lb_lee | New family portrait

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New family portrait

Every few years, we make a system family portrait. Now we have four of them!

Here's the one from 2007, back when Rogan and Mac first got together: From left to right, top to bottom: Mac, Rogan, Miranda, me (Sneak), and Gigi.

A colored pencil drawing of Loony-Brain, back in 2007. Mac has shaggy but butch hair, sideburns, blue jeans, and a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and he has a hand on Rogan's shoulder. Rogan is cleanshaven, stocky, in a plaid shirt, with a grumpy look and crossed arms. In front of them stand a tiny Sneak, dressed in jeans, a Superman T-shirt, with a sweater tied around zer neck to make a cape and a Peruvian multicolored hat. Ze waves and smiles. Gigi holds hands with zer, dressed in headband, skirt, and pink shirt, smiling and holding a hand to her throat. Miranda stands in a white dress with long curly hair, hands clasped in front of her.

Here's the one from 2011! From left to right: Miranda, Lollyanna (in painting), Mac, Rogan, Sneak, Mori (in painting), Gigi, Falcon

The system in 2011. While in 2007, there was no background at all, now they are standing in a room with a domed ceiling, bookshelves, and portraits on the wall of Lollyanna and M.D. Mac's outfit remains unchanged, but his hair is growing out to brush his shoulders, is held back with a headband and he's leaning forward to kiss Rogan. Rogan's holding his hand and smiling; his outfit remains plaid and flannel, but he has glasses and a patchy beard now. He and Mac are also linking arms with Miranda, who has chin-length hair and a headband as well, plus dark slacks and a green blouse. Sneak, who has had a massive gorwth spurt and is now taller than Rogan, gives Mac bunny ears; zer hair is spiked, dyed dark at the tips, and ze is wearing a Blue Beetle t-shirt. Gigi has changed not at all, except her gray skirt is now green, and she smiles up at Falcon, who has her wrapped in his trenchcoat; he is a large man with black hair, suit and tie, and a fedora shadows his face. He looks like the stereotypical shady stranger, but Gigi looks up at him with love.

2016! From left to right: Sneak, Mori, Biff, Miranda, Rogan, Mac, Falcon, Gigi.

This family portrait is drawn and colored digitally, unlike the colored pencils of before! This time, the system stands in a living room with a big black leather couch and three adobe doorways that open out into dark swirls; a banner saying HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016 hangs on the wall. Rogan and Mac kiss passionately on the couch, and Rogan also his hands on both Mac and Biff's knees. Mac's hair has reached Disney princess length and he's wearing black tights and a brown blouse, while Rogan has gained weight and wears a hunter green T-shirt and brown cargo shorts. Biff, the new arrival, has his arm around M.D. and he looks tired but content; he wears faded jeans and a waffle-knit long sleeve shirt. M.D., with her chelsea hairdo, jeans, and black combat boots, grins under his arm. Behind the couch stands Sneak, who towers over everyone else, wearing a pink shirt and blue overalls, zer hair in pigtails. Miranda proprs her elbows on the couch; she's back in her white dress, and her long curly hair is in a pony tail. Falcon is in black turtleneck and has a hand on Gigi's shoulder; she remains physically unchanged, but has changed her outfit for a green headband and a black turtleneck under a green dress.

And finally, 2022! The bony lady is at center, and from left to right, the black and white figures are: Rawlin, the Earthshaker twins, Spiral Eyes, Escape Object, Scratch, Doll Girl, the Angel, Box, and Craig. The figures in color are, from left to right: Mori, Biff, Gigi, Falcon, Sneak, Rogan, Mac, Grace, Bob, and Miranda.

This drawing is also digital, but the environment is all black and white. Under a clear dome stand the fronting team in color: M.D., ranting about something, waves a fist at Biff, who is making a snarky remark as he gestures with a spoon he's stirring batter with; he looks much better rested this time around, and M.D. has traded out her chelsea for some buzz with crewcut and earlocks. Gigi still hasn't aged, but she now has Dorothy braids and a green sailor dress; she's pointing up at the bony lady with a curious look, while Falcon puts a protective arm over her and looks up warily... or maybe they're both just paying attention to Sneak, who is nearly whacking Falcon in the head doing a happy dance; ze's hair is shoulder length, and ze is in a pink overalls dress with a blue T-shirt. Next to zer, Rogan is going over a comic with Mac; they are both in green, Rogan a T-shirt, Mac a dress. Rogan is now quite fat, while Mac's hair is past his shoulders. Next to them, Grey signs to Bob, who watches her with curiosity and attention. She wears a chain necklace over a white collared shirt and a swirly blue vest; a notepad is in her breast pocket. Bob wears a searing silk shirt with a sci-fi sunset, city skyline, with a ringed plannet in the sky. Miranda, with her ponytail, a white collared shirt, and a black vest, takes notes. Looking over the dome, all in black and white, are Rawlin, a huge giant in black with a domino mask, and a bunch of ghosts: a two-headed sludge being, a spiral eyed, grinning person with long hair, a featureless gray silhouette, a patchwork doll, a little girl with her face blacked out, a faceless angel with stains all down its front, a dark ghost clutching a Christmas present, and a boy with dreadlocks and shadowed eyes. An enormous oak tree spreads over the rest of the page, holding up a bigger dome, outside of which are the dark swirls of the black ocean. Nestled in the branches is the bony lady, a skeleton woman with robes all in the shades of sunset; she holds a beating heart in her hands.

EDIT: oh my, that is lower res than I expected. If you want the high-res, you can download it here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There are so many stories to be told in that last one. :)

It's amazing how much your art has evolved! From the first to the last, your technique has become much more refined, and the ways you show people (and what I'm reading as possibly-literal, possibly-figurative personal symbolism?) has gotten a lot more dynamic. You clearly put a lot of work into your art. :)

Aside, it's cool to get a picture of people. We've been working on that too.

- Calvin S. (he/him)

Sneak: part of the fun and challenge of making family portraits is trying to squeeze as much info into the page as possible!

And the boundary between literal and symbolic is quite blurry in our headspace!

do u have a larger resolution version of the last portrait! Its amazing and we want to get a closer look!!

--hikaru

Sure, here: https://www.deviantart.com/lb-lee/art/Family-Portrait-2022-924761985

Mori

oh uhh it's the same resolution, is that the highest one you got? if so that's fine it's not a big deal.

--Hikaru

Mori: wait, really? We uploaded it high-res there, you might need to click a "download" option, let me see (it's been a while since I was on DA regularly, maybe they changed it, one sec...)

Ugh, we're on mobile and though it says the high-res version is there, I can't find how to access it. Screw it I'll just email it to you.

EDIT: aaaaand I cannot with this phone apparently. It will have to wait, sorry. Seriously DA has that stupid file in it somewhere, I just can't figure how to get to it with Snitchbrick.

Edited 2022-08-04 15:36 (UTC)

o Im dumb I didnt think of that. it downloaded as full resolution, thanks!!

This artwork is amazing!!! im glad we looked at it in full resolution cus I love all the detail put into it :)

--Hikaru

Edited 2022-08-04 16:17 (UTC)

Sneak: We really like it! And yeah, it is huge, since we made it print resolution and 8.5 x 11 inches.

Mori: Okay, I got it. I needed to check a box to make the full version downloadable. This should work.

https://www.deviantart.com/download/924761985/dfakuwx-74d272c9-060f-4eec-b79d-92bcc724bc92.png?token=2e7f7c8f0ded3a88183b079e87314015cabcd849&ts=1659630208

or maybe I got it just after you did this lol

--Hikaru

Mwahaha, my timing is impeccable!

--Mori

Wow! We'd seen a bit of the most recent one but the full thing looks great!

Yeah, the figures were originally for Loony-brain 101, then got reshuffled, colored, ans reused for header bars online, and last night me and Sneak finally finished the environment Rogan had roughed ages ago and got stuck on. It looks awesome printed! On the wall with you, buddy!

Mori

This awesomeness deserves much more time from me than I can give at the moment. I hope to return later!

Sneak: We eagerly await! And I realized that the web version was super low res, so I made the high-res available too.

Edited 2022-08-04 16:18 (UTC)

Maybe we should make a system portrait too.

Sneak: it's a lot of fun! Though I could see it being a challenge for larger systems...

It's really cool to see a timeline like this! Both artistically and how things have changed over the years. your range of faces and expressions have improved, and I really like this meld you have of traditional and digital for both stylistic and symbolic reasons.

Mori: Yeah, these portraits are also a timeline of the equipment we had. In 2007, it was just some garage sale colored pencils and Rapidograph pens (the latter of which we DO NOT MISS). In 2011, we had gotten some Prismacolors (which we still have, though only Sneak uses them anymore) but if we had our Intuos, we had only JUST gotten it. By 2016, we were confident with the Intuos but stuck with GIMP, which is hell to ink with, and our shoulder was starting to give out.

Now we have a Cintiq and Clip Studio Paint, which combined with relentless PT and electrostim have made our shoulder much easier to work with. They are 100% responsible for our better inking. We simply can't get lines that clean through analog, not without completely reworking our workflow and equipment.

I'm so charmed that the black-and-white squad mostly have "spooky" names, lots of heavily-symbolic nouns and ominous descriptions, and then there's...Craig. Cheers to you, Craig.

Cool to see the art evolution overall, and the style contrast between the two groups in the last one is really effective.

Ha, their names weren't meant to be spooky! They are mostly flat descriptors of their most notable characteristics, because they are mostly unable to speak or name themselves. Box always carried a box around, Doll Girl had a thing about toys, so they got named accordingly. We had to call them SOMETHING.

Except Craig. Craig got named by Sneak. So he gets to just be Craig.

Rogan

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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