whatever you can get away with

[egypturnash]

If you're reading this in the newest-first order of an LJ friends list view, don't click on the cut tag until you've seen my previous entry; this text will affect your experience of the art in that post.


The girl in the art I just posted has no shadow. Nobody has noticed, or if they have, nobody has cared. At one point, she had a shadow, but it interfered with the blood; it interfered with the composition; it may have been more realistic, but it created more problems than it solved. So she casts no shadow, despite being starkly shaded and standing right in the middle of a shaft of light. She's anchored in her world by the fact that her surprised turn has scuffed her boot through the spreading blood.

It's amazing what the right attitude will let you get away with. And what that nebulous thing called "style" lets you do.

She has no shadow. Bet you didn't notice it until I pointed it out.

Comments

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

Or maybe we're just not paying very close attention. :)

[foolsguinea.livejournal.com]

Well, I was reading the light direction backwards at first, which is odd 'cos she doesn't really look backlit--but you're right, it didn't register.

[barberio.livejournal.com]

Could be a vampire.

[vivadawolf.livejournal.com]

I didn't notice either augh. I did say to myself that all the white down there seemed a bit...weird but my brain didn't register "SHADOW MISSING"..

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

Since she didn't have any legs either, I just chalked it up to neato nifty style. I assumed it could and should be there and if you wanted it, it would be. I mean really. She doesn't have lots of details.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

She has legs! They just happen to be the same color as the background.

I'm not joking, either; if I loaded up the file and changed the color of the white background, her legs would become visible against it. The fact that her legs obscure the insides of her boots is enough to make your mind fill in the space between there and the dress. That, and the fact that the curves very clearly join up.

Well, my mind, at least.

I'm slowly putting together some mental theories of the Noir Look, and how one can creatively abuse it with the abstractions involved in cartooning.

[lapdragon.livejournal.com]

Peggy's Vectored Love!

And lack of a shadow helps project an object into the foreground, doesn't it?

Or you could just say it was on purpose. Could be a doctored image from a security camera!

[paka.livejournal.com]

Figured the whole picture was just Frank Miller enough that the pool doubled as the shadow.

[mutleyjames.livejournal.com]

I did, but you told me to visit the other post first, and report back here.
Only to have you gloat at my apparent ignorance, dammit.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I wasn't telling you to report back here!

Just musing on what I've realized I can get away with. Art is so much fun.

[mutleyjames.livejournal.com]

Ugh. You're right, I should've reported my observation in the appropriate post..but it didn't feel right as I actually liked this image even more than your last tryptich - and it would have seemed like just so much nit-picking.

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

Nope, didn't catch the lack of shadow. It's not important to the impact of the piece, I think, and if it does indeed distract, leaving it out makes perfect sense. She's so flat and solid at the same time, especially where 'leg' meets boot. I like her expression, the way you seem to carve her form out of shadow and dress, the tilt of the window, or its shadow on the background. The only two things that catch in my eye are her left upper arm (perhaps it has a cast shadow, but it looks oddly shapen) and that blood smear. To me, it looks more like a smudge than a smear meaning that the gradation looks dry instead of wet to me. Otherwise, very solid and very cool that you manage to work in two colors other than black white or red and still maintain that noir feel.

-T'

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

The arm is something else I've been experimenting with recently: letting anatomy devolve into rubber-hose. There are other sketches (and a half-finished illustration) that are more blatant about being both gestural rubber-hose and anatomical at the same time, but I think this is the first time I've really experimented with rubberhose and studied anatomy in the same limb.

The blood could have been brighter, but I'm working on this theory that desaturated colors is part of what makes color noir work. I'd tried brighter, more saturated colors, and it just felt wrong. (Note, too, that depending on your monitor's settings, the black is not 000000 black, and the white is not FFFFFF white. Both are pulled in about 5% from the extremes; this creates a subtle feeling of age.) I also had highlights on the blood at one point, and that was really wrong - it looked more like spots where the floor was showing through.

[oceacat.livejournal.com]

I really thought I had noticed rather a lot when I first enjoyed this piece...so much so that I contemplated a response. I am somewhat surprised that I hand't noticed the lack of a shadow, but am happy that you pointed it out...gives me something else to ponder about this world you of yours.

[theteague.livejournal.com]

Maybe she's a ghost and that's her own blood on the floor from her murder or suicide just moments ago.

I found you from your artwork on Deviant art and it's fantastic. I love the Sci-Fi (retro style as it should be, none of that industrial or matrixy stuff people are throwin' around) and Noir pieces.