Dragonfruit: the bane of my existence, the pinnacle of my achievement

Well... my artistic achievement, that is.

Because I'd really really like to think that I have achieved greater things than this:

Though I will confess that I get quite the sense of satisfaction from it.

And, if you care to know, this is how it all went down....

(Though you probably don't care to know at all. But I feel like making an account of it just to remind myself how hard I worked. And how much I hate dragonfruit).


First there was a basic line drawing.

Then there was a basic color-blocked underpainting.

And then there was a leaf.

And then there were a couple more leaves.

Aaaaaand then a few more leaves....

(lets all keep in mind that each leaf took 2-3 hours)

(yes, I am well aware that I must be insane to put myself through such agony)

And then there was this wonderful little NUB thing...

...I'd rather not divulge how long that took...

Yay! Green parts finished!

Now just for... well, all the RED parts.
But you see, this isn't just any old red. Lets look at our photo reference, shall we?

This red is rather... hot pinkish.
Which is not so good.
Because hot pink is a notoriously impossible color to mix.

Let's just fast forward through all the failed attempts.
Because there were MANY.
And they took many sweet hours of my life away from me.

Eventually, I decided to try something drastic and dangerous.
Well...
As drastic and dangerous as you can get doing art homework, I suppose.

And so this is what I did:

Why is it orange?

Well, no matter what I tried, I could not get a vibrant enough color.
Soooo I decided to go ahead and just start with something vibrant.

...and pray that I didn't ruin this whole thing for good...

But I was relieved when I discovered that putting a cool, crimson color over the orange turned out to be exactly what I needed :)

Then, it was really just a matter of adding light and shadow.

Which took, you know... all night long.
Who needs sleep?

Then I needed to touch up all the little smudges on the background.

And FINALLY, the end result:

Picture on left, painting on right.

Never.

Ever.

Again....


And seeing as rethinking this dreadful process has left me feeling rather
angsty,

I think we are done here.


p.s. In case you were wondering, I did in fact eat the dragonfruit.

It was like a combination between a kiwi and watermelon.

Which sounds like a good thing.

It wasn't.