This painting was started a few months ago. I wanted to try a piece that really emphasized contrasts between two characters: contrasts in size, shape, texture, color, etc. The latest Chaos Space Marines Codex had just been released and the Chaos Mutilator that was introduced got my attention. I looked for a suitably polar opposite character to face up against the Mutilator and lo and behold, I found the Howling Banshee. Where the Mutilator was male, heavy, warped, clumsy and with exposed flesh, here was a female, lithe, armored and futuristic.
This painting is actually the second go around. I had originally finished an earlier version which, to be honest, I wasn't too crazy about. I painted my hardest for this image, but it just wasn't firing on all cylinders.
Finally I decided to post it to this blog, but then disaster struck. I accidentally saved the 72 dpi flattened web version over my final copy. I no longer had a hi res file. I got rather bummed about that and put the image away and forgot about it for a few months.
About a month ago, I pulled the image back up, brought it back to 300 dpi and started painting over it. Eventually, I came to the painting you see above. It's still not a masterpiece in my opinion, but I definitely feel better about it now. Perhaps it was a blessing that I accidentally lost my hi res file.
