I L O V E how this one turned out. I’m used to using reference images anyway but this one helped a TON. (>w>)/*
Anyway, this was most likely my comfortable experiment as I was able to do everything my perfectionist mind plagued me with…well almost everything. Working on separate layers was probably the best thing I did because it made colouring underneath and on top so much easier. Especially as the water is meant to be a little murky, so the colours wouldn’t had to be distorted away from the original colour scheme. I went with purples, pink and blues because it was supposed to be ‘hellish’ sort of reflection. Those colour mixed together give a sort of fleshy feel to it without the bright and vibrant blood colours that usually go with horror scenarios. The horror was meant to be in his face so I tried not to make the background ‘loud’.
the skull took me a while to really blend…(-_-;;)
Anyway, meaning! So this was something I figured somebody would have told Orion when pointing a finger and calling him a ‘dark person’. For reason, I keep hearing a snobby girl in my head saying those words. Now, the words themselves are stingy. It has an accusatory tone to it and with that, the result is usually a subtle pang of pain. Words hurt. And sometimes, they can send those who aren’t spiritually sound with themselves into an identity crisis where they can no longer recognise themselves and hate themselves. What Orion sees is a result of all the judgement. His harmless face crumbling away to reveal a more demonic being underneath (probably the Grim Reaper’s nephew). It’s scary to him and creates a lot of internal turmoil. He doesn’t like what he sees and has no clue as to how he can fix it because he can’t help it.
As he reaches out to his reflection, all he wants to do is pick up the pieces and frantically return them to his face- this isn’t him. He’s not a monster but he can’t even trust himself so what can he do? Self deprecate and eventually believe that he is what people say.