This was the most complex piece, conceptually. The Dark Knight was the most complex technically. I knew parts of what I wanted but wasn’t sure how it would all come together.

I wanted the dress to be white, the petunias to be dark purple (to contrast the light purple from her first piece), a blood stain across the white dress, and ethereal, glow-y magic effect.

After working on it I let the colors evolve and be different from my original concept; the white dress became less white and more very pale purple, with some light colored sheen on parts. Her flat black hair ended up having a lighter halo around it, the petunias on her dress evolved into a mix of dark starry night petunias and a lighter variant, and the magic ended up extending past the stained glass frame, which I had debated against for a time, but glad I decided to in the end.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to record the process of painting this piece, but you can see time lapses of most other Three Lives pieces here.

Below is color information copy and pasted from a color theory site to explain why I chose this color theme for the second Perdita piece (though it’s an important color for the entire series and all except Ermingild use purples).

White

Associated with illumination, faith, beginnings, and possibility. It can represent a successful beginning. In heraldry, white depicts faith and purity.

Dark Purple

Dark purple hues evoke feelings of gloom, sadness, and frustration.

Background

Since this a single image in a series of five, I wanted to make stylistic backgrounds that had a clear uniformity to them, while still offering an option of character customization. I’ve always loved stained glass and decided it would be a fitting frame.