Checkered Past

2022

Photoshop painting

This piece was created in response to an assignment to visually depict both the literal and figurative meaning of an idiom, in this case, “a checkered past.” So, I came up with this gangster character reconsidering his past, showing his deeds literally on his sleeves. I posed for the references for all of these characters and experimented with limiting my range of value and detail, trying to keep it as graphic and simplified as possible while still maintaining the checkered pattern.