will-o'-the-wisp

[link] is a sketch I've always rather liked and thought I might do something with someday. Yay me!

I pulled the old sketch into Photoshop and did the whole thing in there by tablet. This involved some redrawing/correcting. Lots of layers. The initial work was done on my tablet PC, and then on the tablet connected to my PC.

I wanted to be a ballerina for years when I was small. I had a Degas hanging over my bed--and I love his depictions of young dancers. This is meant to be Giselle or one of the wilis, from the ballet Giselle. It's a very sad story of unrequited love.

Wikipedia tells me that Will-o'-the-wisps are not the same as wilis, but when my mother told me about the ballet years ago she used the terms interchangeably. At any rate, the idea caught my interest.

In the ballet, the wilis are "vampiric ghosts of betrothed girls who were betrayed by their lovers and died before their wedding day." When Giselle dies of grief she joins them, and they seek vengeance on her lover by attempting to dance him to death.

So that's why she looks rather melancholy.




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