Spring Illustration - Hades x Persephone AU - Shadamy (Patreon)

Hi guys! here's the illustration for Spring!

As you remember, I had no idea what to do... until I saw Go_mul_san's new drawing of their Hades x Persephone AU and I thought "wait, that would be perfect for the theme!"

Those are their designs and I already gave the illustration to them as a gift. Otherwise, you get it in early access of course!

I don't know how popular this trope is... seems pretty popular to me but we don't have many artists drawing it. I hope you like it!

For those of you who wanted some art tips, I'll give you some insights into the artistic choices I've made in this piece, especially regarding compositions and colors. If not, I wish you a good week and hope you have the time to smell the flowers!

I hope you'll forgive the eventual typing errors, I'm (playfully) wrestling my daughter as I write this 😂. Wish my luck and buckle up:

First step: the idea

Sometimes I draw as a go - and somehow come up with good ideas at the last minute - but most of the time it's better to already have a clear idea of what you want to draw, especially the mood and emotions you want to share. Because, I mean, art IS sharing emotions. So if you're planning an illustrations, it better means something. Even if it's just a character on a white background, you can infuse intent in the clothes, the pose, the lighting, ect.

Here, I knew that I wanted to

represent Spring

represent Amy's luminous presence in Shadow's life and

them being at peace together.

But how do we convey that?

Composition step 1: The Rule of Third

First thing, I'm thinking about the rule of third: the canvas being segmented into 3x3 columns, making 9 rectangles (you can show it in any digital painting program).

Now, you are not obligated to follow this rule - in fact you can play with - but I found it useful when I had so many details to draw.

The reason why the rule of third is useful is that the human brain - and eye - follows a pattern on how it understands a picture. That's the whole point of composition. It depends on your culture; but in Western culture the eye will want to read a picture from top to bottom, left to right.

With the rule of third, it's interesting to place things at the intersections or in the middle of the rectangles. As you can see, I wanted them to be at the top left of the image at first but thought better of it because, to show how uplifting Amy is to Shadow's life, It would be nice to place her at the top right instead, because, well, we are used to reading from left to right.

You can see here how I divided the scene with the rule of third:

The characters are contained in 4 of the 9 rectangles, on the top right. It looks more intimate, like they are in their little corner, especially since Shadow has his back to the left side (the part you start to read first)

They are still, however, separated in their own personal rectangle, so we can focus on both of them and still sense a sort of separation, like them not being from the same world.

The Underworld part is contained in a slim column at the left, with the majority being a heavy "emptiness", to contrast with all the life Amy brings. Since it's on the left, we start reading it in priority and feel the sense of positivity when we then look at all the colors on Amy's side. That side occupies 6 columns out of 9, dominating the picture, showing that "the light side wins". It also touches Shadow.

Shadow's quills and chiton (grec ancient clothes) flow in a pleasing manner in their own rectangle, in the middle. It shows that he's peaceful (I would have put more harsh angles in he wasn't) and that he's between the two worlds represented on each side of the picture.

There is a lot to observe on this drawing but you can see that there is a main focus and a secondary focus. First the pomegranade, faces, hands and daffodils, then the flower field and the other details on the characters. Fun fact, the idea of the pomegranade tree came to be at this time because I found the top right of the picture too empty and wanted to makes them feel more "protected".

Composition step 2: action lines

For your drawing to be nice to look at all, it has to have flow. A satifying movement to it, a pleasing overall shape. For things that are organic, we especially like things that go in circles, waves, spirals...

That's why we like the flow of water. Or watching people dancing:

We usually represent this overall movement as action lines.

You can also find them in objects, the best exemple is cars. That's the thing product designers spend their working hours one. That's what make one coffee maker prettier than another 😄 and if the object is just basically a square, well... they will find the "flow" in the photos/videos they make of the product. Same for buildings.

Now look how I thought about it on my drawing. Keep in mind this is before we even think about colors, anatomy or anything else.

With the actions lines we can already understand that:

I simulated some wind without actually drawing any current. There is energy, something actively happening; there is no stillness... except in the darkness.

Shadow is literally being "lifted" (all his actions lines point upwards, except his arms. Even his back quills are higher than usual. And the posotion of the head was intentional in that regard too

the tree protects them - and is also a force against the darkness (growing towards it), since it is very much healthy and thriving

Amy's veil is surrounding Shadow from behind, giving me the excuse to add a light color behind Shadow, including him in the "light".

Amy's whole body is leaning towards the tree and up the hill, as to say "come on Shadow, come to the light!". That's also why I added a bouquet of flowers in her hands - with a special meaning - to add to the movement and focus.

Yet she's still turning towards Shadow (eyes and quills go to him) to make us focus back on Shadow (by following her eyes), showing that he's following her - he's "behind" so to speak, not at the same step as her.

Shadow is straight as a ram in the middle of the picture to show that he's still at odds between two worlds - but he's willing to bask in her light. He's up the hill a little - not down in the white dead grass.

The darkness seems to engulf Shadow, eating at his chiton - but since it's not dominating the picture, we understand it is very much present but receeding. I also added the grass and the flowers in the darkness to show that it's not a horrible place, just a little different but probably too empty for comfort

Composition step 3: depth of field

The best way to make your drawing not look flat is to indicate a depth of field. Deliminate clearly the foreground and the background. and How to make it interesting with action lines?

Funnily enough, part of Shadow's chiton is on the same level as a part of his back quills - but it's disolving in the darkness so you could say it actually part of the background too.

Keep in mind that I'm showing you all of this in pics, but at some point, you think about all those things in your head. If those concepts are new to you - or you struggle to use them - I would strongly recommend literally drawing all of this as rough sketches: the 3x3 grid, the actions lines, the different part of the foreground and background - until you don't need too.

Now that we figured the base of the composition from an organisation standpoint, let's talk about how to use colors in the composition.

Composition step 4: the colors

Colors also convey informations and it's also different between cultures.

The human brain can only focus on so much at the time. So it's best to limit yourself to a few colors that will be the focus of your drawing. Most digital paintings programs have a few settings to help you limit the colors on the color wheel:

As you can see, contrasting colors look best together. Now lets' see the palette I've chosen:

I've chosen two colors pretty opposite on the color wheel : reddish pink and bluish green. Then I added some yellow.

"But Vinnie, there are so many things in the scene that are not pink nor green nor yellow, what to do?"

Make them those colors. The grass is not white, it's light pink. Shadow's highlights are not red, they are pink. Same for the pomegranade. Those purple flowers? Nope, a deep pink too. Even the Shadows on the characters are pink. The darkness? Actually green. The tree trunk? a mix between pink and yellow lol

But how to make it balanced? Try the 60-30-10 % rule! Put your colors into a hierarchy

So how does it look like for this drawing?

As you can see, the colors tell a story. Green is framing the characters, pink is used for all the interesting parts that are supposed to be in contrast to the background (green) and yellow helps to add warmth and focus on what matters (the characters). You can see that the details that matters least for visibility are part of a big blob (the bouquet in Amy's arm for exemple) Think about where your colors would look best in your next drawing!

The rest of the process is really to manage values. How dark or light should be something?

Usually, if your drawing looks odd, it means the values are not good.

It's best to simplifiy it first

That's one of the reasons why some artists prefer to draw everything in grayscale then add colors. Knowing what values look best will help you choosing your colors!

Fun fact, I made the drawing way too green at the beginning, I had to color correct my drawing to make it more pink. I am not immune to color blindness 😄

Now I'll share with you all the little details that I thought about while composing the image:

The light source is pretty low and soft to simulate dawn, symbolising new beginnings

I've wanted to add multiple flowers related to death but it looked too messy. Most flowers shown here are linked to death but in a positive way (celebrations, respect, rebirth, ect), to show that Amy manages to put a twist to the Underworld and find positivity in anything. Also, the 2 flowers symbolizing rememberance are on Shadow's side (for Maria). I used this website for flowers meanings.

I've chosen to put white-purple grass in the Underworld to 1) make a contrast with the background 2) give an uneasy feeling 3) show that there is also nature there, contrast with Amy's flower field and that Persephone actually has work under there to do too. They also look like flimsy flames. White is also a symbol of evil, death or emptiness in some asian cultures.

The "camera" is further away from the characters to appreciate the infos given by the background. It also looks like we’re spying on them like cheeky children, making the scene more intimate

A woman holding flowers in her arms is symbolism for beauty and peace.

The pomegranade is ripe and in focus but not yet harvested, showing which step of their relationship they are.

Pfew, good job if you read all of that 😄. I hope it was interesting - and somewhat useful. Cannot beat a tutorial video though. Don't worry I'll also make a video about all of thise one day but this is not the focus on my first video so it will have to wait.

Thank you again for your continued supports, I'm so happy to share al of this with you!

Kisses and hugs,

Vinnie