SPARROW FLIGHT: Cover Art
Originally drawn: 8 September 2024
Read the story this drawing came from!
SPARROW FLIGHT was a very impulsive, though premeditated, project I started last year! It began when the Delta Green TTRPG campaign this project came out of begun.
I began writing things for fun, because it has been a very long time ever since I've written without perfectionistic tendencies that got rid of the fun from writing. After writing a handful of stories, I entertained the idea of compiling these stories and posting them online just because I had them.
Not as a proper novel, though: that would give me extra pressure to pay more attention to the overarching linearity and continuity of the stories (aka more planning in advance), so I wouldn't really have the freedom to write whatever I want, whenever I want. (Plus, the events of this project are influenced by how the campaign goes which, as a player, is unknown to me.)
This is why SPARROW FLIGHT's format is more of an anthology/collection of short stories and comics rather than a full length novel, and why its chronology isn't linear. Sometimes, the order of the stories is important since it provides important, additional context to subsequent stories. And sometimes, I just get an idea and I want to write it out lol. That's why I list both narrative and written order under Timeline: the former lets you see things in retrospect, while the latter gives the TTRPG experience of having things revealed one at a time. (Aka I want to have my cake and eat it too)
Anyway, the impulsivity of starting this project resulted in this painting being VERY impulsive too.
For some context, the Vorobyevs first came from a D&D4e game in which Hrodwyn, the eldest child, was my player character (so the 'main character' of the story) (they were a sparrow-shifter btw, that's why the family's surname means 'sparrow' and why this project is named what it is). I first made/designed them on 6 September. Then I thought, won't it be funny to launch SPARROW FLIGHT on their birthday?
As you can see from the date I finished this painting above, that did not happen LMAO but I was close! That was on me. It was an impulsive decision to think that I could use an entirely new style of painting I've never done before to paint four figures in four days or something. I think this took 7 days in the end? Which is longer than how much time my polished stuff usually takes. But it was a good learning experience for me! I definitely want to try to paint like this more often, and go truly lineless while I'm at it. (This painting was supposed to be lineless. I don't know why I added them back. It took so long.) (and hehe amogus)
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On the more technical end, I didn't use a lot of layers for the actual painting itself (as in, without the buildings and sparrows and text). I had the orange underpaint on one layer, and everything else above it. This is how I do my other digital paintings in my other style -- I want to work similarly to how you'd paint traditionally, which meant not relying on layers. But when it came to the background, I gave up and did it on a new layer just because it was way more convenient, and because I was running out of time. It'll be stupid of me to not use the efficiency of digital art programs.
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Here's a timelapse of most of the week's worth of work. You can tell I was really trying to emulate traditinoal painting with that palette, haha (and you should watch it while the music's playing for the vibes, hehe)
And finally! Here are also some art composition symbolism things I tried to incorperate into this painting:
1. I intentionally wanted a very blue and desaturated colour scheme because, despite the happy/wholesome family scene, I didn't want it to feel happy -- I wanted a layer of sadness to it. Cuz that's the Vorobyevs in a nutshell, little everyday happiness strung together with an unspoken grief that runs deep
2. The sparrow Gavrill's looking at is/represents Leyna/Merlin, his wife :) and the other 4 are the children the two have lost (Leyna has the adult white-crowned sparrow plumage, but the rest have juvenille plumage since they all died as kids)
3. Gavrill looks directly at a ghost sparrow/notices it because, unlike his kids who ignore it/can't see it, he's the only one left in the family who witnessed all 5 deaths and has intense trauma + grief directly from it
4. The kids keep looking forward and up because, unlike Gavrill, they're capable and, especially, willing to move on from grief/trauma
5. Oh also blue is Gavrill's colour, orange is Leyna's colour :) of course their colours are complementary