Flying too close to the Moon...

A while back I drew the Minotaur, hesitating over the agonising decision of whether to make a break for freedom or stay a prisoner of the only home he'd ever known...a sort of mythological Stockholm syndrome. So here's another subversion of the original myth. I had the idea of drawing Icarus and I was going to keep it simple but then as my over active imagination assumed control, Icarus became a woman...then the Sun became the Moon (of course)...then obviously nothing but the infinite blackness of space would do for a backdrop. I could never be accused of cutting corners, that's at least (I stopped counting) six layers of crosshatched and scribbled black ballpoint, the fine kind not even medium! Why do I put myself through it? 

The Moon proved quite troublesome too but I ended up experimenting at the eleventh hour with pigment marker blender over the biro which turned out quite nicely, just smoothed some of the harshness. The image above is a black and white version, below is how the drawing actually looks in real life. The blender turned the biro a bit blue, which I do like but I think the whole drawing would need to be a bit blue too. Another experiment for another time...