Let me talk about this project.

I started this BEFORE quarantine, meaning there was an entire 6 month period where I did not work on this at all. Unfortunately, I believe the end result suffered because of this, as my passion for this specific project diminished over time. I really do believe this could have been A LOT better, but at this point I think it's best to leave it as is.

That being said, I don't think I've ever done something as complex as this. At the end of the day, I am still really proud of this, even if it didn't live up to my standards.

The title is the way it is because I couldn't be bothered to come up with a proper one. I think I had intended to change it later, but idk man it now holds a special place in my heart. Something about "dang Alice watch where you going" to describe an artwork meant to depict Alice's descent down a rabbit hole of madness is so stupidly satirical in nature. I love it.

There are a couple dimensions to this one. The way I designed many of the elements creates two layers of perspective: up and down, as well as foreground and background. We'll start with the obvious. 

Up and down: This is Alice's rabbit hole. A rabbit hole goes up and down. The dimensions of the picture itself (the sides being longer than the width) really emphasize a vertical tunnel through which our subject is falling. I redrew the original model's dress and hair to better match that free falling feeling. The sky and clouds give a sense that "Alice" is going down, rather than just floating in space.

Foreground and Background: This is your rabbit hole. Not only did I want Alice to appear going down a tunnel, but I wanted the viewer to perceive her through a "tunnel" of sorts as well. The spiral of cards, butterflies, and cups give a sense of Alice not only being far away, but at a specific perspective point in the distance. The branches and roses separate the image of Alice from the viewer; they act as a sort of barrier, preventing you from being fully immersed in Alice's rabbit hole. Minimal shadows around the edges of the picture work with highlights in the center to draw your eye to Alice, creating that "tunnel-vision" effect.

I started off with a subject. The goal is to put her in some dark, dingy room, and this picture is very dynamic which makes the finished product more interesting to look at.

Here's the background. You'll notice the lighting and color tones are much different than the subject. That's gonna give us a little bit of a hard time, but I'm really good at just hitting random buttons and having things turn out pretty good.

To match the lighting of the background with the subject, I flipped the background. Then I placed the subject in the background. No we have to isolate the subject, so I placed a layer mask on top of the subject and began covering the unnecessary parts of the subject's image. This always takes me a while, but a word of advice to both myself and whoever is reading this: don't rush. Your final product will look so much better if it's done right.

Ok, so now she's in the picture just by herself. However, she still sticks out like a sore thumb, so we're just gonna fix that up really quick.

Now her color tone is a little better, but she still looks too "flat", and also this isn't spooky enough.

Adding in some more dramatic shadow and highlights, I also went in with a little makeup to give her more of a hollowed, creepy look.

As you can see, a lot happened from the last screenshot to this one. In my rush to get things done in the 45 minute period I had, I kept forgetting to take pictures. Sorry about that. But what happened was first I trimmed down the picture, because there was too much empty space on the left side. Originally, I had wanted to put spider legs coming out of her back, but then as I was doing that I realized that it would take too long, Improvising, I placed some cracks along her torso, arms, and face, adding a little bit of shadow for depth. The final touch was a soft black brush around the edges for an edgy, vignette vibe.