Painting Complete: Art Deco Alysha 2020 (Patreon)

Here's another I finished recently, back from the photographer! 

For those of you who like to favorite on DA, here it is: https://www.deviantart.com/mcah/art/Art-Deco-Alysha-834865694

The original's already been claimed! Thank you!

I'd like to talk about this piece at greater length, though, so let's talk!

It’s fun sometimes to go back and re-create old paintings with your current skill level, and the moment I unearthed the cover I did for the Midwest Furfest 2000 conbook, “Alysha Resplendent,” I knew I had to revisit this piece (twenty years later!). When I did the original, I chose the Art Deco style for a couple of reasons: first, because it resonated thematically with Alysha’s storyline at the time, and second, because Chicago, the hosting city for the con, is home to the Frank Lloyd Wright museum, and I wanted to do a homage to the style and the architect.

I think it’s important to note that it this time, the only Alysha story that was available was the prequel, Alysha’s Fall, which had been published by Cornwuff Press. It collected my first stories about Alysha, where I’d conceived her as a heroic single figure. She was my sole focus, and her supporting characters were more sketches than fully fleshed people. (I think, by the way, that this was fine: my aim was to talk solely about her as a lone heroine, bravely surviving by her will alone, and a stronger supporting cast would have undermined my thematic intent. Even as a high schooler/college student, I could sense that—Past Me deserves props for that realization).

So the cover I did for that conbook was perfectly in keeping with the character as I understood her. Art Deco was a fantastic choice for her too, because of Deco’s emphasis on strong verticals, singular and heroic portrayals of people, and clean, uncompromising lines. That marriage of style and character was a no-brainer. Plus, I was excited about using my computer to create some powerful solids in the piece, and even did my best to color the outlines (back when there were no tools in drawing programs to do that easily).

I felt this piece was successful when I finished it; the con organizers loved it, and I was proud of it. I still think fondly of it, because it’s an exemplary piece for the artist I was then. I was trying new things, and being bold, and messing with unfamiliar media (the computer) while working with some of my strengths (look at the sweeping lines in that hair!).

But the themes I chose for Alysha as a teenager are not the themes I eventually went on to develop in her series as an adult… where the point is less “Alysha versus the cold, harsh world” and more “Alysha as middle manager.” Which makes her sound pedantic, but it’s the farthest thing from that: the modern Stardancer books reframe Alysha’s superpower from “I am good at being hard enough to make it through anything” to “I am good at people skills, so good that other people notice.” Modern Alysha is a team player, and much of the pleasure of writing her books is about the accumulation and development of her people. When I decided to revisit this piece, I knew I had to reflect that, and the first thing I did was add some of her major team members to the piece. No more the solitary heroine; while she remains central, she now has back-up and like her they get cool clothes and tools. For those of you who don’t immediately recognize them all, from left to right we have Brighthaven, Svetlana (with Dylan’s scarf), Taylitha, Laelkii and Alastar.

The symbols I chose for the original piece, the sun and moon, had less to do with me thinking them appropriate to her and more that I thought them appropriate to the style; Art Deco is filled with depictions of the sun and moon. And since the Stardancer series takes place in space, I thought ‘of course she has to have stars and stellar bodies! Perfect!’ But as I started putting together this one, I felt that the sun and moon were symbolic in other ways as well, and it came down to “I shine” (the sun) and “I reflect other’s shining” (the moon). Alysha, as the heroine, does both things well, so she gets to hold the sun and the moon twice. The largest sun is near her face/mouth, because she communicates her power most through her interactions with people; the moon over her heart is a subtle symbol that her empathy and compassion are sourced in her ability to let other people shine, and to see their shining rather than her own. That softness is why the second moon is in front of her, because her power is largely in reflecting the best in other people, and helping them to see that potential in themselves… the sun behind her, on the tail, indicates that it’s after she’s passed through, after the conversations, after she’s been with them or in their lives, that her influence is most felt.

But because her team is important, they also get the symbols! Laelkii and Alastar, who've known Alysha longest, are both wearing suns, because their long association with Alysha has set them on fire. Laelkii's sun is an earring, because she manifests this by being a good listener; this is also pleasing because in the books she swears by the Asanii faith, which involves ‘the sun and stars’, and canonically she always wears earrings and usually they’re suns. The sun attached to Alastar is on her data tablet, because her manifestation of power is via technology/making things work/process. 

Directly behind Alysha are the characters that represent other symbols: "I am your support" (Taylitha) and "I am most supported by you" (Svetlana). In this case, red is the symbol of that, so Taylitha’s red hair (because it’s the stuff going on in her head that makes her Alysha’s support) and Svetlana’s scarf (because it was during that episode, where Svetlana got the scarf, that she was permanently yoked to Alysha). 

Finally, Brighthaven is depicted at the edge of the page because he’s the furthest from Alysha to also be so much on her mind; he’s the only person who also has both sun and moon (as part of his Fleet pin), because he's Alysha's counterpart. 

Alysha gets the showiest robe as the central heroine, and her outer robe has the brightest colors, of support and power. But the robe closest to her skin is the same blue-gray as everyone else’s, because she’s, at core, the same as all her team members: the same fears and hopes and strengths and weaknesses, just as flawed as they are. She happens to have taken on the mantle of the leader because it’s in her to do so, but that doesn’t make her better. It’s just a role that she’s donned.

Artistically, I find it fun that the original piece was sketched on paper and completed on computer… while the new piece was sketched on various pieces of paper (including tracing paper) and the composited on a computer, just so I could… print it out and finish it on paper. I enjoyed having the chance to revisit Alysha’s face, body, and hands with my present skill level—she looks a lot more like my mental image of her than the 2000 version—and it was fun to do the figures in the back, trying to strike a balance between making them look like they would as iconic Art Deco sculptures while still making it clear which character is which, and giving some sense of their personality.

I had a tremendous amount of fun doing this piece! I think both the original 2000 “Alysha Resplendent” and this year’s 2020 “Art Deco Alysha” tell you a lot about the character at the time they were made… and about, inevitably, the artist as well!

If you'd like to check out the Stardancer series, you'll find it here: http://mcahogarth.org/the-stardancer-series/#second

And that's today! I hope you enjoyed this long and winding breakdown. ❤️