Art Explosion Contest, theme: Mythology

Hello,

I stumbled upon an art contest which seemed pretty cool (since it left so much space for me being all ~~psychedelic~~ creative). The contest I am talking about is the ART EXPLOSION WEEK 43: Theme MYTHOLOGY

My entry shall be

The old ferryman questioning his guest whether they have met before.... since the latter appears somehow familiar

What is it about?

... Long ago the majority of the angels has been eradicated. The nearly eternal Great War of the Hell versus the Heaven came to an end after treachery and an ambush of the demon army on the angelic troops.

In this final battle the survivors among the angels envied those who had the chance to not be captured by the Satanic horde, since a dead angel just vanish instead of re-entering the hereafter.

So many were taken to hell. There the eternal torture awaited them...

One angel managed to not get involved in this last slaughter. He was wandering around caring for all the unworthy on the Earth. As he saw that nobody was left to carry on the Light in the heaven, he decided to sneak into hell. One possible way is the ferry on Lethe.

Luckily the ferryman is very old and his eyesight is so weak he does not even recognise that his passenger is an angel

(P.S.: Sorry, i am not a good writer, but I felt like the picture deserved a small brackground story ;) )

The progress

Step 1: the sketch

I started with a simple sketch of how it could/should look like. You can already see the poses of the characters and even a rock in the background. Here the ferryman is quite sceptical or doubtful, at least more as in the final picture.
the_old_ferryman_ (1).jpg

Step 2: lines and flat colours

Above the lines of the sketch I now draw the "real" lines and I also add some colours to it.
the_old_ferryman_ (2).jpg

Step 3: adding some shadows

In this step I added some shadows, since shadows will be the prevalent part of this picture... because you know: it's the hell, it's dark and sinister and obscure and so on
the_old_ferryman_ (3).jpg

Step 4: some lights

Where there are shadows, there is also light ;D Here we go. The eyes of the little dragon skull are glowing to show the ferry its way. The hand lantern also contributes some weak light rays.
the_old_ferryman_ (4).jpg

Step 5: adding details

Details like the fog, light reflections on the water, some more shahows are added.
the_old_ferryman_ (5).jpg

Step 6: the final picture as seen above ;)

the_old_ferryman_ (6).jpg

If you like fantasy, you may also like: the witch Larla