters. And I was definitely going for a playful, almost cartoonish sensibility, so a lot of the landscape elements are pretty stylized, as are the tikis. And though I'm usually a stickler on there being noticeable lighting sources for the various reflected colors on my tikis, I dispensed with that almost entirely here, opting instead for a directly supernatural vibe -- not caring WHY the tikis are glowing all those wild colors.

The one exception I made was to the central tiki in the water flanked by the torches. With that one I let his glow be a direct result of the eerie greenish-yellow flames.

And here's a detail of him...

And the other four tikis...

(NOTE: I wonder why it is that the images that I post here, no matter HOW sharp and clear the originals are, always come out somewhat soft and out-of-focus looking? That really does bug me, because the original images are significantly more detailed. Oh well...)

Interestingly, there was a totally different central waterfall-tiki originally, which, after a fair amount of work I decided to scrap for two reasons. One was that the design made it look like a Halloweenish Jack-O-Lantern kind of thing, which I felt wasn't really in keeping with the kind of vibe I was trying to create here, and, secondly, that something about the color scheme on him didn't really say "tiki" to me, but, instead, something closer to the colors on some Native American totem poles or on certain African tribal masks.

And here's a peek at what that looked like...

Then there was the matter of the original moai I'd done, which I actually painted in its sideways position, only realizing later that the semi-finished product bore more than a little passing resemblance to Richard Nixon!

So, needless to say, I went right to work re-doing him!

Ah! Now THAT'S moai like it! (Sorry! :lol:)

And then, lastly, and most interestingly, when I first started working on this piece I did indeed have a semi-nude young lady -- a kind of sorceress/priestess figure -- in the painting, sitting atop a rock in the midst of the waterfall.

She was from a black & white drawing I'd done, and I was just beginning to add colors to her and rough in some of the tikis around her when I realized that she REALLY looked like she'd wandered in from some other painting!

Her sedate solemnity and naturalistic look would be completely at odds with the more playful, slightly psychedelic quality I was shooting for in this piece. Basically, even though she was a fantasy-style figure as well, we're talkin' two distinct TYPES of fantasy here. And she just wasn't gonna fit!

And the rest is hysteria!

Cheers & Mahalos! :drink: :tiki:

[ Edited by: KreepyTiki 2008-09-13 11:40 ]

[ Edited by: KreepyTiki 2009-05-06 06:56 ]