She doesn't quite understand why she can't stand the light despite the fact that she got wings too...like the other creatures she has seen around here..

First of all, this is a personal painting about the question why people need to fit in - so badly that they sometimes give themselves up.

I have two uncles who both grew up being gay. They had an incredibly hard time both being frowned upon by society and family. I can only imagine how hard it must have been to hide their true self and giving it up to fit in. I have a lot of respect for them besides the fact that they belong to the coolest people I know.

I tried to capture the expression of a curious child..just before the moment the pain might hit.

Henning took several pictures of me in a similar pose which I used to get the underlaying bone and muscle definition right. The wings were a freaking paint (sorry for the wording). I downloaded tons of feather references to work from.

I haven't copied any of the refs I got directly but used them to understand the actual topic (or muscle structure in the first case).

The clouds were a pain too..I am normally not the most patient painter but I wanted to practice three objects I normally totally hate to paint: coulds, hands and feathers.

Sketched some ideas first then worked from there in Photoshop CS
Hope you enjoy.