Standing at the Precipice

Rite of the Final Passage marks a transition – like standing on the edge of a threshold without knowing what lies beyond, but trusting the next step to find firm ground. It's the moment a long held belief cracked loose and prepared to give way to something new.

I knew I wanted this one to embody the essence of a Death tarot card – not in its literal imagery, but in its meaning: an ending, a release, and the first glimpse of a new beginning. So I began with that as the guiding framework for it.

As the rest of the imagery unfolded, I was able to identify themes that supported it:

• The scythe – cleanly cutting away connections to the past.

• The lantern – illuminating the path ahead.

• Cardinals – embodying hope and the ability to rise above difficulty.

• Medieval-fantasy and industrial worlds – symbolic structure contrasting rigid utility.

None of these were planned – they emerged through the drawing process, giving visual identity to my inner intuition.

The Creative Process

Rite of the Final Passage is one of six drawings created on 5.5" x 8.5" paper – a small collection that marked a change in my technical approach and symbolic clarity. (If you're curious about what that short-but-significant creative arc looked like, I described it in greater detail in this post.) I approached the pencil stage in layers, using 2H pencils for loose structure and detail, followed by HB mechanical pencils for refinement and line definition. One notable change in the penciling process was the inclusion of a mechanical pencil with a smaller .03mm lead in addition to the usual .05mm and .08mm ones. This enabled me to create finer details and add a higher number of hatching lines than usual.

With that in mind, here's the finished pencil art:

As you can see, some edits happened during the inking process. Those were made easier due to another change in the creative process – inking digitally on an iPad instead of with pens and brushes on paper.

There were a few reasons for that change, but ultimately I knew that working digitally would give me the freedom and flexibility I wanted for the finished line art. Drawing on the iPad enabled me to do a few important things:

• Resize and edit the figure's head and face.

• Fine tune the linear perspective of the buildings.

• Be deliberate with the hatching lines and other fine details I'd added with the .03mm mechanical pencil.

Here are some details of the finished ink drawing:

(Side note: I enjoyed inking this digitally enough that I actually went back to the drawing I finished before this one, Memories of a Timeless Expanse, and re-inked it on the iPad. I described that process in more depth here.)

Where This Piece Fits

I didn't know it at the time, but Rite of the Final Passage was a herald for future changes – in my creative process, and in my life. As I made this, I was quietly knocking on the door of some significant changes, ones I could only vaguely sense in my lived experience but were already appearing very clearly in my artwork.

Next time I talk about this piece I'll describe the process for the color work, including color separations and the final rendering (shadows, highlights, lighting effects.) I'll also get into more detail about the specific symbolism here and the emotions that guided it.

More to come – when it's ready.

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I share process videos, sketches, and behind-the-scenes work as new pieces take shape. If you'd like to see the next stages of this world as it's built, you can find me here:

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