Vanguard Moon Princess Playmat

Once again we jump back to last year to talk about a playmat. I'm almost out of mats from 2012  to discuss although its amusing to think at one point I was worried I wouldn't have enough things to talk about to keep things going. Then again if I'm being honest quantity has never been an issue for me, I can create content at an amazing rate when I have to, its the attention to detail side of things I have to keep on top of.

The particulars of this mat then, and today we have my first Cardfight Vanguard mat. if you don't count the paladin sketch, and also one of my earliest implementations of some of the new materials I've been blathering on about over the last few articles. The other big detail was the choice not to outline it in black as at the time I felt like that style was becoming a bit constraining and needed to test out a verity of other techniques. 

I've lernt quite a lot even in the short time since this mat was created and quite a bit of the stuff I'm doing now with light and shadow has its roots in the mats I created around this time. The elements are all here although the stark difference between the light and dark areas is further emphasised by the limited colour pallet and anime style while the vivid reds and yellows came out really well, even if you can only see their shininess in person. 

The background was also something of a risky move at the time, partly prompted by the fact I am constantly on the verge of running low on black and due to the nature of the way the mat material shifts liquids from place to place a serious disaster was narrowly averted as a wave of dark colour bore down on a hapless and unsuspecting yellow moon. Still, crisis averted and with a newfound respect for flow I proceeded to liven outer space up some more with a variety of reds, yellows, greens, and blues and threw in some of my trademark disappearing stars for good measure, again an effect that doesn't come across as very apparent on the scans and another reason I switched to posting photos (that and this particular scan has a number of issues with slightly warped angles).

My favorite element is probably the electricity on the sword/beak?/reflex cannon, like the starts its subtle and you don't see it from every angle but its just something extra that brings things to life. 

And hey look new logo, I should probably talk about that a bit but haven't decided if I want to do so here or over on Infinity Flawed which I set up to be a bit more freeform.