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This began as a very low-res doodle-sketch-thing in Painter Classic. I started with a wing and worked from there, with no real idea where I was going. Since the sketch was so low-res, I increased the size and dpi in PhotoShop so that it would be of a size and quality for printing, and then I inked over the enlarged sketch in Painter. Then I pretty much just played with it from there, exploring what worked and what didn't. I knew early on I wanted a muted green sky and that I wanted the wings to be inky and dark, but I didn't know much else. Except for the linework, I exclusively used the watercolour tool (I'm beginning to quite love that tool), and I used most of the same techniques that I used a a short while ago on "The Woman of Silk and Steel." And, as is the nature of Painter Classic, I used only one layer (I thought I was way too dependant on layers, but I'm actually liking using no layers a lot better--which is surprising to me:-).

So, what the heck is up with this picture, huh? Well, as I was painting, I figured out that this Angel has been captured and is being used as a very big sacrifice for something--a desperate sacrifice (one would have to be desperate to capture a holy creature and slaughter it as a sacrifice...). By the look on her face (which has mostly been lost in reducing this image from its enormous size...grrr...), she's pretty much resigned to her fate.

She's bound at the wrists and ankles, but halfway through painting, I realized that, hey, she's got wings! How come they're not bound, and if they're not, why can't she get away? Well, I reasoned two possibilities, and it's probably a bit of both in reality: for one, if her limbs are bound, she's not going to be able to make a take-off, so all she'd manage to do is flop around a lot and probably just injure herself more, and for another, she's pretty much given up and accepted that she's fated to die as a sacrifice for these desperate people, so she's stopped fighting.

March 2003; sketched and painted in Painter Classic. Original is 3150 x 2205 pixels.