I’ve had this drawing of Arquel around for several years, that I first did during one of the days for “Paint-ober” in 2021. This was a daily painting challenge I made up for myself during October of that year (if it existed prior, I don’t think I saw anyone participating that year). I was inspired to try this challenge by the ubiquitous “Inktober” which used to be in vogue years back. Ironically, I decided to do my own, non-ink challenge at the time, because I didn’t have interest in doing line or “ink” drawings back then. Oh, how making comic pages has transformed me! Haha.
I’ll always adore painting, of course – it’s still what I am more comfortable with. Anyway, I always liked the concept behind this Paint-ober Arquel painting – I mainly thought the color palette turned out in a pleasing way. I intended to finish the painting after the month-long challenge, and I did fuss around with it here and there, afterward.
Below are the original and an earlier version:
My dilemma with this painting is it always felt like it was “almost there” to me, but never “there.” I felt that with the original drawing, and also with the 2023 version (this version is how the file looked when I opened it today). This caused me to set this painting aside for long stretches of time, and dabble with it infrequently – with years-long stretches, apparently!
I had the random urge to revisit it again today – from the filename, for the first time since 2023. And now, there’s the current 2025 version, at the top of this post.
I still don’t think it is “quite there,” but each time, I think it’s veering closer. These paintovers are fun for me, though rather self-indulgent, as it would probably make better sense for me to start a new painting of the same idea, at this point. But, I am enjoying fiddling with this painting now and again, because I enjoy seeing what I would do differently each time, compared to the last time I opened the painting. The 2023 version I started approaching faces differently – slightly more defined forms and shadows – which I think is further developed in the 2025 version today. Today’s version also had much higher contrast compared to how it looks now – I might update this post with that version to compare.
And here it is:
There are some things I think might work better in this version, but I’m leaning toward exploring more of the subtler, more atmospheric tone of the one at the top of the post.
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