Orion

*** FULL VIEW, PLEASE ***


Cliff Burton from old Metallica.
Ok, there are several stories now around this one.

It all began about 3 months ago when I saw an art contest on one of DA's Metallica fan-groups, themed "an illustration to a song by Metallica". Naturally, the first one which popped in my mind was "Orion". But how do you illustrate a genius instrumental like this? Obviously, it had to include the constellation itself, or at least part of it - my first idea was something about Orion's belt, since I saw one stunningly beautiful and detailed photograph of its nebulae. Then while I was contemplating on what exactly I wanted to do, it just appeared, all of a sudden - the fact that the constellation looks like a man playing guitar.... or bass. And who else could that be....

So here I am, painting one of the most beautiful and famous constellations of the northern night sky. I first had to find a photo of Cliff which would fit the constellation. And then I found this one, and it coincided so perfectly with the stars (I only had to change the guitar's angle with a few degrees) that it made my jaw drop.
It took many weeks, countless hours of hard work (pity I didn't count them actually), I never made it in time for the contest, which ended on November 1st - but who cares!.... and to top it all my old tablet decided to stop working on the same day I was going to complete it. So I had to make the final strokes with my mouse.... which was a total brain damage - something that would normally take about 15 minutes, I struggled with for 2 hours or so....

But HERE IT IS! Finally.


Featured: