Title: Gone
Name: Linda Bergkvist
Country: Sweden
Software: Painter, Photoshop
I’ve decided to share my final piece for the Furiae book, since I’ve submitted it to Exposé 4, anyway :]
I’ve no inclination to go into the story behind it right now… but the painting took me ages to complete. I had such a vision of how I wanted it peaceful yet sad, because the character depicted is no longer alive… and it was hard. It was very hard. A friend of mine, Johan, posed for the references almost half a year ago, and I tried to finish the picture on many occasions without ever quite ‘getting’ it. I couldn’t achieve the look I wanted no matter how hard I tried.
Then, a while ago, I sat down and finally I caught the feeling for it. I think it was in the skintone that made the difference. Or perhaps the textures. Something ‘clicked’, anyway, the way things do very rarely.
The piece is done about 50% in Photoshop, 50% in Painter… with a lot of different textures applied chiefly to the foliage to give it the right look. The skintone is painted almost exclusively in Photoshop as I still blend colours best there 
The face, some people tell me, resembles my own but for once I wasn’t using myself as the reference! Not fair!
My Dior perfume modelled for the bottle, so I guess I sort of snagged the general shape of that bottle from J’adore if you’ve seen the bottle, you know what I mean. In the end, I think the hands and the bottle took by far the longest to make. After, I’ve refrained from painting any other detailed hands, hehe, I guess these just took the spirit out of me.
And for the close-ups:
For a full size detail:
