parabrisas22

[parabrisas22]

Okay, here we go! Art journey journaling begins! This is pure and unabridged infodumping here. It's May 2, I'm on my lunch break. I drew the above last night, quite late into the night, because I just could not bring myself to stop.

These two are Silver and Martin, they are characters in my story titled Incubadora, which is a lifelong hyperfocus/ obsession item for me, and a mental health anchor, because it helps keep my incredibly overactive imagination at bay.

The story used to be a high-concept action-packed mess, and went through several iterations and forms (I tried it as a novel) and some big changes over the many years of its lifecycle. The current version of it is a slice-of-life, low-concept, wholesome drama. It has quite a large ensemble cast.

In the past year or so, I've found myself especially hyperfocusing on Martin. This character had tattoos in previous versions of the story, but I'd never thought much more of his tattoos until winter 2023, when I ended up re-designing them and I asked myself "I wonder who would be the tattoo artist in the story who did these"...

And Silver burst into my imagination, pretty much fully formed: a prematurely gray-haired, slender, androgynous beauty with a prominent "Roman" nose. My imagination fired up and latched onto Silver's connection with Martin and a whole backstory started flowing steadily; some of it adorable, some of it heart-wrenching.

During the month of April, I randomly started sketching a scene in their backstory, just imagining their first interaction. I want to stay a bit with this project and actually see it through, that's the main art challenge for me this month.

I had a general idea of what clothes they would be wearing in the scene, but if I wanted to draw graphic novel pages, I felt I would need a bit more than bullshitting my way through their clothes. So I collected a bunch of reference pictures and here we are!

Silver's outfits change a lot, she/they are very much gender-nonconforming and one of those people who seem to be at ease with being different and changing all the time. Martin doesn't care about fashion, his choices are always for function and comfort, and he doesn't usually change his wardrobe for years (he finds mending his clothes actually pretty relaxing, too). That said, wandering around in sweatpants and these types of shoes wouldn't normally be his style, but in this scene he's still recovering from injury, meaning he would struggle tying his shoelaces or even zipping his pants. So - no laces!

Drawing this made me giggle to myself, it made me struggle a bit, and I know it's not perfect. But it doesn't have to be. That's the big idea - enjoying making art without perfectionism.