Illustration: Wild Youth
So here’s one from the Wild Youth series’s that is definitely the most morbid of the bunch. This one is called “Pinwheel.”
I was trying to see how far I could push the gruesome concept with this one, and from that aspect I think I succeeded in painting a pretty bloody picture. I wanted to explore just how badly one of these wars could go for these hunters, as most of my pieces take a more light hearted approach or at least don’t display such morbidity.
I’m fascinated with how the animal kingdom battle and survive. There’s nothing graceful or cinematic about a hyena eating an antelope intestine-fist while it’s still alive, or a deer dragging around another deer’s carcas because it’s horns are still interlocked from their battle. Or maybe there’s is...but it’s just animals doing what they need to do in order to survive — thru the instincts that drive them.
There isn’t supposed to be any malicious intent behind Pinwheels actions, it’s just doing what it instinctually needs to do to survive. That’s what I was trying to portray anyways...reception of the final piece wasn’t particularly great, so I haven’t taken such a dark route on these since. I did a version with just Pinwheel which I really like as well — minus the blood, guts and kids:
Anyways, let me know your thoughts on the darker side of this series and what direction you’d like to see on future pieces! I appreciate all the feedback and upvotes, it’s been really motivating.
I’ve been thinking about doing a give away type thing where if you resteem a post of mine, I’ll do like a raffle and send a print to the winner type deal. What do you think?
Thanks for peepin this post steemers, I appreciate it!
The pinwheel reminds me of Mad Max with the crazy top heavy shape, barb wire and aboriginal style paint. The massacre is very dramatic. I like the way the lone survivor is calmly looking up like he was bummed out - maybe late to the party. Contests can be tricky and can be a good way to gain followers but has do be done right. You should check out some of the more successful contests on Steemit to refine your ideas. @papa-pepper runs a lot of great contests.
Thanks for tip! Been looking into contests and stuff. I’m not really sure how to do a transaction when there is physical goods involved i.e. someone purchases a print with SBD and then you ship them something — So I’m trying to find a solution for that. I don’t think those kinds of transactions were meant to be done on steemit?
Right now you can use private messages on Steemit chat or Discord for setting up those types of transactions. https://steemit.chat
If you join the Minnow Support Project on Discord they have a chat room called #the-swap where you can buy, sell, trade, exchange... whatever.
Below is the invite link - go to #start-here-rules chat room first and it will tell you how to register to get access to all the chat rooms and to get votes from their bots.
https://discord.gg/GNDDfw
I like it, but once you develop an audience that expects (or doesn't expect) certain things it can be a little hard to pivot, there will always be people that don't want you do anything different because they just want more of the same, just dressed up in slightly different ways.
Yeah I’ve definitely noticed people tend to like familiarity over new ideas.