Treating [3126]

Everybody deserves something special once in a while.

Honestly, I'm never in a spooky vibe because Halloween is an American holiday while other countries like Australia can still celebrate it for fun. What I do in every Halloween isn't special, unless I go out and treat myself with some snacks at an Asian grocery store.

I started drawing this a week ago after an adventure to the city, browsing and taking photos to use it as my background reference. Coincidently, I met my ex-boyfriend in the shop and catch up talking before parting ways again. It was nice to see him doing well.

Reminiscing my moments with him makes me remember the times he always treats me whenever we go out to eat. He saved a lot of silver coins mainly to pay on parking fees, but ever since he met me, he used the leftover coins to treat me for a free coke slushie. I could imagine Sci doing the same for Edge with his mustard as I'm addicted to slushies.

Originally, I have an idea to have Sci and Edge coincidently picking up the same snack but I may draw that in another time as a connection to this illustration. The snack they wanted is a cinnamon flavoured chips which are my favourite yet expensive and limited (but now in Edge's possession).

Besides the background, I also went to two different grocery stores so I can take photos and used them as references for each snack I took. I searched some of them online for better image references than my photo's quality.

When I started drawing this, I challenged myself to draw Sci and Edge together in a complicated background setting. The canvas size is enormous and intended to turn this into a print someday — the original won't have my watermark.

During the progress, I overestimated how long it takes to complete because it took me an entire week with the total of 23 hours and 36 minutes. I have about 3 hours of spare time each day and that's a lot of patience, which I struggled with.

I wasn't happy for not finishing this before Halloween, but as I don't celebrate the holiday, I give up and continue working on it. I also have breakdowns in between as I wasn't in a good headspace, doubting my ability for wasting so much time on this single piece when I could draw a lot more in smaller canvas sizes.

There's a lot going on and I wasn't proud of it. I struggled to fix Sci's mouth, colouring every detail of the snacks, adding price labels, reflection and working with perspective background. In the end, I was being hard on myself, the harshest critic to impress.

Overall, I'm glad I finished this illustration. The final look on the floor looks almost real as the original shiny floor tiles at the store. Lineart is always my strongest suit as it's unique in my style, but shading each item is my favourite part from this drawing.

Updated: 2024-04-04

Other than minor editing, I'm sharing a disclaimer about the ex-boyfriend I'm referring to in this post is my first ex, avoiding confusion between the two exes I've dated.

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