Charlie Warren – Party Animals

I started “Party Animals” on my iPad 2 months ago, I finished it 2 hours before the submission date, and according to Procreate statistics, it took me 37,153 strokes to complete.
This piece was originally a gift for a close friend of mine, who was quite possum-like in appearance (this was an observation about him I made early on and it stuck). He once told me about the happiest moment of his life, a recent occurrence — he had been invited to a New Year’s Eve party, and before he knew it, he had become the guy that everyone knew, laughed with, wanted to talk and dance with — he was in his element, and he fell right into place. I knew immediately upon hearing this story, I wanted to depict the magic of the scene through art, and thus, I created “Party Animals”.
Between the time I started drawing it to the time I ended it, sadly, this friend and I had a falling out — he never got to see his gift in its true completion. Still, in spite of painful reminders, I continued to work on it until it was done. I guess now this piece, like the sparks it seeks to capture, only exists now as a moment frozen in its happiest time.