Splitting Hares

IF (Illustration Friday) 5/30/14, the topic was Temptation.  I had a rough time with this one, but ultimately, I am really pleased with the final product.  Initially I wanted to do a piece depicting the dark side of temptation, and it's allure, but I continued to struggle to get my initial concept down, it just wasn't working for me.  Then I decided to work on an old project that fit the topic nicely, but abandoned that as well when I realized I wouldn't have enough time to complete it (it was way too detailed).  Finally I reverted back to an idea I had earlier, and did a bit more research which led me to the current design here.  As with most of my work, this piece is too influenced by pop culture, particularily my fondness for movies.  I decided to depict a concept from The Matrix.  In the movie the protagonist Neo is given the option of a red pill, or a blue pill.  The red pill will give him the opportunity to leave his mundane existence in the "matrix" and see how far the rabbit hole goes, while the blue pill will allow him to live out the rest of his existence in the "real world" in blissful ignorance.  The movie itself borrows from many other notable works, including Alice in Wonderland, and the Odyssey to name a few.  The piece is entirely digital, done in Painter with some manipulations done in Photoshop.

UPDATE 3/26/18:
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Splitting Hares