FortePianoLazerFight
I used unfinished wood from an old DIY bookend kit to woodburn and paint the scenes derived from the videogame Ashen, focusing on the flying creatures called “diasora”. On the bookend with the person on the boulder and the large diasora, this is a landscape with a diasora mother. The other bookend shows when the diasora pup is released from its captor after defeating one of the dungeon bosses in the storyline. A metallic gold paint was used on the enchanted vines, which is much more stunning in the light in person. I started these later than intended between work and getting sick, so I started these 2/25/23 with prepping the wood and sketching one of the scenes. I think planning and sketching the scenes took a few hours. On 2/26/23 I started woodburning the first design, still trying to plan what I wanted to do with the second bookend. I was torn on if I should try to design them to make one cohesive scene if you set them up next to each other or not, ultimately I decided to make them separate scenes. I completed most of the woodburning for the first bookend in probably 4 or so hours on 2/26 and worked on designing and sketching the other bookend scene over the course of a few hours or so. 2/27 I completed most of the burning for the second bookend over the course of another 4 or so hours. On submission day, 2/28 I finished burning designs on the edges, completed the painting, and attached the bottom metal panel so that my wood became functional bookends, took probably 4 or 5 hours in total. I chose this design because I love the diasora in the game very much. I think they’re delightful with a cool design and the game has a pretty unique aesthetic. I think the most challenging aspects were coming up with the designs and then also finding ways to burn the edges without messing with the design on the front face (it’s tricky to hold a pyrography pen and be working on such a small surface! especially since I had rounded the edges of my wood when I was sanding since I thought it’d be prettier like that, lol, at that point I hadn’t decided to burn on the edges yet). Also, in hindsight I should have sanded the edge surfaces more before burning, it would’ve been way easier to go for an even-burn vs textured. While I originally wanted to be able to spend more time on these, I think they still turned out pretty cool. This is the first CG challenge I’ve participated in, and I don’t think they’re all too shabby for a first-time submission, especially while sick! It was cool to make something I’d never done before. Kudos to GG for encouraging and convincing me to participate in this challenge!
