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The final week of Stanuary!

Special thanks to @herdarkskirts who suggested the above concept after I was spinning my wheels after scrapping my original idea.
With these challenges I usually only give myself a few hours to pull something together to practice identifying themes and translating them. I break down the prompts to what the obvious meanings are and what the more conceptual meanings are.

So for Stanuary, Charm and Crime were my obvious ones to help practice color and composition quickly. Sacrifice and Future were the meatier ones since they’re harder to translate into short-hand so they were practice in taking meta and concept into something you can grab. I don’t always nail these ones especially when these types of challenges have to be done fast so I’m pretty proud of both of these. There are certainly things I want to edit on both but, eh, when you only give yourself a few hours you gotta just accept that a finished piece is better than a perfect piece.

NOW ONTO THE META!

So “Future” honestly the one I was dreading HA. With all the characters, future is an easy prompt. Soos=Mr Mystery, Dipper and Mabel=getting older and returning to the real world, Ford=with all his inter-dimensional stuff, etc… and a lot of my concepts involved Stan doing this (him passing the torch to Soos or showing the ropes to young Soos, hugging Dipper and Mabel at the station, him and Ford on the Stan O’ War 2, etc) but none of these felt right because it was more about everyone else’s future touching Stan’s life.

Stan really is more defined by his focus on regaining the idyllic past and keeping his head above water in the present. The only future he’s focused on is getting his brother back but even then it’s more about righting his past wrongs. He’s motivated by the past and muddling through the present which can be marked by his lines about how “one day you wake up you’re old” (This is also a direct contrast to Ford who ONLY focuses on the future and the present is merely the path to get to the future. Gah I could write essays all day about this).

So the original concept was going to be a contrast of the past and what would be the relative future but I really liked how half of it turned out and was struggling to complete the other half of the concept. So I decided rather than worry about my self-imposed timer to start fresh. I started laying out the above on sticky notes and eventually in the chat to my friend when I kept hitting a wall.

So she suggested the above with young Stan near the Gravity Falls sign hanging above him. And I REALLY loved this concept. First, it reminded me of the billboard of eyes of Dr. TJ Eckleberg in the Great Gatsby staring down and judging those near it. Second, I loved the concept of Stan being on the precipice where he can’t go back but going forward will HURTLE him into the world that we know.

In terms of pulling the piece together, it was a challenge because I wanted to give that overall feeling of peace while also emphasizing this is a small slice of the path, hence the odd shape of being tall but juuust wide enough to fit the Stanmobile (the past), Stan (the present), and the billboard (the future). Stan really doesn’t consider the future but the future happens regardless and I wanted the weight of that to be the weight you see on the piece.

It was also an interesting challenge in lighting and color since I wanted to make sure the eye is drawn to Stan and the billboard without losing a sense of realism or the peace that comes with the snow. Also, I realized I was leaning on oranges and reds again so I wanted to lean on blues/grays for this piece as a challenge.

Overall, I’m really pleased with this piece! Thanks for reading this and I hope you stick around for more stuff in the works/queued up to be posted!

Description

Tumblr | Twitter
The final week of Stanuary!

Special thanks to @herdarkskirts who suggested the above concept after I was spinning my wheels after scrapping my original idea.
With these challenges I usually only give myself a few hours to pull something together to practice identifying themes and translating them. I break down the prompts to what the obvious meanings are and what the more conceptual meanings are.

So for Stanuary, Charm and Crime were my obvious ones to help practice color and composition quickly. Sacrifice and Future were the meatier ones since they’re harder to translate into short-hand so they were practice in taking meta and concept into something you can grab. I don’t always nail these ones especially when these types of challenges have to be done fast so I’m pretty proud of both of these. There are certainly things I want to edit on both but, eh, when you only give yourself a few hours you gotta just accept that a finished piece is better than a perfect piece.

NOW ONTO THE META!

So “Future” honestly the one I was dreading HA. With all the characters, future is an easy prompt. Soos=Mr Mystery, Dipper and Mabel=getting older and returning to the real world, Ford=with all his inter-dimensional stuff, etc… and a lot of my concepts involved Stan doing this (him passing the torch to Soos or showing the ropes to young Soos, hugging Dipper and Mabel at the station, him and Ford on the Stan O’ War 2, etc) but none of these felt right because it was more about everyone else’s future touching Stan’s life.

Stan really is more defined by his focus on regaining the idyllic past and keeping his head above water in the present. The only future he’s focused on is getting his brother back but even then it’s more about righting his past wrongs. He’s motivated by the past and muddling through the present which can be marked by his lines about how “one day you wake up you’re old” (This is also a direct contrast to Ford who ONLY focuses on the future and the present is merely the path to get to the future. Gah I could write essays all day about this).

So the original concept was going to be a contrast of the past and what would be the relative future but I really liked how half of it turned out and was struggling to complete the other half of the concept. So I decided rather than worry about my self-imposed timer to start fresh. I started laying out the above on sticky notes and eventually in the chat to my friend when I kept hitting a wall.

So she suggested the above with young Stan near the Gravity Falls sign hanging above him. And I REALLY loved this concept. First, it reminded me of the billboard of eyes of Dr. TJ Eckleberg in the Great Gatsby staring down and judging those near it. Second, I loved the concept of Stan being on the precipice where he can’t go back but going forward will HURTLE him into the world that we know.

In terms of pulling the piece together, it was a challenge because I wanted to give that overall feeling of peace while also emphasizing this is a small slice of the path, hence the odd shape of being tall but juuust wide enough to fit the Stanmobile (the past), Stan (the present), and the billboard (the future). Stan really doesn’t consider the future but the future happens regardless and I wanted the weight of that to be the weight you see on the piece.

It was also an interesting challenge in lighting and color since I wanted to make sure the eye is drawn to Stan and the billboard without losing a sense of realism or the peace that comes with the snow. Also, I realized I was leaning on oranges and reds again so I wanted to lean on blues/grays for this piece as a challenge.

Overall, I’m really pleased with this piece! Thanks for reading this and I hope you stick around for more stuff in the works/queued up to be posted!