Warmth
I’m a games design student from Nottingham, currently finishing my degree at De Montfort University. I focus on 2D and 3D asset creation within games, specifically preferring character concepts. My favourite part being the colour theory required within design, and how it can completely transform the creation process.
My passion for this has led me to work as a colourist on an independent comic project called Dadtown – that’s right, colouring in pictures is a job! I also work at the National Videogame Arcade, where I get to help people of all ages enjoy playing games together, which I consider a very important part of life, as well as freelancing.
Jessica Parry
I always find it difficult to name my work, preferring to go by descriptions. This image is simply Warmth, a piece which is important to my own life experiences, and the way I perceive sexuality. As a woman in a lesbian relationship, I feel it important to convey relationships between women with less of a cheap sexual focus. Love is love, and that to me is beautiful, simple and warm.
The first time I coloured this, I used bright electric purples and blues, but it felt oddly cold and not quite what I wanted. The second time I coloured it, I tried to make use of pastel orange and pink colours, and bright lighting, in order to create a gentle feel to the image, and bring back the original warmth that inspired me in the first place.
It’s a digital drawing that I created with Photoshop and my beloved Wacom Intuos Pro tablet. I coloured it using the lesser-known PaintTool SAI, which allows for brilliant, simple blending and painting. I was never much good with physical painting, and digital painting feels far more natural to me than any real paintbrush.
It took around five hours in total, with half that time spent sketching out the muses. I used no reference images; it simply began as a small sketch, around fifteen minutes every evening before I went to sleep, and in these little sessions it changed so much. I added clothes, removed them, then added them again. It never really felt right. I decided to leave them nude, and plain, just as we all are, underneath it all. The most interesting reaction I had was when someone told me it looked like they were sitting in the clouds, despite there being no clouds in the image.
Dadtown is available to read online.
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