"Spirited Away" Rough Sketch

   Two versions of the rough sketch for the Enchanted Visions Project (EVP, just like Electric Voice Phenomenon lol) theme for October 2011 have been sitting on my shelf for longer than a week now.  The basic concept was the same -- a celestial figure was in some kind of communication with a human child.  One was a profile view, but I like this one better.  I've also added some crazy elements to the celestial figure's design.  She was originally supposed to be a decaying mermaid with bones visible on the tail end, but I scrapped that idea and turned her into a bird-fish-butterfly morph.  It's crazy and maybe even a bit creepy, but that's how I LIKE it. XD  I think I'm going to go with this idea (especially since I'm running out of time).  There will be more skeletal fish swimming in the background, too.

   Now, as for the color scheme... I can't say I have an idea at this point.  I'm leaning towards greens and purples since I haven't used these colors in a while.  Definitely not pink this time.

   Anyhow, when I start on a theme, first thing I do is to see if some visions would come to my mind's eye, which usually happens.  Then it's time to try to put that down on a blank piece of paper in some form that resembles that vision in my mind (Still so tricky after all this time... T_T).  Sometime it's easy.  Sometimes it turns into something similar to an automatic drawing session where I just scribbles with either my pen or pencil very lightly until some kind of cohesive picture emerges.  This theme was like that.

   At this point, I get the urge to do some research, now that I have certain direction I want to go with.  Since I'm Japanese, I couldn't help but go with the term 'kamikakushi', which is translated as 'spirited away' in English, but that's what the Japanese call it when a child or a person disappears without a trace.  The word literally means 'hidden by god(s)'.  It kind of gave me the idea that maybe 'kamikakushi' was a paranormal phenomenon where a person actually slips between dimensions and encounters spirit beings there.  He/She may return ... or be lost to the human world forever, enchanted or adored by the beings from another dimension.  It's a fascinating thought and this theme certainly gave us much more room for interpretation than "Dia de los Muertos" of last month (although I've come to really like the final piece of mine ^^; ).  I think most of us, artists, really like themes that give lots of room for individualistic interpretations.