Incandescence

Candelian Yan and Lampwick Steiner take a stroll through the bokeh, arguing about why some materials look darker when wet.

Or, alternatively, [link]

Yan is a Candle Woman. Technically, she is 100% body fat, being composed entirely of lipids and fats. She becomes rigid and uncooperative at low temperatures, and lethargic at high temperatures (often just lying in a puddle of her own hair). The flame atop her head is an outlet for the energy she burns at the cost of her body mass. To this end, she requires a greasy diet in order to maintain her existence. It doesn't mean she eats rich foods necessarily (she cannot process carbs and proteins), but she does eat tallow like bread and drink oil like water.

Steiner is a Lamp Man. He was created by dressing up a lamp post in a suit, and then given lectures on How To Be a Gentleman by a professor of Gentlemanology. And now he is the very model of chivalry. Ironically, though he emits light from his head for all to see, he is blind. Apparently that is how lamps normally are. Nobody knew this about lamps until they noticed he didn't seem to know what people were talking about and kept politely declining all invitations to move in any direction.


Well, this was a fun picture to work on! In particular I enjoyed coloring and lighting this piece (which I guess is pretty much everything you see in it...?). I suppose more specifically, I enjoyed trying to make stronger shadows than I normally would. I think that will be something I'd like to work on more in the future: playing with the hue and saturation of shadows, and experimenting with the balance of it in the composition.

I think I would also like to go to sleep

Made in Flash

EDIT: I was made aware afterwards that Steiner cannot contribute very well to an argument about what things look like. He can, however, speculate why!