Mind Eater Process and Thoughts on Revisiting Old Sketches

Meet Skully Mc-Slurp-Your-Brains

Not too long ago I finished the above painting, however it was started way back in October 2012, when I came up with this sketch:

Birthday: October 2012

At the time I thought there was a cool idea in this piece and there was some potential, but for whatever reason I lost steam with it and left it sitting in folder full of sketches. Seven months later, I was having trouble coming up with ideas so I flipped through my sketches folder and saw the sketch, suddenly wanting to rework it. Here's a step by step...

Working up the face and skull

Adding some brightness, giving the face some form

Adding the magic glow from the skull and the head

Rendering skull, adding more magic effects, trying out ideas with the eyes

Darkening the edges of the image, reworking the eyes, adding more detail to the skull

Added chains to fill empty space, removed pupils from the eyes, added some more glow effects

I'm pretty happy with how this piece turned out. I think if I tried to take this piece all the way to final back in October when I first came up with the idea, it would have fallen short. It reminds me that it really pays off to hold onto your old ideas, you never know when you'll look at a sketch and see it differently and get inspired to push it to something cooler than what you originated with. I hope you enjoyed the process!