I Got Tickets! (+ Time Lapse) by MysticSparkleWings on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Here's the time-lapse so you can watch this artwork come to life! :dummy:

So. Loyal Sparklers probably know by now that I am a huge My Chemical Romance fan. It should be fairly obvious by now since I seem to pop out at least one art piece inspired by them every 2 months or so. :giggle:

That includes this piece I made allll the way back in late 2019 when we were blessed with the news that MCR was, as the fandom had been so dearly hoping for, back after a six-year breakup. And the very tail end of the description for that art, I said then, "Now if MCR can just come within 1-2 hours of my location so I can actually go see them...please... " Sparklers. It's happening. It's really happening. This past week, on March 9th, MCR dropped a video on social media with a slew of new dates added to their tour, which in case you weren't already aware was announced in 2020 and subsequently postponed because...Well, that part you should know. Something-something stay home, wash your hands, etc.

Anyway. I was just waking up when the video was posted, but I saw it right away since I have post notifications for MCR turned on everywhere I can, and it took several minutes of shocked, still slightly groggy blinking, heart-pounding, and replaying the video twice before I could be sure I wasn't imagining it: There, on the list--A date for the city where my brother lives, just about an hour away from me. Shocked

I'm not exaggerating when I say I started to lightly shake and I was having a hard time breathing.

This is real. They're coming here. I have a chance to see them.

I think part of me was holding back a bit since MCR tickets have been known to sell out at the speed of sound and there was a very real chance that would happen again and I wouldn't be lucky enough to grab them in time, or even if none of that was true, I had no way to know ahead of time if I'd be able to actually afford the tickets.

The less exciting-in-a-good-way part of this story made short: I WAS ABLE TO GET TICKETS! And fairly decent ones, as far as I can tell, not nosebleeds! But if nosebleeds had been my only option, that would've been plenty.

[And for what it's worth, I would like to pay back the family member that paid for our tickets as much as I possibly can. If you'd like to help me out with that, you can check out this post I made the day the new tour dates were announced.)

BUT I will say this experience has taught me I do NOT like Ticketmaster. I don't like that they won't show you prices or a seating map ahead of time, I don't like how clunky the map is to actually navigate, and I especially don't like that they have some kind of algorithm-run, "based on demand" ticket pricing scheme.

However, Ticketmaster being annoying to use isn't MCR's fault, and I'm quite sure it's not even MCR's fault Ticketmaster was chosen as the Ticket vendor. So, I'll leave my complaints with them at that and get back to the happy-fun times.

This summer I'll be going to see My Chemical Romance in concert with my brother. And my best friend got tickets too. I still can't believe it, I really can't. It probably won't feel real until I'm standing in the arena and they walk out on stage.

And now today's artwork probably makes a lot more sense.

I was so distracted for the rest of the day after we bought the tickets and even the day after, I decided instead of endlessly scrolling social media waiting for something to happen, I'd turn all that bubbling energy into something more productive: Art! :la:

Much like when I made One Birthday and An Ohuhu Holiday, I opted for a simpler style with some rougher elements to it, mostly because it would be faster to finish, but in this case really leaning into the "grungy" look suited the punkish look I was going for too.

I did start with a traditional sketch of the pose I wanted because (as I think I've mentioned before) I usually find that sort of sketching easier to do traditionally than digitally for certain projects. So that's why you see me already starting with essentially a "base" at the beginning of the time-lapse video.

My hope with this pose was to get something kinda dynamic, but nothing too complicated since I just wanted to show how happy I am to have the tickets. Which, for what it's worth, the real tickets won't look anything like the ones the figure here is holding--they're entirely digital and Ticketmaster didn't even give an option for physical ones. [Which I found a little disappointing but I assume if I really wanted, Etsy could fix that "problem" for me.]

Anyhow. I opted for a little more anime flair in the face--I'd normally draw a big toothy grin a little more curved and a bit smaller than this--and I made the hands these odd sort of mittens largely because I just didn't feel like going through the hassle of drawing them properly, but also it's fair to say now that properly fingered hands might not have meshed with the rest of the drawing super well or might've gotten lost among everything else in the background.

From there, I opted to stick to a simplified color palette--Black/White/Red with the initial plan, but I did have to add a gray & opted to add the purple for more visual interest and some extra clarity. I went with purple hair since that's my hair color, even though the person in the drawing wasn't meant to be me originally, just a random punk-ish person. It's still not really me because my hair isn't that short and I was trying to make the body type a little less obviously feminine than usual (not sure how much I succeeded) but if you really want to see it as me, I don't see any harm in it.

And perhaps the most interesting thing about this piece; I mostly stuck to a Valentine's-themed Freebie Procreate brush pack made by Manero Brushes. That particular set is not longer available, but I think they still exist in one of his paid brush packs? I'm not sure.

But I can tell you guys I really enjoyed using them for this piece. The one smaller brush that works best for line work and the larger one that works best for coloring large areas both have a strong texture that can be a bit odd to work with at times, but I do really enjoy the really rough, vintage-y feel they have. And then the different heart brushes are purely just fun, of course.

I did however spend way too long worrying about the exact placements of all those hearts hanging out up there--You can see me go back and add more and adjust them slightly in the video. (Oh, and while we're here, when you see me adding and adjusting a black border in the video, that was my attempt to prepare the image for uploading to places like RedBubble in the future in case I don't like the hard rectangle edge for the design.)

There's also no "real" shading going on here. I did try to suggest it in a couple of areas for differentiation (like the skin vs. the background), since the coloring method I used is so heavy on texture, I didn't want to overwhelm things.

Though if we're being honest, yes, there's an argument to be made that I still ended up pushing things a bit too far with all the red background hearts, but I kinda don't care. :shrug:

Well, okay, I cared before I added the white outline and some shading behind the figure so they'd pop more against everything I threw back there, but I think I managed to counter it enough, at least.

Oh, fun fact: I didn't think the coloring was quite grungy enough when I first called it done. I went back in and purposefully added some grunge marks around certain lines and areas until it suited me. That goes for the text, too!

And the text is simply the title of one of the most popular MCR songs because it's sort of an in-joke in the fandom to say, "I'm not okay," with a positive connotation because of the song. And with how excited I am & was, I think saying, "I'm not okay," is technically accurate--I'm not okay, I'm about a million times better.

Double fun fact: The text on the drawing isn't a proper text layer either! I stuck to my enjoyment of Procreate for Hand Lettering here, and one of the brushes in the Valentine's packed worked better than I thought for the look I wanted. My hope was to make something similar to The World is Ugly, where I specifically mimicked The Black Parade's font, but I also still wanted the text here to stand on its own.

Ultimately, I kinda love how this thing turned out. :love: The making process was relatively simple, but the final product doesn't look overly minimal (at least I don't think it does), and while I've had my doubts, I think I did manage to capture what I wanted with the pose and energy, too.

Most important of all: I do think it reflects my excitement about the tickets pretty plainly.

Really, if someone had told me back when we first found out MCR was back together that I was actually going to get a chance to see them for myself, without having to take a road trip or rob a bank to do it...I probably would have believed it, but not that said chance would get even this close to being a reality.

We've still got a ways to go between now and the actual concert date, so I don't want to completely get my hopes up just in case...but it's too hard to not let myself get excited at all. :excited:

I Got Tickets! (+ Time Lapse) by MysticSparkleWings on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

...Sooo this might not be the last MCR-related artwork you see from me between now and then. We'll just have to wait and see