Process Post - In the Backseat

"In the Backseat" is not a concrete name for this piece, just one of the songs that has been inspiring it so far. This is my first home project, and it's a piece exploring some of the recent themes my favorite show has delved into (in particular control being an illusion and corporate interests being a source of destruction beyond comprehension). The subject realizes that she is a product of a monolithic corporation alongside everything she has ever known. The sentient robot servant to the CEO is her creator, having made her, her friends, and her surroundings as a way to escape his abusive situation. Her severe mental illness being an intentional part of her character, along with his seeming lack of morals, causes her to despise her creator, and yet, in the end, they both wind up as pawns to the corporation. It controls everything.

I have, in all honesty, been bouncing between ideas a lot with this piece. I wasn't sure how I would create human versions of these non-human characters or how I would incorporate my textured maskmaking process. I currently plan on using my love of horror media as an influence to pull a sense of shock from the viewer. There will be a downward stretch between the faces of her creator and the company's CEO, with the latter's features appearing far more realistic. They morph into each other, creating partial masks of each other's faces, as the subject is unsure of who has wronged her more. It is impossible to tell what is real from what is fake as various hands grip her chin and push her face upward to see the reality of the world she lives in.

The character at the forefront of this piece is genuinely everything to me. I have seen her as a near-identical reflection of myself for years. I want everything I do to contort this piece to be a reflection of that. The composition is a heavy work-in-progress, and the piece as a whole looks like a jumbled mess at the moment, but I think it's just going to be part of the process for me to keep experimenting until it all falls into place. At the moment, my top priority is moving to a taller canvas size so that I can stretch the composition (for example, how far upward her face is being tilted and her size in comparison to the looming figures above her) and draw out the futile nature of the situation. Considering the critique from my previous piece, I would also like to work on composition and more unanimous color schemes. Some striking blues, oranges, and yellows would work well.