Come Home, Come Home

~click for larger version~

On a chilled night, the rain splashes against the walls - and you can only watch the drops pitter-patter down through the glass. The hour is late; you've done all you can. Technology can't bring you comfort. All the other thoughts vanish except, 'Where are you?' With no outlet for answer, you pace and pace and pace. Like clockwork you peer through the shudders, expecting the light to finally be coming up your street this time. But nothing. The wait is extended. Prayer is your one true friend, and you consult him again and again. The rain falls unyielding to your pain, and it goes on through the night.

I sincerely hope I didn't upset anyone with the above passage. But this is the feeling I hoped to convey with this drawing. I am a very excitable, nervous person. Sometimes I jump to conclusions. There has been more than one occasion that my parents would go out in the evening, on their own, and I alone was left to look after the house. Unforseen delays can always occur, and for whatever reason they didn't always return at the planned time. Sometimes I would try to call them and find out why, only to get no answer. At these times, especially at nighttime and in bad weather, I would find myself drawn to the dining room, where there are two windows facing the front yard and the street. I become glued to this room, pacing and looking out the windows every 10 seconds for a sign of their car. They've always eventually returned, and they've always had good reason for why they were late, but during those times I enter a dark place where suddenly nothing else matters except the well-being of my family. I'm sure everyone has experienced this kind of pain and worry at some point in their lives. A family member doesn't return home when they say the would, a pet runs away, someone scheduled to come to your home on a visit doesn't show up, any number of things. This drawing is meant as a symbol for that emotional period when you can't help but wonder...

And before you wonder - no, I have not had this situation happen recently. I just decided on a whim I wanted to draw something depicting this emotion and situation.

One other thing - I won't be doing a holiday update this week, so I want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving in advance! Eat lots of turkey and then sleep a lot on Friday! =)

About the Picture:

The first thing you may notice is that it consists entirely of new characters. I've never used either of these characters before - in fact they never existed until this drawing. I decided for this drawing I wanted to test advanced shading techniques and alternate hairstyles. All things considered, the hair isn't THAT inspired, but I think they came out okay. I don't know if these two are supposed to be related or not, but let's just say they both feel the same about whoever is "missing". I liked being able to give a character facial hair - I want to experiment with that more in the future.

The key piece of this image is really the reflection in the sliding glass door (I really hope it actually looks like a reflection). This is why I took so long to get started and finish this drawing - I locked my brain inside a room of bouncing ideas to try and figure out the best way to draw a reflection. To be fair, it should really be much closer to the real body if we want to be realistic; but I screwed the rules so that the reflection would be visible at all. I also had difficulty with the rain, because I had to teach myself to draw/shade an object that did not have an outline (the rain drops). All in all, this drawing was mostly a test to see if there were certain techniques I was capable of conveying, so if there's a downgrade in quality from previous updates, that's why. The bed was supposed to have a floral print pattern, but it turned into a bunch of squiggly lines and you can barely see it now anyway because of my shading. Also that's water coming off the umbrella, not blood. Without shading it would've been hard to see.