I had this image lying around my room in thoe form of a sketch for ages. I was wanting to take a break from a 3d project that has been giving me issues so I loaded this up and started work on it.
There was a lot of revision and changes that this prject took over time. The original sketch had both characters facing directly forward. This was obviously the first thing to go, as it ruined and flattened the composition. The God character, vulcan, also had a lot more jewelry added to him to contrast the young boy.
Finally, The sketch had the boy holding the dagger that pierced him in a cloth stained with his blood. However this broke that flow of the image and ruined the balance. Instead I dug through some other images of the characters I had until I found a design for a sword for vulcan. I painted that in instead and it works a lot better.
With all that complete, I added an overlay of a texture and adjusted levels a final time.
