Illustration Friday: Immovable

For this week's theme "Immovable", I thought of Narcissus, the youth in Greek mythology who fell in love with his own reflection in the water, that he pined away after he cannot get the one he loves. Now there is a spring flower named after him "Narcissus" which I depicted him holding out to his beloved self in the water...

Narcissus immovable

Thanks to my Viking Man, who suggested that my water reflection should be angled and squashed to make it look realistic. I would have never thought of that and left it as an exact mirror image of the top half.

I first drew the top half on paper with a pencil, then outlined it with a light grey pen. Then I always face the challenge of photographing it with the right exposure and then adjusting the levels in Adobe Photoshop to get the whiteness of the paper back while retaining the outlines.

In Photoshop, I coloured the background green, then added flowers (because he's in the forest), and filled in the skin colour.

Narcissus - closeup

Then I made a mirror copy and made the water blue, adjusted the angle of the water, and added ripples!

Ta-da!

Poor Narcissus was so immovable from his spot by the water that he died from being in love with himself. A little narcissistic, don't you think?

Btw, I'm learning to be faster in colouring in Photoshop now...

:) pixy