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"Ivan", alt title "The Beholder"

Digital collage made in GIMP with stock photos from pexels.com. Inspired by the character of Ivan Beck from Kane Pixels' The Backrooms series (on youtube) and the OST/its cover art for the series (also on youtube). The eye sketch was done by me.

Some additional thoughts below the cut:

I am so happy with how this piece turned out, in part because I did not expect it would look so close to how imagined it. The look of the colors and the overlays give me a lot of joy.

I wanted to recreate the 'feel' of the more abstract Backrooms videos (Overflow etc.) as well as the cover art for the songs. One major inspiration was an instagram story which can be found in this reddit post. I also wanted to incorporate a couple of themes/motifs that I noticed (green light, eye imagery, sun imagery, the sea, time and space, the eight 'arms' of the prototype etc).

Only time will tell how 'canon accurate' this is, but for the time being, I quite like it.

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"Who's Lila? - Lila" aesthetic/moodboard

Aesthethic/Moodboard made with GIMP using stock images from pexels.com for the character "Lila" of the videogame "Who's Lila?" by Garage Heathen. Both the game and this piece of art use 'dithering' as an art style.

Thoughts beneath the cut:

First character-based aesthetic! I think this turned out pretty well, considering I haven't made that many aesthetics yet. I slightly adjusted the settings I used from the last one and added a layer to make the colors pop a bit more. Also I love the picture for the "shh"/whispering/mystery part of Lila - the shirt saying 'stop' is a nice touch.

I also find it is a neat challenge for myself to try and emulate a specific artstyle; it is a good way to try out the various effects and filters while having a clear goal in mind.

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"The Oldest View" (Grey/Green) (Aesthetic/Moodboard)

An aesthetic/moodboard made in GIMP with stock images from pexels.com. Based on "The Oldest View" by Kane Pixels on Youtube.

Additional thoughts beneath the cut:

Gah, seems like the compression is flattening the colors in this a bit - if you open the moodboard in a different tab and zoom in, you might be able to see it better; this one is not just pure grey, but meant to have a greenish tint/shadows, referencing the shots in the series that are black-white-and-green.

This one was a bit challenging to make (because the center of the series are a distinct location and a distinct entity), but overall also very fun. Again, I tried to make this with just stock images and I wanted to use the dithering option again. I think it turned out pretty well!

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"Incomplete Memories"

A digital collage made in GIMP with a stock image from Pexels.com and a picture of George Brehm's "Woman's Home Companion- September 1916" illustration (public domain in the US). Based on 'The Backrooms' series by Kane Pixels, esp on the character of Ivan Beck.

Additional thoughts below the cut:

Another piece inspired by Ivan Beck and The Backrooms. This one is kind of still a WIP, as I am not fully happy with it, but I wanted to post this stage nontheless.

The George Brehm painting appears in Found Footage 2 and is speculated to relate to Ivan Beck in some way. It fit *incredibly* well into the stock image, and even adding some light effects and shadows worked out very well imo.

Might be I will return to this piece in the future. We'll see.

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"Aesthetic - Poolcore + Dithering + Turquoise/Cerulean"

Aesthetic/moodboard made in GIMP with stock images from pexels.com. Uses the dithering option in GIMP and has a main focus on the colors of turquoise/cerulean.

Additional thoughts below the cut:

Inspired by the Cerulean Waves Mall playlist on Youtube, which I listened to while making this. I also wanted to see if I could use the dithering filter/effect I used while making my "Who's Lila?" artwork for other things, and this is pretty much the polar opposite in terms of colors and style. So I am very happy how this turned out, the colors are very pretty imo.

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"Annihilation" - aesthetic/moodboard (based on a mix of movie and book version)

An aesthetic/moodboard made in GIMP based on the Southern Reach books and movie by Jeff Vandermeer. Made with free stock images from pexels.com.

Further thoughts below the cut:

One of the earliest aesthetics/moodboards I made when I got back into GIMP, and before I even really got back into 'Annihilation' again, going purely off of memory to make this one. Not the best I have made imo, but still part of my art journey, so I am posting it.

Also, I kinda like simplicity, how 'ordinary' everything looks, while the book and movie themselves contain weird and uncanny imagery.

Either way, I liked making this, which is the most important thing. And it sparked my attempts to make creature collages later on, like the dolphin with the human eye.