Toasty Kino

Toasty Kino- Toasty Kinbean (keen bean).

"That's it", she thought, "just inch by inch and I'll make it through over these really really hot gaps of lava and be home safe." As she spread her legs across a boiling spring, though skinny compared to others she had seen, she thought about what a friend back home would say, "If you get too close to the source of a hot spring you either end up as a steamed fish or a roasted pile of goop like the beans you're having for dinner."

"No!" she huffed to herself as sweat dripped down her brow, "I will not be a Kiinbean, I won't go down in history as bean soup, I will make it out of here even if I am a little toasty."

(A little story bit of 'Kiinbean's' thoughts as she traveled through a dangerous volcanic area, the heat source of her favorite hot springs nearby).

Kino, or Kinbean were quick nick names for Kiina when I was trying to name my art files for this picture.

I wasn't planning on making this into an illustration. It started with wanting to play around with some Bionicle symbols, and Glatorian/Toa mask icons. Some mixing up and size adjustment of said icons gave me something that looked like a built, semi buff Kiina.

I wasn't sure about background, but her pose looked like she was trying not to step in something while looking down. First I thought maybe she was edging her way along a narrow strip of trail dangerously close to the edge of a cliff. When I went to figure out how to make that happen, it went another direction and instead I thought it would be interesting if she were carefully traveling over lava veins.

The background is of two different Toa element symbols, then gradient was added to the different pieces for color, and finally I played with some texture overlays and filters for either a glowing look, or a scorched look.

Process pages of Toasty Kino. 

Buzz Core

Marker overlay version with plants (left). Buzz Core- Paper texture only base version (right).

In the thick of a swamp sat a pool of energy. The pool itself was meant to keep an actual energy source cool, that energy source was cased inside a special container that had to be removed and replaced every now and then from its unit embedded in the coolant. Normally a Matoran could do the job, but replacing this battery was a special case.

A fracture had formed on the barrel, a leakage broke out. What could be the source of the problem? A toa of air was sent to fly over the area to determine how bad the leak was. What he discovered was bad news, the swamp had become home to a species of hornet, normally harmless, but these hornets had a queen who decided to nest on top of the battery. 

These hornets liked cooler environments for their eggs, a cooling pool was too inviting to resist.

The queen hornet was none too happy when the toa landed and tried to bat her away. Bearing through several stings and having the queen bug cling to his head, he dutifully removed the broken energy pod and replaced it with a new one, then left the hornets a warning by blowing their nest away.

Dreams of the hornet lair. Sounds scary, looks pretty. Gradient color experiment with marker overlay. Has a kind of watercolor effect. I was aiming for something that looked like a quickly done sketch in a field journal. I think I’ve played around enough for this project now.

A reflective version came last. I had played around with this in the quick guide of PSE 12 to create reflections,then did some of my own tweaks afterward. The water effect added a lot of extra interest to the picture I think. This may just be the final stage of the picture.

Some details are missing in the reflective version. You can’t see the unit that holds the battery, which is submerged beneath the water.

There are also no signs of the hornets nest in the scene to show the mess built on top of the exposed part of the battery unit. The only way to make true sense of what’s going on in the scene with added reflection is that this is the broken battery which the Toa carries away from the unit, and the queen hornet came after him, summoning her swarms to pursue the attacker of her nest.

This picture didn't really have a story when I started it. It was a random illustration started with some experimenting. Details about the process and origin of the picture are shared below in the process pages.

I've recently been starting compilation process pages of projects and other subjects to remember things I used, techniques I tried, steps I took, and history behind the project too. I find I like creating digital journal records like this, and would like it even better if I could have enough pages together to print out as a book so I can escape the screen more often.

  Buzz Core-process-page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 6

There are other pages from my records, but not important pages talking about the base steps of the project. A lot of the extra pages are compilations of what I've already written in this post.