Thestral Commentary

[krisomniac]

As per request of ignipes and sasha_davidnova, here's what commentary I could put together. It's not nearly so interesting as the stories about people's stories because my motivation was something like "horses are pretty and I like to draw them."


The one thing that made this commentary easy to put together is that I meticulously photographed and saved the work at every step, in case I screwed it up irreprably. This is a habit of mine. If I don't have a computer or camera handy, I trace it. I just don't trust myself.

I drew this picture while in Sydney, during finals week. The original is on size A1 bond paper currently lost in my landlord's son's garage if not to the city dumps. My workspace was a large piece of plywood over the foot of my bed. Original sketches were pencil, later traced over in crayola marker. Shading, because I am a glutton for pain, was done in blue ballpoint pen.


See Lj on ALL the time?

The thestral body type was inspired by a sketch in the back of one of my notebooks from god-knows-when (sometime after OOtP was published) and what inspired that? I couldn't tell you. I like the idea that they are reptilian equids, and tried to give them dragon-like faces rather than the skeletal ones that bogfrog paints so well. As for the bodies, long and elegant was the goal, almost armoured. I think they came out more like horses of the Nazgul, but I like them anyway.

In the original concept, the group of thestrals ringed Harry and Luna, but I quickly lost the kids because I was having a very hard time drawing them to scale. Plus, they blocked a lot of the horses.

I photoprahed and saved the outline first.


I was having a wicked time with the hind end of the leftmost thestral. Easy solution: cut it!

Then I shaded the original. This took FOREVER, because of all the little lines, but I wanted the precision of ink rather than the general smudginess of charcoal or pastel. Pencil was out because it reflects the light badly when you go to photograph it.



Then it was a matter of manipulation in photoshop. First, I play with the levels, brightness and contrast to make the background white while maintaining as much detail as I can. Then I use the smart blur filter to smooth out the penstrokes.



Next, I select and cut the foreground into its own photoshop layer and begin to play with the background. For the longest time, I couldn't get anything I liked. I got distracted and tried a few other croppings.







Finally, I settled for the KISS strategy, and just made the background dichromatic as the fore - with a little photoshop brushing to mark the horizon and the grass around their feet.



Overall, I was pretty pleased with the effect - except for one thing: They look like WHITE thestrals! Maybe they're an albino herd...

Comments

[pasi.livejournal.com]

Wow, excellent commentary and beautiful work. I don't know a thing about art, but I understood every step, except maybe the "KISS strategy."

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

hehehe thank you! KISS stands for "Keep It Simple, Stupid" and it a good strategy in life as well as art. :)

[quietdiscerning.livejournal.com]

Ooooh.

I really like your design for them. And its always cool to see how artists get from A to Z.

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

Oh, Thank you! I think it really goes to show just how many extra files are sitting on my computer...

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Ooh, neat. I like the next-to-the-last version -- the black-and-white one -- almost as much as the final one.

Thestrals aren't supposed to be white? What color are they?

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

thanky! I was really debating the best way to crop it. Especially because I was iffy on the background.

They're black, scaly, horses (see bogfrog's icon below) but we can pretent there's just lots of moonlight on them tonight.

[bogfrog.livejournal.com]

Oh boy! It's great to see the step-by-step process!
Your thestrals are gorgeous -- and I like the whiteness; it makes them even more otherworldly
(nasty black horses are a dime a dozen, after all)

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

aww thank you!

And of COURSE you got a mention. You are the queen of thestrals after all.

[sasha-davidovna.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :) My concept of what goes into making a real, polished and finished, piece of art, as opposed to the plain pencil horse sketches eternally cantering across the pages of my notebooks, is pretty dim and it was neat to see it all laid out. The finished drawing is awesome, and I really like the black and white one that a_t_rain complimented as well.

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

drawing in notebooks is where this started. Heck, it's where I get all my best inspiration!! keep it up! Long Live the Doodlers!

[ignipes.livejournal.com]

Oooh, neato! I like the white, actually, because it's that sort of white that means you can't really tell what color they are in the moonlight.

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

yeah. that's what I was going for. of course. *clears throat and whistles tunelessly*

[insight2.livejournal.com]

hee, i like where you work: books, lj, and padfoot and moony and a bottle of hairspray or whipped cream. what else do you need?

i agree with what ignipes said even if you coughcough about it :D. i like the angles of the horses showing how dangerous they are.

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

hehee. Thank you! And, yeah, it's a moveablle desk. The hairspray is actually for the charcoal I was using that night. It smells better than normal fixative and does a pretty decent job of fixing it.