I've been here in Seattle for a few weeks now and after some input from the other fellows and the public I've decided to pursue my Bishop and Queen Painting, a sort of chess inspired murder scene.

I've played around with a few different compositions, but most people find the one that frames the Queen between a pair of windows to be the most successful. After starting a more detailed compostion study, I'm pretty happy with most of the figures, but am still struggling a bit with the exact pose for the Bishop. He's the most important element of the lower half of the painting both compositionally and narratively, so i really need to nail the right one.

Getting a pose that reads as "unconscious" or "dead" can also be a bit tricky. Often times something too relaxed can look like sleep in a painting, so you really need the right mix of reclining and awkward splay to get the figure to read as full-on-decommissioned.

I've decided to make a maquette and do a whole page or so of different poses in pencil till I find one that reads just right and is interesting visually.