Illustration Friday - Dream - Part 3 - Nightmare

The final part of my triptych was going to be the nightmare. Nightmares are one of those dreams we often do remember and I wanted to use the elements of the original image and create a nightmare - the same way it often happens in dreams, when seemingly harmless objects turn into monsters and the pretty dream turns nasty and dangerous. Again, I used the same background, but this time I changed the colours and made them much darker; I also added another layer on top with weird lighting. Finally, I modfied the birds; they still resemble the floating shapes from the first two pictures but now they have teeth and spikes.

This was the first version of the picture:


Then, I played around with it in Photoshop. I still can't quite decide which version I like better. The second one seems spookier to me, but I like the darker more saturated effect of the first one, too. What do you think? Let me know.

Illustration Friday - Dream - Part 2 - Flying

When I'd finished the first picture I really liked the simplicity of it, however I felt it could be part of a triptych, so I painted another one, using the same background but modified and adding more birds and the sleeping shape on the largest of the birds. This one also incorporates the idea of mankind's dream of flying and the actual flying many of us do in our dreams.

Illustration Friday - Dream

This week's Illustration Friday topic was really fun. Dreaming has always been something magical for me - be it day dreaming or real dreams. I tried to convey the floating feeling I have in most of my dreams, unless they're nightmares of course, and have been experimenting with a couple of new brushes. This was the first one I did. Two more two follow.