Jul 11 2015
How I got started with Aetheric Worlds
Life Death was the first.
It's the piece that gave me the most hope for the rest of the pieces I was asked to do. Hope that all the Dualities would turn out just as good, just as rich, just as evocative.
There weren't many iterations of this particular card, since the bulk of it was hammered out between myself and Michelle before I started drawing.
This particular card did set up the format for all the others.
Each card that followed Life Death was set to a frame with a border that I had made, ensuring that each card is done within the same sizing parameters. (as seen here with the WIP shot from Life Death)
"But wait," I hear you say; "What if the art doesn't fit completely inside that frame?"
Generally, I try to keep things from going too far outside the frame. We can fudge it a little with some of the pieces, but we have to keep the card edges clean so it looks nice on the computer screen AND when it's printed out as a physical deck. And really, even if I do go outside of the frame, it's not going to hurt the image when it's printed out or displayed on a screen. Because sometimes that thing coming out of the frame just makes the image that much cooler.
That wasn't an issue with Life Death. A careful lack of symmetry was, however, a distinctive part of the image.
This card is about balance between two enduring forces of the cosmos. Life begets death begets life. And so on. The two are intertwined. It may not always look all that balanced, believe me, but it is.
So the hands are posed in a Mudra sign. This particular sign means "void", which can be taken to mean "the void from whence we came and to which we shall return"--if you're in that kind of phrasing. The lotus was originally going to be a rose, but Michelle and myself worked out that using a different flower would help with making the card stand out better (since there's another card in the Dualities set that has a rather prominent rose).
Lotus flowers are considered sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism. They grow in water that is so murky and nasty that you'd probably never want to set foot in it. But from this cloudy, muddy expanse comes one of the most beautiful flowers, showing up with pristine petals that show off colours ranging from magenta to solid pink to pure white. The most holy of these is the pure white petals that are kissed with soft pink at the ends.
So that's what I picked for the original colouring.
"Original? You mean you did other colours?"
Yup! I most certanly did. These alternate coloured pieces will be making their way--albeit slowly--on to the Aetheric Store and also in to special printed things for future conventions that we attend.
So that's how things started for me here with Aetheric. Stay tuned to the dev blog for more!
-- A 'Tygenco' Breiling
